Letting go, moving on

It is Sunday night, or actually 3:30am on Monday morning. There'll be no sleep for me tonight. Not a good way to start out a long pilgrimage but it is what it is. We have been visiting for the last three days and enjoying the luxury of being wined and dined and treated with amazing generosity by my son and his wife. But now it's time to let go again. It was so hard to leave home and leave my wonderful daughter and my grand daughter behind - as well as the dozens of things I wish I had done. And now again I have to let go of the warmth and affection in my son's house. Let go and move on. If we're going to do this it's time.

Tomorrow morning we catch the train at 6:43. Our train trip from Nice to Le Puy-en-Velay will take about 7 hours. We have to change trains in Lyon. We're scheduled to get to Le Puy about 2:30. When we arrive we will go to the albergue to drop off our backpacks, then go to an informal meeting of friends of the camino who will provide us with our 'credencials' , a kind of pilgrims' passport we need for staying in the albergues. An alternative would be to get them at the cathedral in the morning. But since we're not Catholic, that seems a bit cheeky.

I was pleased that we able to buy our train tickets using only French. I stumbled through but the woman understood me! I got the impression from what she said that she thought she should be trying to speak English but was very relieved to be able to speak in French. At least that's what I understood - or maybe she said 'oh man you stupid dolt, couldn't you have learned to speak half decent French before you came here?'  But I choose to believe she said something more like the former :) So we have our tickets and will be off in a couple of hours. Enough sitting around and eating too much, drinking wine and eating chocolate. We ate the most exquisite dessert on top of everything else tonight - brioche Tropeziene. I'm not sure of the spelling but it was a wonderful light cake thing filled with some kind of creamy custard. Very delicious!

Here's the backpack loaded up and ready to go. It weighs about 20 pounds so I hope I can get ruthless and ditch a few things.

Almost time to leave

http://www.weather-forecast.com/locations/Aumont-Aubrac/forecasts/latest

I've been watching the weather forecasts all week to see what it's going to be like on the Aubrac plateau which is somewhere up there after we climb 500 meters or so out of Le Puy. This morning it said there would be about an inch and a half of snow throughout the day on April 2nd - our start date - and another inch and a half over night with a 35kph wind and temperatures below freezing. Brr-r.
I'm happy to say that's been upgraded to rain showers and light rain (not sure of the difference there), temperatures of 4 and 6 degrees centigrade with winds of only 25kph. That still sounds a bit breezy to me but everything else sounds better.....No doubt it will all change again several times before the time comes... It must be really something to be a weather person. I mean unless you're talking about what's happening right now, what you say is pretty much always wrong. Doesn't that get hard to take after awhile?

It's almost time to leave - two more sleeps. I wonder if everyone goes through these strange times just before leaving? Things seem to go wrong, feelings are chaotic, endless last minute jobs that should have been done earlier just have to be done now. A whole variety of barriers seem to jump in the way. It's almost as if there is something at work here testing my resolve to do this. My nasty little interior voice goes on - "Are you sure you want to go and walk with a pack on your back for almost 3 months when the garden needs digging, the flower gardens are a mess, the plants need to be planted, the house needs to be painted, the water filter needs to be changed, the unfinished Christmas project needs to be finished, my granddaughter needs me to be here for her, the new batch of puppies will need someone to look after them etc., etc., you're letting everyone down by not being here." Everyone's details are different but it's amazing how similar the plots to the stories are. Certainly in my case the pressure is not coming from others but oh boy, what a story I tell myself about how much I'm needed. Needing to be needed - hmm - that sounds like an old familiar story!

On another topic that is helpful for anyone planning a trip like this. There's a website with a ton of information on it and also the ability to plan the stages of your own trip on some of the caminos. It's at www.godalesco.com. It includes the elevation profiles for oyur trip which is really helpful for planning the length of your day. Also included are the names of all of the various spots along the way, the # of kilometers between each one and what services are available at each town. I can't say I can really tell what part is the plateau  - aren't plateaus usually flat? But no doubt if there's a flat bit up there we'll be sure to notice!

