The #CawleyCamino 2016 gets underway and Eamonn reports from for his fifth Camino…
It doesn’t seem like a year since we gathered in Terminal 2 Dublin Airport at the start of our last great odyssey. Today we have 40 expectant ,excited and fit looking 30s, 40s, 50s and elders! chomping at the bit …and some at the bar!
Intros are made,names exchanged and Jeremy and Martin from CaminoWays.com see us off in their understated, encouragingly efficient way. Bon Voyage Peregrinos!
Several hours later we land at Santiago Airport and travel the 120 kilometres to Ferrol from where we will commence the return journey on foot tomorrow. I keep the eyes down as we skirt the boundaries of Santiago as such is the beauty of this city, particularly the old town, that I might jump off and go AWOL…this is my fifth time to visit and each time it draws you in a little more. Gradients are noted and road surfaces given critical appraisal en route …pity we will be off road and in among the vines most of the time I thought! We meet our gracious guides Maria and Jaime who give us a list of does and don’t does that sound eminently sensible.
Phil is pressing the flesh like an evangelical preacher… so many people… so little time… and gives us the full five barrels from the front of the coach. This year will be our first time to experience the English route having conquered… well completed, the Portuguese route several times and shamefully I must admit that I did the French route once in a coach with a bar aboard and a party of gourmands who seldom walked except to enter hotels or restaurants! But that’s another story…
We have several repeat offenders from last year… Phil says they are only back to apologise!
The real lure of the Camino is its simplicity…. meeting new people… the walking, talking, eating and the sociability but also the down time and feeling of splendid isolation. Everybody’s time is precious but it’s only when you experience all of the above that you truly realise the worth of a time out!
Tomorrow we will take on 29k from Ferrol to Pontedeume…and it might be hilly…. Onwards and upwards…
