Ok so about those pictures

the one below is from the lake region of Switzerland. I´ve been clicking through my 4 Gig memory card stuffed with incredible things that cant be done justice without narration. So Ill just post a few nice shots and ask everyone to stick it out 1 more week until I can upload and catalogue the 1000 or so shots.

Whoops

Hadn´t realized its been a week since I last posted. Just pure motion for the past few days with too much blurring to stop and type. H and I are in the lovely city of Hamburg, alive and well, having just met up with Harrison´s former girlfriend Mariana and our German buddy Tobias, whom we met at dartmouth last fall. We´ve been blowing around the town, along the coast of the river Elbe on a bus-ship, through the hilarious and bizzare red light district at Mariana´s behest, and to harborside cafes for gigantic sausages served with terrible coffee.

Tomorrow Harrison and I will take leave of Tobi and depart for Wacken, the setting for our next 3 days of unfathomable madness. Probably radio silence after tonight and until august 2nd, so in the mean time I will post some of those long promised pictures.

Luzern

H and I have just arrived in LUzern after a sweaty, suprisingly and very unswiss inefficient train ride. We've just dined on doner kebabs and are waiting for the sun to clear the alps around us. Tomorrow we explore the city, and after that set out to Lake Como in Italy. Took some amazing photos as we wound our way through the mountains (when the train wasn't stalled on the tracks). Will try to upload some tomorrow. it for now

Change of Pace

After spending our last night in Lisbon Portugal wandering around the tiny divy cafes until 3am with 2 people from Singapore we met in the hostel, H and I took an early morning cab the airport to catch our Easy Jet flight to Geneva Switzerland. After clearing a few mass transit snags we have now landed ourselves in a tent next to Lake Geneva for 15 usd per person per night. Neither of us has done much other than lounge around, tell stories, eat, read, and nap since we arrived yesterday afternoon. The weather is perfect, the water perfectly clear, and the both of us completely content to do not much at all (ie perfectly lazy). It's a very refreshing change from the chaotic pace, and latin sun of porugal. Tomorrow we take a mountain train to Luzerne Switzerland for more of the same intense laying down.

Lisboa

Short post: Today
wandered through the catacomb of a 12th century cathedral.
worked out in an absurd Portuguese gym.
ate all the roast meat that I possibly could for 5 euro
wandered through a rat's nest of medieval streets trying to find said absurd gym.
Was accused of being from London.

That is all.

Porto

Harrison and I arrive late last night on an ancient baby blue train and are now preparing to explore this strange city. Between the two of us we speak maybe 2 words of Portuguese so hand gestures and Spanglish will be our two primary means of communication. I think I'm going to buy some of the plentiful and cheap sandals available at every store in this city and just refust to wear boots until the Wacken concerts.

Plenary Indulgence

I can´t describe what a strange and wonderful feeling it is to be looking at a beautiful Galician city without having to continue moving past it until it disappears ine dust of the road behind me. To be not-walking is such a simple and still extremely guilty feeling pleasure that I´find myself smiling just to be sitting in a chair for an extended period of time. Santiago de Compostella is an ancient, medieval, stone and and stucco and clay and dust city of winding narrow streets, convents, castles, and cafes. The food is incredible, the prices are reasonable, and I am just so glad not to be walking past it that right now I´m inclined to say it´s my favorite stop so far. H and I are about to board a rickety Portuguese train to Porto. In an absolutely light and freely happy mood for once.

Santiagoooooo!!!!!

I´m there. I´m here. Right now. It´s awesome. I´m wearing sandals because boots are impossible. Just attended most of the pilgrims´mass and now have my Compostella. Off to the hostel with H then out and about for food and food. nada mas.

