MARCH – APRIL 2017

Camino de Santiago, The Way of St. James, Pilgrim’s Journey … so many names for a very, very long walk!

We’ve had some life style changes to make and figured the best way to do this is to break away from the known to the unknown.

So, in March 2017 our backpacks were ready and we’ve left Cape Town for 5 weeks to walk about 720km in Spain … it sounded a bit daunting (to me anyway), but this was a challenge we were very much looking forward to.

The yellow arrows and scallop shells are the way markers on the Camino de Santiago

Our adventure already started on our way to Spain with us arriving in Madrid without our backpacks! The airport staff informed us that our backpacks were still in Dubai, but that they would make sure it got to us.

Lesson learned: Next time, get a smaller backpack that can be used as carry-on luggage

In good faith we’ve got on the midnight bus from Madrid to Pamplona with only the clothes we’ve had on. We’ve booked into Aloha Hostel and were still convinced that we would start our Camino the next day (Monday morning). Our backpacks however only arrived after lunch on Monday and we’ve had to postponed our start to Tuesday.

Lesson learned: Things don’t always work out the way you’ve planned it. Accept, and plan around it

In retrospect, it was probably a good thing that our backpacks took 2 days to get to us. We’ve had a chance to recover from our long flight from Cape Town and more time to discover the beautiful city of Pamplona.

Here are a few shots taken in Pamplona:

Beautiful Pamplona

Our “Credencial del Peregrino” – issued by the The Confraternity of Saint James of South Africa. Over the next couple of weeks, we will accumulate many “sellos” (stamps) from each albergue/hostel where we will stay

A note to fellow South Africans:

I want to urge South Africans that are interested in doing the Camino, to make use of The Confraternity of Saint James of South Africa. They are based in Milnerton, outside Cape Town, and have assisted us with all our enquiries and the necessary paperwork to apply for a Schengen Visa.

Visit their website for all the information you might need: https://www.csjofsa.za.org