Over the Pyrenees

This was day 1 of our almost one month long Camino de Santiago adventure. Click on the Camino de Santiago label to see all related posts.

As I have already mentioned in my opening post on Camino de Santiago, we chose to walk along the Camino Francés branch of the way. We flew in to the nearby Biarritz airport and arrived to Saint Jean Pied de Port on a sunny Sunday afternoon of May 18th, 2014.

We started our Camino in France mainly because we wanted to experience the Pyrenees. Another reason was that we had thought we could just squeeze those 800 kilometres into 26 days we had for walking.

The first thing we did upon arrival was stamp our pilgrim credentials. First impressions of SJPdP were not all that great. Prices in the town were quite a bit higher than we had expected. We had one of the worst pizzas ever and it was not cheap either.
We were just hoping this had something to do with the fact we were in France.
Apart from that we liked the look of the little town. It is tucked amongst small hills with Pyrenees already visible to the west.

Pilgrim menus were on offer for 12 Euro. A bed in an albergue dorm room costed the same.

Since the weather can get really nasty in the Pyrenees, we had been hoping for good weather on our initial day. We have heard quite a few stories of recently injured pilgrims on this part of the way. A few people also die on this part of the Camino almost every year.

Luckily at 6 in the morning we woke up into a beautiful morning, had some fruit for breakfast and just before 7 we headed for the hills. Views were getting better and better as we were climbing higher. The steep path got us huffing and puffing at some points but we were able to keep quite a good pace. It seemed like we were well prepared.

We started our day at 180 metres above sea level and reached Col Lepoeder mountain pass at 1.430 metres (the highest point of Camino Francés) before descending again. Roncesvalles, our destination for the first day, lies at 900 metres and is already in Spain.
The total walking distance planned for the day was 26 kilometres.

Roughly after 8 kilometres of walking and a half of the total vertical gain in elevation planned for the day we stopped at Refuge Orisson. Many pilgrims choose to spend a night there and continue in the morning. We were still quite fresh and after a sandwich, Basque cake and a glass of orange juice, we were on our way again. It was quite a break - one and a half hour long.

Apart from a few clouds the sky was mostly clear. The wind however was picking up and at some points it was very strong (gusts of over 90 km/h as we learned later).

Somewhere near the top I had to take care of my first blister. It was a really small one and the smallest of Compeed plasters took care of it. We both took the opportunity to dry our feet and change into fresh socks.

On the way down we kept thinking about a dangerous stretch of the path we were told to avoid. There was a bit steeper section which we think was the "dangerous stretch" but it did not seem like anything special to us. Maybe in bad weather it is a different thing.

At 14:30 we already reached the imposing monastery at Roncesvalles (Orreaga in Basque). Check-in procedure was followed by a thorough stretching session. We were feeling good.

The monastery albergue is really huge (183 beds), well kept and very well organised. A hot shower that felt really good was followed by a relaxing afternoon and a good supper at a nearby La Posada restaurant. We enjoyed supper with other pilgrims and shared a few laughs. Spirits were high.

After supper we got back to monastery just in time to see the end of evening mass. From there we went straight to our room. We were already pleasantly tired and lights out policy at 22:00 made perfect sense. We set our alarm for 5:30, put in our earplugs and drifted away...

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Smartphone app for the Camino

As I have already mentioned in my post about packing for the Camino, you can loose some of your backpack's weight by using a digital guidebook instead of a paper one.

It can work out great if you use it together with one of many available Camino smartphone apps. I looked at quite a few of them and in the end I chose Camino Pilgrim.
It is a free application you can easily download through Google Play. It covers Camino Frances and Camino Finisterre branches of El Camino de Santiago. I was using version 1.4.0. You can see the app's icon on the photo below.

It has all the towns and villages listed in the same order as they appear on the Camino with distances from one to the next. Under the name of each town there are icons representing available pilgrim facilities (albergues, ATM, water fountain, pharmacy etc.).

By tapping on a town's name a list of available albergues opens up. Apart from basic info (address, phone, webpage, email address and opening hours) there is also other information available.
Albergues are arranged into three groups: Municipal, Parroquial and Private. There is another set of icons on this level. They represent facilities available in a specific albergue (kitchen, washing machine, wifi etc.). There is also information about price and total number of beds.

By tapping on an albergue a map by Google Maps with a position of the albergue opens up. When your smartphone has GPS connectivity turned on, your current position will also be shown on the map.

Camino Pilgrim application does not require an active internet connection to work. To be able to use maps off-line, you can even download them in advance. It is however advisable to open the app once in a while, when connected to internet, to allow its database to refresh.

There is still room for improvement:

• If you are doing the Camino on a bike the map feature might not be very useful - bicycle map is not included.
• At the moment the app is only available on the Android platform. No iOS support so far.
• Some photos of albergues would be a welcome addition.
• The same applies to non-existent user ratings and comments about individual albergues.

There is a useful tutorial available on-line for those in need of step-by-step instructions.

Camino Pilgrim is a simple app which proved to be very valuable on many occasions on the Camino. For instance when the path got crowded and we were walking in a group, getting a bed late in the afternoon was not a sure thing any more. Tapping on a phone number next to an albergue name in the app and placing a reservation, made our walk even more enjoyable.

