"the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray"

And thats where adventure starts!

What is the El Camino?
Originally it started as a religious pilgrimage to the city of Santiago, Spain to pay homage to the body and spirit of St. James that is said to be buried in it's Cathedral. This pilgrimage is now walked for many reasons whether for religious purposes or just amusement.

I can't speak for Bea, but the El Camino just kind of seemed like fun. I was raised Catholic, but I'm more of a just lets be nice to each other and enjoy the hell out of life type of a person now. I love walking. I love being outdoors. I love the sun (even though we are forecast for rain in Spain mainly on the plain for the next 7 days of our trip, I'm sure its just a weatherman error... right?!) I love being unemployed. I love an excuse to travel and to shower but minimally and have that be acceptable. Most of all I can't wait to meet other travelers and learn all of their stories. Oh and I suppose I am rather excited to see Bea too as it has been almost a year.

How does it work?
There are many routes to follow to arrive at Santiago. Bea and I will be walking the most traditional route, "Camino Frances" which is highlighted in yellow in the map below. I'm leaving from Chicago on May 28th where I will fly to Dublin via Newark. Bea and I will stage our joyful airport reunion where I'm sure there will be a power ballad cued to emphasize the greatness of this moment. Then we will board our classy RyanAir flight to Biarritz, France. By the time I arrive in France, I will have been traveling for 16 hours. I'm pretty sure I will be very good-looking at this moment.

From there we will take a train to St. Jean Pied de Port. Once there, we need to find accommodations for the night and then must get our "Pilgrim Passport." Actually, we might need to do that in reverse order. The pilgrim passport is proof that we are pilgrims hiking the El Camino. This will allow us to stay at albergues which are cheap hostel-like places. You typically can only stay there for one night as you are expected to rise with the sun and continue on the hike the next day. The passport is stamped at each hostel every night and then a month from now when we arrive at Santiago, we will present our passport to receive the certificate of the completion of the El Camino de Santiago. We don't really have our route planned out. There is a day that we need to be in Santiago by, as Bea already has a ticket home. So basically our plan is to wake up, walk, eat, drink an impressive amount of sangria, and sleep.


So Martin Sheen did a movie about the El Camino. It is great. I love President Bartlett. Just ignore the part where the son dies. That is not in our itinerary. However I do like that Martin Sheen is the American (aka me) and Joost is a bumbling Dutch (aka Bea). I feel like it is quite representative of our friendship. I'm a grump and Bea is a goon.

We are following the yellow route.