Thanks to godesalco.com for this image and the wonderful profile maps. They were very helpful.

Many ways to get to Le Puy

There are, of course,  a whole variety of different ways to get to Le Puy. One of them though, is NOT a direct flight from North America. One of the most common ways is to take a direct flight to Paris and the take  the fast train down to Le Puy. You do have to change trains at Lyon but it's pretty straightforward. Here is a typical weekly schedule from the Bonjour LaFrance website:

This is a typical weekly train schedule, subject to modifications, for:
Paris CDG to Le Puy en Velay
Train Number Departure Paris Cdg - dep. Change at Lyon part Dieu - arr. Train Number Lyon part Dieu - dep. Destination Le Puy en Velay - arr. Days TGD5110 TGB9828 08:30 13:58 10:30 16:00 TER89981 TER89982 12:06 17:06 14:23 19:11 Su, M, Tu, W, Th, F, Sa         Tu, W, Th, F, Sa

But if you have a few extra days and Paris seems overwhelming, there's always Bordeaux  where you can try the wine, or Bilbao where you can visit the Guggenheim museum, enjoy the wonderful Basque people and try the wine, or Valladolid (one of my very favourite places) where you can see visit what's left of the beautiful historic part of town and understand why the folks from Castilla and Leon are still upset about what happened to their city when they were being made part of Spain - and don't forget to try the wine. Or, of course you can land at Madrid, or Barcelona and go from there. But check out the train and bus schedules before you decide where to land. There are so many more wonderful spots to visit. From my experience people feel much more like being tourist before their caminos than after so you may want to think about that if you're planning an extended trip.

And about traveling around and being a tourist before or after your camino...Unless you're really uncomfortable without everything lined up and in place, it can be much more fun to arrange short trips when you get there rather than ahead of time. This doesn't apply of course if you have a lot of places you want to see and a short time to see them in. Trains and buses are extremely convenient and the people at the stations are expert at deciphering what foreigners want. A little tip though if you don't speak the language: write on a piece of paper the destination you want and the date you want to travel. They'll figure it out for you. Next post I'll list the trains and buses but you can google them of course.

Planes and first week reservations

I'm hoping this blog could be useful for anyone else who is planning this trip so down to basics - how do we get from here to there?  Here in our case is essentially Vancouver BC although we do live a bit out of town.  I'm travelling with my friend and neighbour who's leaving her sweet husband Frank to hold the fort together for 3 months while she makes this trip. We're leaving on a 9:25 pm plane for there - London - a 9 hour direct flight. After a couple of hours in the London Heathrow airport we fly to Nice for a few days to stay with relatives, arriving there in the early evening. And then we'll take a train up to Le Puy-en-Velay and begin our walk.

Once I get my bag packed I'll let you know what's in it. I'm still wavering a bit because I've been watching the weather on the Aubrac Plateau where we will walk for most of first week. This is the site http://www.weather-forecast.com/locations/Aumont-Aubrac/forecasts/latest . It's been listing the nastiest weather in the last couple of weeks - minus 20 degrees centigrade with the wind chill factor. Br-r . But it's starting to look a bit better for the week of the 19th  to 25th of March with daytime highs varying between 1 degree and 10 degrees and lows varying between minus 6 and plus 7 degrees with the wind between 5 and 25 km/hr.  I'm hoping to do without the woolie long johns but still not entirely sure if that's wise. I wonder if they have chinooks in France or if that's a Canadian thing? It sounds like they could use one!!

Since we're starting the day after Easter Monday (Easter is March 31st this year) I surmised from comments of others that there could be hoards of enthusiastic French hikers enjoying the trails in the spring weather so  I decided to make reservations for the first week to be sure we had no difficulties with where we would sleep. I think that first week will be enough of a challenge without adding to it. In my very primitive French I sent off emails to the places I thought we'd like to stay. And a big thanks here to the folks who produce Miam Miam Dodo. All addresses, phone numbers and email addresses are conveniently there along with enough information including pricing, about each possible spot to help make choices. I gather there has been a problem in the past about people making reservations and not showing up, so most, but not all places are now looking for a down payment. That can be complex as most want it in a form not easily available to us in North America.

