Hey all! Welcome to my brand new blog! I am just learning to blog so I hope that you will all bear with me. I am headed to the Camino de Santiago Primitivo. For those of you who have followed me in the past, you all know that the Caminos are in Spain. For those of you who don't have a clue what I am writing about, there are many of these Caminos, the most popular one is Camino Francés, the one featured in the movie The Way. The Camino Francés starts in St Jean Pied de Port France and crosses over the Pyrenees. I completed that hike three years ago and fell in love with the Camino. Much to my delight I discovered there are many different Caminos. Incidentally, Camino means way and Santiago is St James so this is The Way of St James. This year I will be hiking from Oviedo, Spain to the Compostela de Santiago Cathedral. All of the Caminos end at the Cathedral in Compostela de Santiago, Spain. The Camino de Santiago is the oldest religious pilgrimage in the world and in by-gone days men were required to make one pilgrimage in their lifetime. They left from their homes and because the Santiago Cathedral is closer than Rome or Jerusalem, it became the most popular pilgrimage. You can also bicycle it. I am hiking. The Primitivo or Original Way is roughly one hundred and eighty miles but I am guessing that I will walk about two-hundred and fifty miles or more when you add in sight-seeing and getting lost. This Camino is also considered the hardest because it is all mountains.
I have been training hard. Hiking the trails in Chorke Park. Husband Dennis and I spent this past weekend in Gatlinburg. We hiked to Rainbow Falls, the afternoon we arrived and the next day hiked up to Mt. Le Conte via Grotto Cave which is about eleven miles round trip. We lunched at the Le Conte dining room. For eleven dollars you can get a bag lunch which contains a summer sausage, a bagel, cream cheese and some snackie things. It also includes unlimited hot chocolate to lemonade. This is the dining room.
One of the intersting things about Mt Le Conte is that they bring all the supplies up by Llama on Mondays and Thursdays. I have seen them on the trail in the past and think they are so interesting. You can not drive to Mt. Le Conte. You can stay in cabins but you have to request it on October 1 and there is a lottery system. Very hard to get a cabin.
We completed that day and high-fived each other. And as all good Irish stories begin, that night we were in a bar...after a couple of glasses of wine, Dennis announced to a nice man we had been talking to that we were going to hike the Boulevard trail up to Mount Le Conte on Sunday. And I, the wife, always wanting to train decided it was a good idea. I goofed on the miles (long story...not interesting) and we set out the next day. The Boulevard is a tough trail to do in one day...up and down steep and almost eighteen miles round trip. Whew! We made it but had sore muscles the next day! I am now ready to go! No blisters on the new hiking boots!
Soooo I a nervously (read excitedly) packing all my stuff and running around looking for chords and other stuff you don't think about. There is a lot of crap that I need for one of these hikes and forgetting something like gloves is a disaster because many of these small villages don't have much in the way of gear.
Adios and my next post will be from Spain!
No comments:
Post a Comment