On Your Marks, Get Set . . . . . . Go!

Today was the day we officially became pilgrims, or 'peregrinos' in Spanish. We were up early, got ourselves organised and tried not to let the weather dampen our spirits. However, over the past few months, on all the occasions I had imagined our Camino start, I was never wearing 3 layers plus a waterproof and gloves! It was foggy, cold and miserable. When planning what date to walk the Camino the weather conditions, amongst other things, had played a very big part. Leave too early in the year and you can run into snow/ice over the Pyrenees and walk through a fair amount of rain, but leave too late and the high temperatures can be exhausting. Although I wasn't expecting the weather to be blisteringly hot in early May, I had anticipated it to be a little less damp than we were currently experiencing.

We headed back to the Pilgrim's Office as this is the 'official' start point for our journey. That said, when we'd spoken to Claude our 'Camino Adviser' the day before, he told us that your Camino starts from home, when you close and lock your front door; so indeed our adventure had started back on Friday afternoon including the debacle of our journey to reach St Jean Pied de Port.

En route through the town we stopped to take a few pictures and to visit the Church, as recommended. We dropped into a café for a quick hot drink and croissant, more to warm ourselves up and to see if the weather would improve while we waited rather than actually needing any breakfast. It brightened up slightly so we grabbed the opportunity to depart, down to the edge of town, through the walls surrounding the town and we were off, and up, up, up. Our Camino had started.

It's at this point that I've been pondering how best to provide an overview of our journey. I've decided to post in 'stages': a few photos together with any highlights from that part of the walk.

Before I do, there are a couple of observations I made very early on. Firstly the great sense of community and inclusion you feel from the get-go. Everyone seems to be on your side. You immediately have something in common with every other walker on the trail, as you're all taking part with the same aim in mind, whether walking in short stages, or walking all the way to Santiago de Compostela (and for some, beyond). In fact this sense of community started for me as soon as we boarded the train from Bayonne, before even arriving at St Jean Pied de Port. In spite of cultural and language differences, everyone you meet is friendly and keen to engage; not in an intrusive way but in a way that always seems very easy and natural. Sometimes you have just a two-minute conversation with a fellow-walker you're being 'overtaken' by on the path or on other occasions you share a meal for an hour or so and speak more in-depth with other 'peregrinos'. There is a very real, very genuine sense of acceptance amongst pilgrims; they're kind in their attitude, interested in others and non-judgemental. One of the last things that Claude the 'Camino Adviser' had mentioned to us the day before, as we left the Pilgrim's Office, was to be kind to ourselves and to others on our journey and to help anyone that we saw in need. This principle was very clearly evidenced for me, from the very start.

Although pilgrims walk with a common purpose, they all walk for a different reason. Our first night was spent at one of the Camino's many 'albergues'. Albergues are simple, budget-friendly accommodations found all along the route, usually with dormitory-style sleeping arrangements. Many offer an inexpensive 3-course evening meal with wine and breakfast the next morning, which is sometimes your only option, depending on how large the town/village/hamlet is that you've walked to that day. Having shared a very nice meal with around 48 other people in one dining room, it was a tradition in that albergue, probably because it was most people's first night on the Camino, to encourage everyone to stand up, tell their name, nationality and reason for walking. My heart immediately sank when I heard this, for two reasons: 1) I'm not a huge fan of standing up and talking in front of a large group of people and, 2) This could take a long time and could end up being quite boring. I was, after all, quite tired at the end of the first day's walk.

However, the next hour was nothing short of heart-warming, if not also a little heart-breaking. It started with an announcement that 2 people had birthdays that day. Spirits were high and we all threw ourselves into singing Happy Birthday, rounded off with a few hip-hip hoorays. No doubt fuelled a little by the bottles of red wine that were served with dinner. This was closely followed by a delightful round of Happy Birthday being sung in different languages; we started with Polish and moved on to German, French, Dutch, Taiwanese and Korean.

Next everyone introduced themselves and told their short story. Most were quite unremarkable (like mine) but others had powerful motivations for wanting to walk. Fabio from Brazil, who was celebrating his 53rd birthday that day, had been a very keen and successful footballer who'd ruptured his achilles tendon last year and whilst in hospital recovering from surgery, was told that he would never be able to play football again or to walk long distances. He made a decision in his hospital bed that he would walk the Camino this year and through physio and plenty of exercise has trained hard to make that happen. We heard from friends Zoe and Sue, who we'd actually met in a restaurant in St Jean Pied de Port the night before. Zoe and Sue met in High School and have remained friends ever since. Zoe went to a talk in her local library about 10 years ago where someone who had walked the Camino was giving a presentation about their experiences. She promised herself at that point that she would walk once she'd retired. She retired 3 weeks ago. Her friend Sue wanted to walk with her, and on behalf of three of her family members who can't walk themselves due to illness or disability. We heard from Rens from the Netherlands who, following a relationship breakup at the end of last year, started walking from the Netherlands back in January. When he reached St Jean Pied de Port he already had almost 2,200 km under his belt! He did say his feet were hurting a bit. A couple of people admitted that they had no idea why they were walking, but were hoping to find their reason why over the coming weeks.

Much laughter and a few tears were shed on this first evening, but going to bed that night any anxieties I had about the upcoming challenge were largely dispelled and I think this was mostly due to the sense that no-one would be making this journey on their own and that we'd all be looking out for each other along the way. We were all in this together.