I highly recommend this app. Try it out yourself - it is free. You are welcome to leave your observations in the comments section below.

This review contains my own unbiased opinion which was not influenced by anyone. I also did not receive any kind of compensation.
User interface photos were downloaded from Google play and therefore I do not own any rights to them.

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Packing for the Camino

What does one take with him on a month long trek? If you take into account you have to carry your stuff on your back for the whole 800 kilometres this is not an easy decision at all.

Packing of our hiking backpacks took quite some effort during the preparation period. It all started by choosing just the right hiking shoes and backpacks.

Choosing a pair of good quality, comfortable hiking shoes is the most important thing. My guidelines were comfort, weight, ankle support, waterproof material, durability and breathability. Also keep in mind that your feet will probably be a bit swollen after a few weeks (one size larger is better than a perfect fit). For a short while I was also thinking about light running shoes but gave up the idea because of lack of water resistance and ankle support.
If you are leaning towards a lighter shoe, imagine walking on a muddy trail for 8 hours while sinking into thick mud over your ankles with every step. Without rain it is a whole different story, but unfortunately weather in May can be quite unpredictable.

It is advisable to keep the weight of the backpack under 10 percent of one's weight. However, if you weigh 50 kilograms (110 pounds) it is almost impossible to stay under 10 percent. In the end we both ended up with 2 kilograms over the recommended limit.

We chose one 34 litre and one 55 litre backpack. 55 litres was more than I needed, but it came in handy when we had to redistribute our stuff for airport regulations compliance.

Only when we were happy with our backpacks and shoes, we started thinking about what exactly to put on the checklist. This is what I took with me:

Camino Checklist

Item	Quantity	Packed
Personal ID card	1	Y
Personal ID card paper copy	1	Y
Cash (EUR)	400	Y
Credit cards (Maestro, Visa)	2	Y
Money belt/pouch	1	Y
Backpack	1	Y
Mobile phone & charger	1	Y
Digital camera & charger	1	Y
MP3 Player	1	N
Camino de Santiago Guidebook	1	N
Hiking shoes	1	Y
Trekking sandals (e.g. Teva)	1	Y
Flip-flops	1	Y
Trekking poles	1	Y
Sleeping bag (lightweight)	1	Y
Rain-coat / poncho (lightweight)	1	Y
Goretex jacket	1	Y
Fleece jacket	1	Y
Long sleeve shirt	1	Y
Trekking zip-off pants	2	Y
T-shirts	2	Y
Trekking socks	3	Y
Underpants	2	Y
Multifunction scarf (Buff)	1	Y
Hiking hat	1	Y
Towel (large lightweight)	1	Y
Towel (small lightweight)	1	Y
Medical bag (pills, bandage, anti-inflammatory gel, anti-blister accessories, rehydration pills, etc.)	1	Y
Toiletries (toothbrush & paste, toilet paper, shaving foam & razor, body & hair shampoo, etc.)	1	Y
Laundry soap	1	Y
Body & face cream	1	Y
Sunscreen	1	Y
Lip gloss (protective)	1	Y
Water bladder (2L)	1	Y
Swiss army knife	1	Y
Sunglasses	1	Y
Head lamp	1	Y
Ear plugs	1	Y
Clothes pegs	3	Y
Cigarette lighter	1	Y
Scallop shell	1	Y

A few comments on the above checklist:

I also took a mosquito repellent with me, but it proved to be useless - during the day I was walking too fast for mosquitoes and during the night there were usually many other targets in the same room.
A head-lamp is not essential, but may come in very handy if you start walking before sunrise. A mobile phone with built-in flash can serve as an emergency replacement.
A music player can also be easily replaced by your smart-phone. All you need is a pair of earphones and enough of free memory on your phone. I did not use it even once, but it did help M. to get over one of many steep hills on the way.
I chose not to pack a paper guidebook. I used a digital version on my phone. I also found one of many free Camino phone applications to be very useful.
My medical bag included:

• painkillers with anti-inflammatory effect (e.g. Ibuprofen),
• anti-allergy pills,
• anti-inflammatory gel (e.g. Voltaren),
• rehydration pills,
• magnesium & potassium powder (for muscle regeneration and cramp prevention),
• plasters (e.g. Compeed - worth a higher price),
• blister prevention stick-gel (e.g. Bodyglide, Compeed),
• elastic bandage.

I packed only a few of each and restocked in one of many pharmacies on the way if I ran out of anything.

In the end my backpack weighed 9,5 kilograms (21 pounds) - that is without any water or food. This could be easily fixed by buying a lighter backpack and changing my heavy DSLR camera for a compact version. The empty backpack and my heavyweight camera weigh 4 kilograms (9 pounds).

If you travel to the starting point of your Camino by an airplane, be careful not to pack any prohibited items into your carry-on luggage. Since we had quite a few such items on our checklist, we decided to declare one of our backpacks as checked baggage. It is usually quite a bit cheaper if you think of this at the time of booking.

Feel free to comment on this checklist and offer a suggestion of your own if you think I left something out.

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