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Fatima > Santiago > Francès > SJPP > Lourdes - Summer 2017

JabbaPapa

"True Pilgrim"
Time of past OR future Camino
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After a lengthy bout of illness that put this project into doubt (my initial plan was : 2016), it seems to suddenly have started to materialise.

Today, for the first time since Autumn 2015 I was able to get some actual hiking done without dire consequences of pain (5k semi-mountainous semi-tarmac terrain) -- and on Monday, I learned that my time limit for the Camino is finishing in early September at the latest (or postpone another year), so starting in late May at the earliest.

The precise time constraints are actually better encouragement than the physical/health improvements -- procrastination has been removed from the equation, so that either I do it or I don't. This clarity is valuable.

It'll be hard to work out a decent training regimen and hiking routes -- an Alp is not a good place for long-distance hikers to get any of our own stuff done properly.

Things are easier closer to the Monaco and Italian borders though, so maybe I'll look that way -- but there are some other possibilities.

I'm very happy that I might actually be able to manage this, with the Blessings of the Apostle and Our Lady Saint Mary to ask for.
 
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Keep us posted of your preparations and progress! Buen camino!

Thanks, but it's likely I won't be posting much here from the Camino IF I manage to get it done -- experience shows I have a strong tendency to vanish from the internet when I'm walking.

I will write about the progress of preparations though ... :)
 
I'm not sure why this has been moved to "other pilgrimage routes" -- I'll be following the Francès for about 2/3rds of the Way ...
 
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Thanks, but it's likely I won't be posting much here from the Camino IF I manage to get it done -- experience shows I have a strong tendency to vanish from the internet when I'm walking.

I will write about the progress of preparations though ... :)
I also vanish from the internet when I do the Camino and another thing I refrain from is a cell phone. I refuse to have one when I do the Camino and do not reserve. I take my chances and hope and trust in divine providence. buen Camino to all see you June 2 starting in Leon where I left off last year.
 
I also vanish from the internet when I do the Camino and another thing I refrain from is a cell phone. I refuse to have one when I do the Camino and do not reserve. I take my chances and hope and trust in divine providence. buen Camino to all see you June 2 starting in Leon where I left off last year.

I may very well meet you along the Way !!! :cool:
 
I have a strong feeling that this is happening.

And possibly this time, pre-Camino training is less important than organisation and dieting.

I've been on a steak diet for the past two months or so, which basically involves in my case steak and greens and liquids plus various liquids, plus whatever I need once a week or so when that's not enough, and I am shedding weight, slowly, and gaining muscle mass, slowly too.

And organisationally, currently I need to sort out all sorts of passport and other documents and health insurance and "enough medicine for three months" hassles. I'm realising how much more important these things are now than they used to be even two years ago, let alone in the 20th Century, though if I still had the health of my youth and proper travel documents, I'd just up and get going next week or something. :rolleyes:

I live along the pilgrim Way between Santiago (and Lourdes) and Rome, and the pilgrims and ex-pilgrims that I sometimes simply bump into by accident are certainly helpful.
 
The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
Every week, some degree of the natural reticence against such a mad project just dissolves.

Of course, I have my motives to keep back instead -- but they're no longer a significant worry, and I'm prepared again, if necessary, to just set out one more time penniless and on dubious knees
 
Oh well -- I may need to postpone this again, to 2018 ...
 
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Well Kanga, I took my first lengthier training hike on flat surface on Tuesday, just about 8k, and I've had over 36 hours of ghastly debilitating pain since -- and if I miss the May starting window, if my body isn't up to it yet, then the rest of the year will just be borked because of unrelated commitments from September onwards

I'm not ruling it out yet ; a lot can happen in a short time ; and I suppose there's still a possibility in November or something -- but unless I can get my body into being at least 10k-capable shape at the start, I won't be capable of making even the trip there to do so :(

EDIT : although I suppose I can't rule out starting in June ...
 
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I already have a traditional BLACK woollen Pilgrim Cape.

Coming home this evening, I discovered a BLACK woollen Pilgrim Cape before my front door.

It's crazy.

Such gifts cannot be ignored.
 
I do wish that God would sometimes just now and then be slightly less annoying towards me.

But well, Love is never easy.

None of this belongs to my original plans.
 
The 2024 Camino guides will be coming out little by little. Here is a collection of the ones that are out so far.
I do think that I may very well just bung some stuff in my backpack and go.

My knees and ankles are hell and it'll be murder, finances are a bad joke, and etc -- but everyone who knows or trusts me is telling me either to trust my gut, or to pray, or that I now MUST do this ...

And there have been so many Marian and Jacobite Signs that they're impossible to ignore -- not honestly anyway.

---

I DO anyway now have an identical replacement for my cool sleeping bag that was stolen from me back in the late 90s ... :cool: :p :rolleyes:
 
My godfather has suggested that I should walk all of the way home instead of thinking about finishing at Lourdes.
 
Well, just made my phone call about obtaining a credencial <sigh>
 
€2,-/day will present your project to thousands of visitors each day. All interested in the Camino de Santiago.
It would be nice if people were to take me as I am, but they don't, or just to consider me with honest good will, as sometimes you do.

