June 13 Day 01 to Grado

I woke up as planned at 7 AM but by the time I got everything packed up and going, I was out the door by 745.

Off to the cathedral in the middle of the city, where the Camino typically starts is where I headed, took a few pictures and started on my “journey”

I got my first stamp for my Pilgrim's Passport at one of the local hotels that had the scallop shell displayed prominently, picked up a couple breakfast muffins to get me going and headed out of the town. I found a nice park where I laid some of Charlene‘s ashes and thought to myself that we are on this journey together and everything is gonna be just perfect.

Day one started off perfect and continued perfect and as I’m writing this after a quick nap, I’ll go have dinner and head to bed early as I did feel that I was tired during today trek.

The trek itself wasn’t overly difficult, kind of like walking through Tynehead forest x 3 in difficulty with some paved roads, farmers fields, very narrow paths and normal streets. Not a lot of overall elevation gain, but did have a few uphill portions.

28 km in just over five hours was a good start and a good gauge of how fast I’ll need to go or want to go to finish this in 12 to 14 days. I did meet one gentleman from France who said that in a couple days, the first couple mountain sections will be very hard from an elevation gain perspective.

I met up with about 10 other groups and singles, we exchanged names, where we were from, continue to talk a bit, and then I carried on. My first day was about me and Charlene taking this trip together and I didn’t want to deviate from that, nor did I want to slow down to their pace. 🤷 I know this will change in the days coming as the pace I set was too fast to maintain for the whole trip so it’ll be nice to meet some other people from around the world and have some more meaningful conversations.

I checked into a nice one star hotel in the city of Grado, showered up took a quick nap and will head out to grab a bite to eat before retiring somewhat early as I’m short on a few hours of sleep from the day before.

The people I did meet were from New Zealand, Spain, France, Seattle and Germany, and we’re all very friendly even with some of the language barriers.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

June 09 What and Why

Image
After losing my partner of 39+ years at the young age of 56, Charlene was my everything in life. My soul mate and mother of our 2 children and the one person I could and did share everything with.   The past three and a half years since her diagnosis of metastatic colorectal cancer, we had been on a journey together of reality....by that I mean, every day was a reality check. Is this really happening to us and why. And during that time, what could "I" (me Chris) do to prepare for the worst case outcome. It was the worst yet best time of our lives together.   The pain or hurt of loosing a soul mate, mother, sibling, aunt, cousin, daughter/sister in law is a lot to handle. Harder for some, but painful for everyone that knew Char. After Char's passing, I asked my boys Kory & Ryan about solo backpacking and their thoughts. "It's a lot of work, but worth doing if you’re thinking about it." It's not easy being home alone after 39+ years, so I'v...
Read more

June 10 Getting there

Image
On Wed June 11, I will depart from Vancouver, Canada on a flight to Madrid, Spain with a short layover in Munich. Then a 3h train ride to Oviedo to start my Camino the next day. I've time shifted my body's circadian rhythm by going to bed earlier and getting up earlier for the 4 days prior to leaving. So my last day in Vancouver I was in bed by 9pm and up at 3am on travel day, so that when I get on the plane in Vancouver at 7pm, I'll be ready for sleeping (Spain time). With luck, maybe I'll get 5h sleep (8am Spain time upon waking up) and be awake for the duration of the flight. I did the same last time we went to the Mediterranean, and it worked then. I'll let you know how I made out with the jet lag.
Read more

June 12 Alone ??

Image
The Camino's treks are filled with thousands of people doing it for various reasons from spiritual to personal. Although The Primitivo is less traveled because of it's ruggedness, it will be populated, but not over crowded like the other Camino paths can be.  There will be lots of alone time to ponder, think, remember, reflect, etc. There will also be times where I'll be with other like minded hikers doing the trek for different reasons. So fear not, I will not be alone. 
Read more