All my Jelly Fish Friends are Dead

Today....oh Today... I walked about 37 kilometers. By accident. I literally considered crawling the last few miles with my socks tied around my knees. Somehow I missed the sign from my turn off to Arca, 27 km ago, where I was counting on an easy meal, a rest, and recuperation period for tomorrow's Santiago entry. By the time I asked I had passed it by such a margin that going back would be unthinkably wasteful considering I'd have to rewalk it tomorrow. So I kept going, and going, and going until reaching this gigantic bizzare 5/7ths abandoned albergue complex made of concrete and rust within sight of the spires of Santiago, 5 hours later. I am apparently only 5 km away from my ultimate destination but I would honestly not be able to make it in boots right now. On my hands, possibly. The last 2 hours of my walk were the most unpleasant of my life. Worse even than the previous record holder, my 24 consecutive hour dorm move out day (and night and day) at the end of junior year of college. True, actual, misery.

But then I arrived, showered, put on sandals and ate a huge sandwich, half a roast chicken, a salad, some ice cream, and drank 2 liters of frigid water. And I´ve all but forgotten about 3 hours ago, which says something about the human condition I believe. I wouldn´t hardly remember the miles and hours at all except that my feet look like raw meat. And I keep looking at them and laughing at how freaking aweful that was.

Anyway,
I will be attending the Pilgrims' Mass at noon tomrrow barring the intervention of Unseen Forces.
Nap time now.

contrasts

I have been writing this post in my head all day as I walked and it has been a LONG day. I don't know what it was this morning, if I packed my bag with the weight perfectly distributed, or my feet finally turned totally into callus, or maybe it was carving 'Nimbus 2008' into the side of my walking stick, perhaps all three, but I flew this morning. I brutalized the camino. I frightened people. My 25 lb bag felt like a pair of helium wings. I passed every single monotonous thing in a much more interesting blur, finishing the first 20km of the day in a mere 3 hours which is around the average pace for a seriously overweight bicyclist. I literally jogged at times, jumping over things that 2 days ago I would have groaned around. This lasted from about 8:30 am to noon. Then as I stopped for water I began asking the distance to whatever this town is called, Azuria or something. By my most conservative calculation the answer should have been about 6km, so when I was told 8 I accepted that since the stage distance has been 10% more than estimated every single day even taking into account the 10% undercount. 8k is normally about an hour for me on average terrain so I set my playlist on my ipod to last about 60 minutes and set out into the progressively crueler afternoon sun. After I about 50 minute with no urbanization to speak of, I stopped at one of those tiny little roadside cafes that are such a relief to pilgrims' eyes. After sucking down a liter of ice water I asked the proprietor the distance to Azuria, '7 kilometers' is what she says without a breath of hesitation. At this point, my feet had long ago left all that glorious callus behind like the retread litter from 18 wheelers on the shoulder of the highway. So I limped on, ironically snacking on a strawberry flavored foot shaped popsicle. I didn´t arrive at my albergue until maybe an hour and fifteen minutes after I ate that damned popsicle. When I stepped up to the desk I literally smelled like a horse that had just galloped through a mile long puddle track of white wine vinager. I have never been anywhere near so drenched in sweat in my life. After I removed my foul socks, I just sat in a chair laughing at my feet. They don´t hurt but I could probably win 3rd place at a science fair with them on shock value alone. They have what looks like a school of tiny jellyfish swarming over them. I literally have blisters on my blisters. But thankfully nothing open or bleeding or infected so hopefully I can pull through the penultimate stage tomorrow. I´m famished so will cut this off at that appetizing point.
adios

PS: new photos are up here
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2330493&l=6548d&id=8815627

and I confirmed my supposed 24 km day as being just a hair over 31. According to both google maps and a guidebook in ENGLISH.

another 25km

All the complaining I've been doing digitally must have helped because today was better in every aspect than yesterday. The route, the sun, my feet, all were kinder. My mood was better and I even made better time to my destination. Though today was probably the least picturesque of the stages so far. To perfectly simulate it all you would have to do is put a grocery bag full of bricks on your back then walk down the shoulder of the interstate between the hours of noon and 3pm. The scenery was like one of those Looney Toons cartoons where they reuse the same background frame for every 3 transtions. Powerline....stonewall...cows....rock....powerline.... repeat ad nauseum. I am happy to say that I am only 66km from Santiago, which equals out to 3 normal to easyish days. STILL unable to post pictures, but not for lack of effort. Just Google Image search Galicia and that's probably a fair representation.