The beauty of this forum should be in the random encounter with someone strange. As on the Camino.

My love for every pilgrim is unconditional.

----

This pilgrimage is dead for this year, though I have a strong feeling that somehow I'll get it done.

When, how, I haven't the foggiest.

I wish that the Graces of the Way will be in the centre of our desire.
 
The focus is on reducing the risk of failure through being well prepared. 2nd ed.
I wish this were simpler ...

The physical handicap is probably the worst, though my desire to overcome it is co-material with my desire to do another Camino, to do this Camino.

Though the chronic depression doesn't exactly help either

Being a "purist" though, and a "true pilgrim" (whatever that means) just adds some extra layers of difficulty and not much help besides.

I can't "cheat" 'cos I'm a "purist" :p ; I can't approach this except as a totality because I'm a "true pilgrim" :rolleyes:

It's everything or nothing.

phew ! sometimes I wish I were still as callow to the meanings and purposes of the Way as I was in '93 ... not really of course, so maybe all I'm regretting is my youth ? LOL

Realistically, this is a year's training --- it's what I needed last time ; but it's also a year's acclimatisation to pain

pah !! so it's not so simpler

It remains a beautiful itinerary that I continue to dream of
 
Instead of a year's training - why not training on the way and walking really short stages the first weeks? Buen Camino, SY

PS Depression gets better with walking in my personal experience - but that you know already, I guess.
 
Instead of a year's training - why not training on the way and walking really short stages the first weeks? Buen Camino, SY

PS Depression gets better with walking in my personal experience - but that you know already, I guess.

That was the plan, but it's ruined by the fact that any significant day's hiking is causing me at least 2-3 days of serious pain.

I mean sure, with unlimited time and funds and magic absence of responsibilities I could probably go ahead, but that's unsurprisingly not the case.
 
The focus is on reducing the risk of failure through being well prepared. 2nd ed.
And what about doing insignificant days of hiking/distance in the beginning?

We have all the time - until we die - then we have an eternity.
We need also to eat at home, so a frugal camino isn't necessarily more expensive than staying at home.
Responsibilities - yes, they can put a stopper to plans!

Buen Camino, SY
 
It's so beautiful to live on (or currently next to) the Camino, even 2000K from Compostela -- I had a lovely "buen Camino" this afternoon from one of the volunteers in the local pilgrim office, who happened to be lunching with his wife down here, and from my responses to them it still seems clear to me somehow I'll get this done -- it's just not possible now til next year at earliest, even IF I can manage to sort the physical health problems and etc.
 
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Ironic certainly, but my current understanding of this seems to be moving towards the idea of a "true" Full Camino, from here to here on foot via Santiago.

What's certain in any case is that my next one, if it happens, will be radically unique, as every Camino should be.

I am humble before the Will of God.
 
If I can succeed in implementing this idea, then it would be Monaco > Saint-Maximin > Aix > Salon > Arles > Saint Gilles > Montpellier > Narbonne > Andorra > Lleida > Zaragoza > Tarancon > Toledo > Caceres > Fatima > Santiago > Francès > SJPP > Lourdes > Montpellier > Arles > Aix and etc home > Monaco

It's a crazy project

But how can I seek anything lesser ?
 
This CRAZY idea is not a matter of when but if -- it's still very hypothetical, though it's the logical conclusion of several things that have been brewing in me since the 1993 Way

Surprisingly, and he has a lovely tendency to surprise me in the best of ways (and himself), it's my godfather's idea originally, as such --- his understanding of the Camino is astounding for one never having set foot on it, better IMO than most pilgrims themselves --- though neither he nor I really understood what he was actually suggesting to me at the time ; but my thinking now is also quite essentially due to the fact that I've finally realised that if I'm ever to do the return pilgrimage as such, then not only does it need to be all the way, but it also needs to be after pilgrimage all the way back here, and by consequence both in the same all-the-way foot pilgrimage. Anything else would be half-way from my perspective, from the "purist" point of view, you can't just chop the Camino up into convenient bite-sized portions for this sort of purpose. (though others who do just that for other purposes do very well indeed)

Scary of course, but at least I know now since the 2014 one that the "reverse" Camino is something I can actually handle psychologically -- it's far easier to handle solitude in anticipation of company than transient company in anticipation of solitude, and it's taken me 25 years to get my head 'round that difficulty, but that's done. I hope.

It would take FAR more organisation than I've ever had to create so far in the previous pilgrimages. Also, not even thinkable until well after I'm installed back at my old/new place with that GREAT view etc. over Monte-Carlo. :cool: Plus some training etc.

The most beautiful thing about this is that I'm now more seriously thinking of our Parish altar as the End of the Camino than I ever have before -- the perspective of walking home from such a Pilgrimage back to the altar of our own Parish church is strikingly powerful.

But crikey --- Six. Months. (or more) ; and only Fatima to Santiago in the midst of it with typical pilgrims that I might hope to see more than just once only then gone forever !!

Well, maybe a few compañeros for a few days near Arles hmmmmm ....

Lots to think about ...
 
St James' Way - Self-guided 4-7 day Walking Packages, Reading to Southampton, 110 kms

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