Viskarret to Arre - 26 km

Early morning start today... 26 km to cover. We were walking in the predawn at 6.15.

It was beautiful to walk in the mist, listening to the morning wake up cslls of the birds, thr tinkling of cow bells and sheep in far away paddocks caling each other.

This is the concrete hill of doom, as Morgan called it. 

It wasnt so bad, just relentless.

And it keeps continuing..

Finally into forest.. But then the rain snd mud began.

Mud over slate on a slope.. Dangerous- and very slow way of covering miles

Up the Pyranness

Just some shots as we make our way up the mountains on the way to the monastery at Roncevalles ( the top of the mountain range)

So many waterfalls.. So beautiful.

A blister stop. ( to stop blisters forming.. We jump on hot dpots straight away)

The first blue shell Camino marker on the track. These are everywhere to assist pilgrims find the way..

I love how many things. ( everything) on this Pilgrimage is about life... Is about how you DO life.. If you are looking for themarlets.. You see them.. Yet I have seen phrims walk right past them and going the wrong wsy.. Getting lost..

Its wet but we are still sming.

Ontop of pilgrim markers are poles of stones. Pilgrims normslly bring one stone from thier homeland and carry with them normally to cast off the Iron Cross, but sometimes it earlier.

Along the way, some feel thry need to pick up a stone and carry it some way, focusing an anger, a regret or negative emotion on it .. One they wish to release..and at some point, they can let it go.. And place the stone, representing this onto a pile.

As the pilgrimage goes further along, the piles get enormous.. As one may expectover  a thousand years.  

A lunch break.. Mmmm chorizo

And no.. We dont care where we rest..if you are tired enough.. You rest.

The mud gets pretty thick in places.

The path gets very steep as well. Gorgeous.. But steep.

Misty biew from the top.. So cold.

Gorgeous stained glass windows in a tiny church on the way.

Home sweet home for the night. We are in a monastery with 200 beds. We are in the loft. 

Roncevalles to Viskarret -12 km

Many pilgrims at the monastery last night were altering thier plans for today. The cold rain and sleet put many off waking early, as did newly found very sore muscles and bulging blisters.

As you are not allowed to stay longer than a night, many walked to the next village 2 km down the track to find a hotel or pension to hole up in.

We chose to just walk 12 km today. It was enough to warm the legs up and long enough to thank goodness we stopped when we did. 

The walk was scenic and I think we are easing into our groove. 

We splashed out and stayed at a pension.. Sort of a b and b..

So glad to lay down!! So delicious to have a long soak in a hot bath.  A pity there was no internet here ( thus this blog is late updating)

See my other blog for other phoyos from the day

Our budget for the Camino - days and money

Its a question I know alot of people ask, some out of curiousity, others wanting to know so should they want to follow the steps of thousands of pilgrims, they have a ball park figure.

Firstly, how long does it take?

Hmm how long do you have?

How fit are you?

How strong are your legs and tough are your feet?

The suggested route is 28 days, but its grueling and has most days of 25 km plus.

The 'long' or 'slow' route suggests 45 days.

We have 57 days alocated to start and finish the walk. Two of these are taken by arriving and leaving and one taken for the Pilgrims Mass at Santiago Cathedral. I'd like to at least another day in Santiago to hire a car and go to the sea ( an extra 120 km) to complete it. So in reality, we have 53 walking days. Do the quick maths to see that we still have a formidable 15 km a day to do. Some 15 km days will be easy, others grueling and extremely tough.

Morgan is our trek leader and has alot of it mapped out. We plan to knock over 20 and 25 km days when its sort of flat, so that we can ease up on other days and not do so much.

Of course we have a back up plan to catch a bus or taxi if its just too hard.. But the three of us want to be able to say we walked the lot. 

Our first two days were always going to be hard.. Getting up the mountain and getting used to walking. We did 11 km the first day and 13 the next.

Our third day we decided to take it easy and only did 12 - arriving just after lunchtime, so had the whole afternoon to sleep and recover. Our next few days will be our catch up on miles.

 Money

Again.. Whats your comfort level 

and how much do you have?

We have alocated a pretty generous 100 euros a day for the three of us. 

You normally buy everything from cafes and bars as you walk, but we plan to carry lunch and snack things with us. Most bars do a fresh orange juice and great hot chocolates, not to mention the giant boccadillos ( half a frech stick cut in half ways and filled with cheese and ham or chorizzo) or fab torilias ( an omlette witg potato and cheese)  we get two between the three of us. 

We have 7 euros a day allocated for bags or bus or taxi. We dont plan on obviously using this every day. The bag thing is a transport service to send your luggage forward. We plan to use this only on tough uphill days. The allowance for bus or taci are for days where the alburgues we plan to get to are full and we need to go to the next town. Often the thought of having to walk another 5 or 10 km is enough to make you cry..esp after a long day.. Being locked into arriving where your bag is sometimes is restricting, so we want the freedom to be able to stop when we feel its enough for the day.

Broken down, our budget for the three of us looks like this: 

Breakfast 17 ( orange juice, hot choc, boccadillo or the omlette thing)

Lunch 17. ( orange juice, hot choc, boccadillo or a selection of pinchos)

Snacks and drinks 9

Dinner 20 ( two pilgrim menus between the three of us)

Alburgue 30

Bags 7

By no means is this extravagant, but its not penny pinching either.

We dont always use all of this up, so plan to keep alittle aside to splash out on nicer accomodation at times ( with proper beds, shower to ourselves..)

So, hopefully that answers a few practical questions for you!