Hello from Finland!

[Heloise]

Hi everyone!

I´ve been reading this wonderful forum for a year or more, but have been too lazy to write anything... Now it´s the time.

I´m 33-year old woman from Finland, I´ve walked the camino frances April-May 2006, camino aragones (Jaca-Estella) September 2006 and camino primitivo (Oviedo-Melide) May 2007. At the time I´ve so much to do during my holidays (I´m repairing an old house with my husband) that I just have to dream about walking VdlP or camino del norte one day. In fact, after finishing the camino primitivo (i.e. walking 3 caminos during one year) I decided to wait until I have a really strong inner need or vocation to walk again - I don´t want that the caminos become only a nice way to spend my holidays... so here I am, joining this forum and the stories of yours, maybe sharing something about my caminos - obviously my inner vocation to walk again is growing and growing!

Thank you for all of you, I´ve really enjoyed being in this forum! Thank you, Ivar!

Heloise

 

[sillydoll]

Hola Heloise,
Welcome to Ivar's cyber albergue!
Do you have a website or a blog where we can read about your walks? I am planning on walking the Aragones next year and feel quite nervous after reading Rebekah's blog entry where she said:

"I thought I knew the camino routes pretty well, but I wasn't well informed on this one, going in. .... this trail is also the most difficult I've encountered. I was only out there for a few days, and I feel like I've had the stuffing kicked out of me."

Then I read Barbara Cappuccitti's diary on the Canadian Pilgrim's website which was even more scary!

"...the path, occasionally marked, but never at intersections, was a narrow, tortuous, and clinging desperately to the hillside. It wasn't more than two feet wide, it was covered with rocks the size and shape of small ovoid potatoes. They rolled under our feet. It was steep. There was often no place to plant a stick, because The Edge was right there, hidden in brush. Down was way, way down. The tops of big trees brushed our faces, and even they weren't rooted anywhere near the bottom of the valley. I was plastered to the side of the cliff. No stones here, just hard rain smoothed, sun slicked red earth and the EDGE. She yelled from somewhere over the edge that I should join her. I skittered over, on my bum, and didn't stand up until my feet were safely over that lip."

Ay-yay-yay! I hate rocks, suffer from vertigo, and want to do a swan dive off ledges! Perhaps I am loco to want to walk this route??

 

[Rebekah Scott]

Re: Hello from Finland_ Aragon route

Jeez, I´m sorry I scared you.
The Aragonese IS a tough go, but it´s VERY do-able. In retrospect I know I seriously over-did the second day out, hiking up to San Juan de la Pena and back down, and from there on to Arres in the rain. WAY too much too soon, and it cast a pall of tiredness over the rest of the hike.

If I had to do it again I´d take a cab up to the fab old church and do all my walking along the camino, which was as knockout beautiful as it was difficult. If you are fit, do not hesitate! Just don´t be foolish like I was.

Rebekah

 

[tuulis]

Hi Heloise,
nice to meet someone from Finland! I am Tuulis from Suomi, too; leaving for my first part-camino at the end of August. I´m trying to walk regurlarly and was in a good start but unfortunately (or luckily now..) had an appendix operation two weeks ago... there are 6-7 weeks time to practise; what do think, is it enough?
Hope you a good camino planning! Tuulis

 

[Heloise]

Hello!

Sil, don´t be afraid at all! I guess the quote of Barbara´s blog concerns only going to the monastery of San Juan de la Pena. The rest is much like camino frances, road, paths without stones etc. Climbing to San Juan de la Pena was tough, it took me 2 hours to climb 2 kms and sometimes I had to use my hands, too. I was there all alone, didn´t see anybody and felt myself very brave and a little loco to do it.

There a many alternatives to do it:

1) do not visit San Juan de la Pena at all. (I really don´t recommend this one!!!!)
2) walk the long path there (appr. 10 kms) and short path down). I met one pilgrim who did this and said it was very hard.
3) stay at Santa Cruz de la Seros, walk the short and steep path up to SJdlP and back down
4) walk on road there and back (it´s 7 kms from SCdlS to SJdlP)
4) take a taxi for example from Santa Cruz de la Seros to SJdlP and back and continue walking on the camino

I did 3, and walked on to Santa Cilia de Jaca. Rebekah´s day sounds a little bit too much, yes Just remember to have always enough water and something to eat, becouse there is much less shops and bars along the way as there is in camino frances. But there are charming, almost abandoned hamlets, like Arres and Ruesta, which both have also nice albergues. Just go for it!

Hei Tuulis, nice to meet you, too! You are living an exciting time of your life, I hope you will be healthy and enjoy the waiting of the camino. The preparation and dreaming also gives us so mucht! I have noticed that it´s really different to walk on the camino than it is normally at home: you walk slowlier, have the backpack, the terrain varies more than here in southern Finland etc. I mean you don´t have to be in extra-good fit to be able to walk on the camino. And when you are out there, you may notice that every day in the camino makes you a better walker! So don´t panic But if you know you have for example hypermobil arthichles as I do (I don´t know what it is exactly in english, yliliikkuvat nivelet), or flat arches of feet, you may need to exercise the muscles, too, not only walking long distances.

I hope you all the best for your camino. I think your camino has already started, as everybody else´s who plan their camino. It´s not only going to Spain, it´s our state of mind.

 

[Heloise]

Hello everybody!

I haven´t been here for almost a year, since I´ve become a mother of a sweet little babygirl, and have to put aside all those plans about pilgrimiges for a while But anyway, caminos have been such a great part of my life that I sometimes have to come back to this forum and remember my caminos someway or other, and maybe, maybe sooner or later walk again... with all my family maybe

Have a great spring everybody!

Johanna

P.S. Becoming a mother has also been a kind of a camino, oh yes!

 

[JohnnieWalker]

Hola Heloise - great to hear from you again. Congratulations on becoming a mum. It is a great ambition to walk with your family.

Kepe in touch

John

 

[sillydoll]

The littlest pilgrim on my 'Walking with Children' post (http://www.amawalker.blogspot.com) is a 5 month-old baby! Maybe you don't have to shelve your dreams just yet!

 

[Alan Pearce]

Hi Heloise

I hope your daughter brings you as much joy as mine has given me!

In 2008 I met a lady from Latvia who was walking some of the Frances. She had from memory 3 boys who were 6,8 and 10 years old, and she had left them at home in the care of her husband and mother-in-law. She finished her walk in Burgos, and told me that she would return in 10 years time, when her youngest was 16 and semi-independent, to finish her camino. I was very impressed with the scope of her long-range planning.

buen camino

Alan

Be brave. Life is joyous.

 

[Heloise]

Thank you everybody Wonderful to be here again!

The little one is already very used to be carried in a sling, and I hope she has inherited my passion of walking, so I´m quite sure we´ll do some hiking sooner or later, and of course, the time of childhood is so short I´m able to walk myself when I´m retired :mrgreen:

To see the parenthood as a kind of pilgrimige has really been quite a pleasure for me, and parenthood in general is such a pleasure, yes!