Here's an example of one of the replies I got after requesting a reservation. (My French is far from great so I'm assuming they understood that I was asking for a reservation and not something completely different!)
"Si vous souhaitez confirmer merci de nous adresser un montant 30€ à titre d'arrhes, sous 5 jours.

 Vous pouvez régler ces arrhes de 3 façons :

- soit par carte bancaire par téléphone. Le détenteur de la carte donne expressément l'autorisation aux XXXXXXXX de prélever le montant des arrhes convenu dans les présentes conditions de vente.
- soit par chèque bancaire (à l'ordre des XXXXXXXX)

- soit par virement bancaire (pour les frais merci de vérifier ce point avec votre banque) dans ce cas notre RIB vous sera joint par mail.

Toute réservation n'est considérée comme ferme et définitive qu'à réception des arrhes."

 (Little note on French - look right after each dash where it says 'soit' ... and 'soit' .... I just learned that this is the way you say either this or that or that - it's the 'either or' thing. I was really pleased to see it used in real life after studying it in my French lessons. And speaking of French lessons...I'm really enjoying  some French tapes I got. They're by a guy name Michel Thomas - who's not alive anymore but he has one of the best ways of teaching a language I've ever come across. I think you can get his tapes either from amazon or his website - which is basically his name. If you do go to his website, you can try a little sample of how he teaches to see if you like it - www.michelthomas.com)  

Okay - back to the response to what I think was my request for a reservation....As I understand it, what they want is for me to send them 30 Euros to hold the reservation- within 5 days from making it. I could send the 30 Euros in my choice of 3 ways:  carte bancaire - bank card with the owner giving permission to them to withdraw the 30 Euros;  cheque bancaire  - which may or may not be a certifed cheque but is at least a check and 'virement bancaire  - which is apparently a bank transfer with some special attention to making sure the bank accounts can find each other (out there in never-neverland I presume). As it happens, my son lives in France and was able to sort this out for me. I'm not sure how easy it would have been without his help. But it's all settled and the  cheques or whatever have been sent and received. I have confirmations for reservations for the first week with everyone wanting another confirmation a couple of days ahead. And I'm feeling pleased with the fact that one way or another my stumbling attempts at expressing myself in French were understood.

And that's enough for today. 17 days until we're on the trail!!

Why would anyone want to walk 1000 miles?

Well - the EASY answer is because I can - or at least I think I can. I may be deluding myself. I mean the last time I did any long distance walking was a few years ago in 2009 and that was half this distance! Did I mention I'm older than dirt? Like everyone else, THAT happened when I wasn't looking!

Certainly most of my friends and acquaintances think I'm at least a little bit crazy - and maybe I am. I'm overweight, parts of me hurt, my metabolism is so slow I'm not sure I even know where the 'go' button is anymore and my blood pressure is creeping up! Getting out of bed in the morning sometimes seems like a big accomplishment - but strangely - after I've been walking for 2 or 3 kilometers I start to feel GOOD! And I'm so grateful for that. So this is my GRATITUDE WALK. As I look around at the restrictions many people live with, I thank my lucky stars that I'm able to do this - or at least I think I'm able. Time will tell.

This picture was taken on top of a mountain somewhere in Spain along the Camino Frances in 2009. That's in the last half of the journey of a 1000 miles I hope to complete this spring (2013). You can't really see my expression I guess, but my grin is from ear to ear. I LOVE being outside all day. I love meeting people from lots of different countries and I love being in a situation where I have to push myself to communicate in another language. I love talking with people I may never see again - there's something different about it. Especially on the camino where people are taking a hiatus from their normal lives and seem to feel much more open and free than they may in normal life. Of course I see a lot of people do that in Mexico too - after too many coco locos!

The physical journey will start on APRIL 2, 2013.  At that point I will try to post regular blogs that may be helpful to others who choose to walk this way.  The mental, emotional and spiritual journey began when I prepared for my first camino in 2003.