broiled and exhausted

Just arrived in my stop for the evening, a small river town called Portomarin. Like yesterday, the last few miles were barren tarmac. Even having put on sunscreen I can feel the heat radiating off of my skin in a way that means wearing clothing will be painful tomorrow. In kind of a crap mood today. Walking was painful drudgery and I felt like smashing my walking stick over every half kilometer stone waymarker telling me that a cold shower and clean bed were 4 sunstruck, knee-buckling downhill hours away. On a positive note I broke the 100km to go mark this afternoon. I believe I have something like 90 to go , which should bring me into Santiago on the 18th I believe. I have some great shots from the past few days but the last 3 spanish computers I've encountered weren't up to the task of uploading them. Time to see if a shower will improve my dispostion.

P.S.
A shower and brief nap did help a lot. I also just had a decent meal and managed to find an english book which have both made my afternoon more pleasant. At least now I feel rested. Dunno if I'm ready to face another dozen miles tomorrow though. Maybe after some sleep.

Galicia

60 km from where I began, and am on what feels like and appears to be an entirely different continent. Galicia is the Northwestern-most province of Spain and is Espana's answer to Ireland and/or the Shire. Everything is misty, and green, and mossy and cool. The average temperature when I set out at 8am is about 60 degrees F and never crosses 70. The terrain is combination of appalachia and scotland. There are flowers here that I didnt even think existed outside of nurseries. Every kilometer of trampled mud path takes me past fields of clover, wild irises, and thistles. Periodically clouds collide with the path and each pilgrim is treated to their own personal 30 feet of Camino as visibility becomes nil. Yesterday after climbing around 1000 meters to cross the mountains into Galicia, I encountered my first Pre-Roman stone town, O Cerebeiros. I stropped for lunch at a small cafe where I gorged myself on fresh local cow/goat's milk cheese covered with clover honey and bread, fried eggs with chorizo sausage, and still-boiling garlic soup. After about a liter of water and a generous cafe con leche I set out for the next town with an Albergue about 17 kilometers through the mist. When I arrived I discovered the town had about 22 residents and therefore no internet. So I have stopped enroute to update, though this ancient computer would ignite uf I tried to upload a picture onto it. My stop tonight should have a better connection so, hasta lluego for now.

PS. Am at said alternate connection without any more success picture wise. The last 5 kilometers of my 29 were hellish, all exposed dirt path in the brutal Spanish afternoon sun. Arrived alright however and just had a huge dinner consisting of a hamburger with every type of meat in Spain on it for just $4. I met a French guy today at one of my stops who had just retired and started walking the camino.... and couldn´t stop. He´s on his 6th consecutive return journey for this year. A bit over 10,000 kilometers since January he said...

Anyway, I don't think I'll have any trouble sitting and staying down after arriving in Santiago this week. Feet doing better but still looking a bit leprous.

un camino di-vino

Day walking is infinitely superior to wandering around in the dark wielding my walking stick like a spear at stray chihuahas. I set out at 8am through perfectly combed hillsides coevered with rows of gnarled vines and tiny green spherical grapes for the famous El Bierzo wine of the region. Along the way a met a fine pair of barefoot brothers from Peachtree City, Georgia that have been walking for 2 weeks since the border of France. I am currently in a Brazilian family-run hostel in a little one road town called Vega del Valcarce. I arrived here via mountain switchbacks, little logging roads along a stream, and the clear-cut zones surrounding high tension powerlines that crackle in a way that makes me wonder if walking beneath them is wise. So far I've been propelled exclusively by 2 coffees, peanuts, and a loaf of bread so I will now have a stroll down the street to find a cheap meal.

NOTE: all is well in the food department. Just ate 16 oz of Galician yogurt and 1/2 of a 10" empanada of tuna and local pimento peppers, washed down with a liter of fresh spanish orange juice.

