Camino de Santiago de Compostela

by AJ on 09 Apr 2008, 10:42

Day 8 from Malaga and I am in Cordoba. 200 km down and 1100 to go! The weather was perfect for the first 5 days. Day 6 had an hour of rain and yesterday it rained all afternoon. It is raining now.

he worst thing about the rain is the mud. I think there have been threads on this topic before. If you haven't experienced it, hope that you never do. the track looks good and firm, and it is, yet a layer of mud sticks to your boot at every step until very quickly you have 2" thickness on each boot weighting 2 -3 kg. Then you lose traction...

Waymarking has generally been good, but towns are a problem unless you have some Spanish. Even with Spanish it ain't always easy. If you are thinking of taking this route and have no Spanish then you deserve what you get: be warned!

Single men are often looked at askance, probably because most people don't know that a Camino Santiago runs through Andalucia. You are a foreigner, must be an itinerant ne'er-do-well and could well be an axe murderer. Things change when you anounce that you are a peregrino (if you have the Spanish to do so), provided of course that you are believed. I am having a great time - apart from the MUD.