“Everybody was so stressed about climbing the Pyrenees yesterday that making new friends was the last thing on their minds,” a young friend suggested today.
We were marveling at how social everyone had become overnight.
Continue readingWhat was I thinking?
I won’t lie to you, today was the toughest day of hiking I have ever experienced in my life.
And not just the first five miles, from St Jean Pied de Port to the cafe/hostel Refuge Orrison.
A lot of people want to stay at Orrison in France to break up the trek across the Pyrenees Mountains into Spain. The alternative is hiking the entire 24 kilometers to Roncevalles where the ancient monastery houses 238 weary pilgrims every night.
Continue readingGround Zero for Camino Frances: St. Jean Pied de Port
The energy on the street builds like a pressure cooker as pilgrims arrive from all directions, register for their Camino, hunt for food and drink, check into auberges for the night or trundle up the road to the Pyrenees.
At 10 am when our train arrived from Bayonne, St. Jean was oddly quiet.
“Where is everybody?” I asked a Dubliner named Guy in the Camino registration office.
Continue readingAfter a long day of travel, finding gold in Bayonne
So, this is France. Nice place. Bayonne, specifically. Having left San Miguel de Allende on Sunday morning by ETN bus, it is now Monday night and I got to Bayonne just in time to catch the sunset.
Let me tell you that between there and here, not much happened. In Mexico City, I sent my Uber driver to the wrong terminal at CDMX.
No problem. That’s what the tram is for.
Continue readingCamino-living: Cramming a 224-pound life into a 17-pound backpack for the next 43 days.
That’s it. That’s as light as I can make it, 17 pounds (or 7.711 kilograms).
I am now relieved that I picked the Osprey Manta 34-liter bag because there isn’t a cubic inch left to spare. I’m also relieved that I opted to jettison the 2.5-liter HydraPak that came with it.
I needed that space for, you know, clothing. As for hydration, a couple of water bottles in the side pockets will do nicely.
People like me, we find ways to fill an extra-large suitcase just as easily as we fill a medium-sized one.
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These boots are made for walking, and that’s just what they’ll do — well, one pair will
On Sunday, I leave Mexico to walk the Camino Francés.
That’s about 500 U.S. miles of walking over perhaps 34 days.
Unlike the Adirondacks, the Pacific Crest, or the Appalachian trails in the U.S., the Camino has cell service, probably too many people (to which I am contributing), and many indoor sleeping options, from bunk-room auberges to hotels with saunas and pools.
Continue readingWater, water everywhere and … well, that’s the whole story
I walked and waded 19 miles along muddy roads on Sunday, only to find myself wading through a couple of inches of water in my apartment during the torrential downpour later in the evening. Wet and wild was sort of the theme on Sunday.
There I was, standing at the front door, watching the downpour and marveling at how Moppit and I had dodged a bullet.
Moments before, we’d set out for our evening walk when the sprinkling started. Normally, we’d race around the block before the rain began in earnest. Not this time. After eight rainy seasons in San Miguel de Allende, you learn to listen to your gut, read the clouds, scope out the wind, and sense the drop in barometric pressure.
We turned around and raced home, just as the skies let loose.
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Pool Maintenance Lessons from the 1970s; Rugby and the Reflecting Pool
I wish President Trump had called me before tackling the reflecting pool. I could have saved him a lot of time and money.
You see, at one time, I was deeply involved in the pool maintenance business in Washington, D.C. I know a thing or two about algae, chlorine, diatomaceous earth, and how appealing you can become when you put on lifeguard shorts.
Yes, among the many jobs I held in those early years of wandering, wondering, discovery, staying one step ahead of the draft, and playing rugby, there was a time when I worked for the White Russian in the Washington pool business.
Continue readingGrandson: ‘Do you have pictures of your bull-fighting endeavors?’
The text came early last night from my 8-year-old grandson, Tallac. The one every grandfather awaits. The one in which a child actually asks an old man something about the life he lived long, long ago.
The question: “Do you have pictures of your bull-fighting endeavors?”
It was as close as I would ever get to “Grandpa, what did you do during the war?”
Or, in theatrical terms, it was my Peter Falk in “Princess Bride” moment.
And I guess I blew it.
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The magic in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge
I’m looking out over that Golden Gate Bridge
On another gorgeous sunny Saturday.
— Doobie Brothers, “Listen to the Music”
Most bridges, if they lead into a city of any size, lack pizzazz. Oh, they may be architectural gems, but you barely notice this.
Why?
Because most bridges are surrounded by distracting urban clutter.
High-rises, highway on- and off-ramps, shipbuilders, warehouses, industrial stacks, skyscrapers, condo towers — the stuff that makes cities be cities. This stuff bustles up against the entrances and exits of bridges. Suddenly, you are crossing a span with little sense of its architectural might. Rarely do you get to appreciate the majesty of a span uncluttered.
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Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 