Day 4

My feet hurt so bad I cannot accurately express it in words so I will do what I've been doing all day... Ignore it and move on.  

Here's today's photos: 

The first 4 or 5 km were in Pamplona leaving town.  The bank signs said it was 4 degrees C.   I'm not exactly sure of the conversion into F, but it was cold, and Emily and I both felt it was the warmest morning yet!    We both decided we'd much rather be walking outside the cities.  Something about pilgrims and cities just doesn't go together.  The above pic is of the "hill" we had the task of crossing today.   

Quite a view as we got closer to the top.

This is our delicious Sunday lunch!  We decided to take it easy, make lots of stops, and have a yummy lunch to celebrate it being Sunday.  My goals for today were: drink water, eat, go to the bathroom, take breaks, and stretch as soon as we arrive (usually we just collapse on our beds).  I'm happy to report I made all of the goals!  Although I only went to the bathroom once so I'm guessing I need to prioritize the goal of drinking water!  

Taking a break at our lunch spot.

One of my favorite monuments so far.  You may recognize it from the movie "the Way". 

The beginning of the grueling downhill journey.

The awful rocky path.  It was like this, very steep with lots of loose rocks) for about 4 or 5 km.  Of the 5 other pilgrims we saw walking down at the same time as us 2 of them slipped.  It's a small miracle nobody ended up with a twisted ankle.

Random church in random little town.  Amazing how these villages all have big beautiful churches!

So tired, so very tired... resting on an archway. 

Emily read that we are supposed to eat the grapes from the vineyard.  It's good luck for our journey or something... I think she just wanted some grapes ;)

Today was very very long.  You'd be surprised how long 24.5km can feel when you've already gone 72km in the last 3 days.   

I've decided to write a book titled "Baby Steps to Santiago". It's title is not because I have small feet or even because my feet hurt so bad I've been taking really small steps and look like a toddler (or goat) while I'm walking.  The title is because I've realized the only way to make it to Santiago is to take it 2km at a time... Baby steps... Baby steps.  Anyone feel like watching "What About Bob?"

- Today we've met 5 Americans!  Before today we had met people from all over the world but no Americans.  

- I'm still very very grateful for my walking stick! 

- I have several postcards addressed and written and it's killing me to carry them in my bag day after day until I find a place to buy postcards!  Y'all know how I like to send mail.  

- Did you know Shirley McClain wrote a book about The Camino?  I'm going to have to check it out when I get stateside. 

- Goodnight all!

How NOT to survive jet-lag

So I'm always telling people you just go with the time of where you arrive and your body will adjust.  Now let me tell you how that worked for us on this trip... 

We arrived in Paris at 9am (2am central time).  Generally I avoid saying "my time" because it only makes you feel worse, but for the sake of this post I will say it.  So we had breakfast on the plane about 12:30am "our time".  Generally this is not a problem, you just start moving, Sony take a nap, and sleep a lot the first night. Well... Our first night was supposed to be an overnight train to Lourdes.  Come to find out there is no overnight train to Lourdes.  But there is one leaving at 5:30pm from Paris and arriving at 11;30pm in Lourdes.  Perfect timing, too late to get a hotel.  So, instead of sleeping at night , like I would suggest for jet-lag, we promptly fell asleep on the train and then spent midnight till morning awake.  Brilliant.  The next day we spent 7 hora on a train, a bus, and a taxi getting to St Jean where we were to begin the pilgrimage.  We thought we'd be able to take the train the whole way... But guess who's on strike?  That's right, the French railway workers.  Seriously, not a day goes by when there isn't some strike in France, and it's usually a form of transportation.  Anyway, Emily was so tired on the bus she couldn't keep her head up.  I was afraid we would both be asleep and miss our stop (this has happened to me on a train before).  Luckily we made it to St. Jean the evening before our start on the Camino.  We got about 9 hours of sleep that night bringing our total up to ... 12 hours for the past 3 nights.   That's how NOT to survive jet-lag.  

If you want to survive jet-lag I HIGHLY recommend booking a hotel room whoever you're going!  Sleeping strange hours on outdoor benches, train cars, and bus seats just ain't gonna cut it!