7 hours of solitude

So I thought to myself that since I had been sitting on a delayed train for 12 hours yesterday drinking coffee that walking all night would be a good idea to escape the heat and other peregrinos. I'm not sure if the idea was a good one or not but I spent the hours between 10pm and 6am walking a few dozen kilometers from Ponferrada Spain to Cacabelos. My only company in the night were the moon, stars, the disembodied phosphorescent eyes of cats, and the hordes of yappy horrible dogs that liked to wait until I was next to their house to start barking. At times when the road angled upward it felt like I was walking into a sky boiling over with stars. I arrived in laughably named Cacabelos around 6am to find that the Hermitage for pilgrims didnt open until 12. But then I noticed people leaving their rooms open as hey departed and hermit-crab like, I moved into the abandoned shelter until 8am when the Hostel office opened next door. Today I am recuperating from last night with a shower and bandaids for my feet. I just ate a huge pilgrims meal, and then somehow wandered into a cellar filled with lawn chairs and gigantic hundred gallon wooden barrels of wine which was being dispensed at 40 cents a cup. I ducked the sun for a few minutes to sample the light cool wine and had a broken spanish conversation with the old proprieter about mushroom foraging after I saw the toad stooly calendar on his wall. I can´t wait to upload the pictures of the place with it's grape trellises, ancient casks, drinking gourds, chandeliers, spider webs, and happy Spaniards.

Buen Camino

Typing this after drinking 3 cafes con leche somewhere near Ponferrada Spain. Set out on my 8 day camino at 10pm after a huge meal at a hostel. Will camp overnight at a Refugio nearbye then continue on my way in the morning. The late start was due to an egregiously delayed 2 car train from Bilbao. Just a brief not to let everyone know I´m bueno. Have more walking to do.

The Sitting-Down-Near the Bulls

Hola,
H and are are alive and more or less well having been delivered from travel purgatory and Los Sanfermines. It´s quite a tale how we managed to get here in Bilbao since my last post from somewhere like nowhere. After our train to Pamplona we eventually managed to get tickets to Irun at the Spanish/French Border, and then to Vittoria where we had reserved a hostel via the internet. Our luck turned with the procuring of those tickets as a our hostel was easily located, near the train station, and beautifully appointed. We had a room and bathroom to ourselves for about 30 USD a piece. After dropping our bags and cleaning up, we hopped a regional train to Pamplona for the Running of The Bulls. We arrived around 8pm on July 6th, the first day of the festival, to a war zone. Everywhere were piles of grabage, prostrate bodies, puddles of wine, and wine soaked mud. The streets were wet with urine and booze. H and I each bought the traditional red neckerchief, and began to explore feeling like anthropologists instead of party goers. The place was the party of parties, which is a bit too much party for us apparently. We eventually met a group of guys from Colorado State University, who took us in to their group of 3, rounding out our number to 6 which made us all feel a bit more secure. After hours of wandering and watching, the group and I became separated somehow as I was talking to two kilted scotsman. Luckily, or so I thought, H and I had decided on a meeting place near the Plaza Del Toros in case of division. So I made my way there at about 2 in the morning, sitting on a bench waiting for Herr Sonntag. I awoke at sunrise around 5:30 to find that my wallet had been surgically removed from my cargo pocket by some gentle thief with a sharp knife and thorough knowledge of pocket anatomy. Luckily I had removed my bank card, driver's liscense, and insurance card from my wallet beforehand and stashed it in Harrison's money pouch which thankfully surved the night although the contents of H's pockets did not. So I lost a few days Euro but felt lucky to have come out with my throat and passport intact. At 8 am the first skyrocket exploded telling the runners to begin sprinting for their lives, followed by a second 1 minute later to inform them of the release of the bulls. From my bench I heard the first cheers of the crowds as the runners began to trickle in 3 minutes after the first report, followed by louder cheers for the bulls. The entire running only lasts 5 minutes if all goes according to plan, which apparently it did. At 10 o'clock after a conversation with a very nice french guy, I made my way to the bus station knowing that H and I had booked an 11 o clock bus to Vittoria, hoping that H had remembered that even if he had forgotten our meeting place. As I came to the escalator to the underground bus ramps, I felt an enormous bear hug from behind and heard "Greeeeeeeegg." H had apparently gone back to a park with the CSU crew and fallen asleep in a graveyard somewhere in Pamplona. After attempting to find our meeting spot at 9am he then thankfully retreated to the bus station. So we boraded the bus, arrived in Vittoria one hour later, and then slept for the next 9 in our red stained clothing, glad to have escape Pamplona more or less intact. Our CSU friends who camped next to their car, had also been robbed and were left only with the clothes on their backs, and their passports and bank cards which they had hidden in the wheel well of the spare tire of their car.

We spent yesterday taking it easy, and today was a day of transit. Tomorrow H will fly out to Dublin and I will make my way to the start of the Camino. All is more or less well.

a Spanish Odyssey

Ver mapa más grandeSince I last wrote Harrison and I have been drifting erractically around northeastern spain trying desperately to get from Barcelona to Bayonne France. We started off well, with an auspicious night of roasted chickens near La Rambla in Barcelona at a greasy spoon zinc topped diner staffed by roast chicken stained beer swelling profane spanish cooks. After a sweltering night in an air conditionless hostel we explored B town visiting Parque Guell, La Sagrada Familia, and a laundromat. We reserved seats on a night train from Barcelona to Zaregoza, a small town of 700,000 people that I had never heard of. After a being awoken 50 minutes before our scheduled stop at 3am, we were bussed from the middle of nowhere to Zaragoza's immense train station where we slept in an abandoned but well airconditioned lobby. At 7am we then jumped a quick train to the nearbye town of Calatayud, only to find that all of our connections from there to Bayonne were completely and mercilessly booked. Scrambling, we bought bus tickets to Madrid, only to be told later by the same rail station employee that more trains leaving from Zaragoza, the town we had just come from, to Pamplona were still available. So we handed over even more money and rumbled back to our starting point. As I type this we are in Pamplona with tickets to the Northern town of Hendaya and prayers to get us from there to Bayonne 40km away. We will consider stealing a car if we must.

much Nicer

Last Night, after aborting any further attempts at finding shelter for the night, and spending 3 sweltering hours in an internet cafe trying to prevent an identical situation in the next town, H and I sat down on the beach resolving not to move until 5 am the next day - around 13 hours total. The beach of Nice is composed entirely of skipping stones ranging in size from pebbles to street pavers. There we sat with our bottles of water, doner kebabs, and dirty, salt encrusted selves until the sunrise signalling the arrival of our train to Barcelona. We then spent the next 9 of 10 consecutive transit hours asleep on any surface that happened to be next to our heads.

After arriving in B, we took the subway to central town where we found that our hostel is adjacent to one of gaudi's sculptures-that-you-live-in. I have just taken a lifegiving shower and once H has done the same will set out in search of this place selling roast chickens for 7€. Already I love it here, probably due to the 75 degree ocean breezed weather.

It's 37 degrees celcius in Nice right now, where I am sitting. 37 degrees celsius is one of the only instant temperature conversions I know off the top of my head, because it's the mean temperature of the healthy human body. That means it's 98.6 degrees in Nice, where I am sitting. H and I arrived from Berlin via EasyJet, only to find every hostel, hovel, and hotel room within 10 miles of Nice booked. So for now we are stuck living under the inadequate fan of a grungy internet cafe waiting for our 6am train to Barcelona. We plan to stay up all night with our bags and sleep on the 10 hour journey. Nice is like Panama CIty, FL meets Spring break, meets North Africa.

Harrison has decided that his knee can't handle the camino, and so he will retire to Dublin for the week that I walk through Spain, only to meet me again in Porto, Portugal. No new pics tonight because the effort of digging my card-reader out of my backpack would just make me sweat more if that's possible.

new pics are up

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2316459&l=93a47&id=8815627

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2325040&l=ef599&id=8815627

Berlin ist Wunderbar

Harrison and I just returned from the Gold's Gym and a great workout, followed by ommelettes and wursts. After cleaning up and sight-seeing we will be in the internet cafe, uploading the 4 gigs of unpublished exclusive photos with our new card reader.

And to all concerned dont't worry about the beer; we've been drinking far more fizzy water than anything else, and certainly won't have another Munich mini-oktoberfest, especially with the coming Camino and return to France. I cannot however promise anything about stinky cheese overconsumption.