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[dotty]

Hi all,

We're wondering if we could walk the Camino from here in Southern France down into Portugal. We'd follow the Arles route and then the Frances and then the Portugese. We would be travelling with our 3 children and also our animals, propably 3-4 Donkeys and 3-4 Llamas We can all walk 20km a day easily and do often and our animals are used as pack animals already. We would have plenty of time to complete our journey. The thing that seems most difficult is the practicality of stopping places with that many animals and traversing towns etc. We really want to make this journey so any advice we can get would be so helpful.

Thanks in advance

 

[sillydoll]

Walking with animals

Hi there,
Sounds very romantic!
Perhaps you could get some advice from http://www.chemindecompostelle.com
It is in French but if you live in France that shouldn't be a problem.
You can also visit http://www.bourricot.com (this one has an English link) which is mainly for hiring donkeys, but they may have some good links to help you plan.
Good luck.

 

[Dawn of a new Day]

taking donkeys

hi i walked from St.Jean Pied de Port in May last year. I met a couple that walked with a donkey and camped there way.
I would check, as once they got to spain, the donkey was "arrested" and was sent back home to france.
dawn

 

[dotty]

Thanks for the welcome.

I'm trying to slap every romantic idea I get right down and imagine traipsing up hills in driving rain and cold wind with unhappy children and awkward donkeys. I know the chemindecompostelle site and have their information and also the bourricot site. It seems the walk is done with donkeys and is also ridden, chemindecompostelle have a guide for donkey walkers/horseriders. I live in France but my French isn't perfect so I can read but I don't understand everything. I think the French side of the route apart from trying to avoid towns would be the easiest partly because of less language difficulty and also it is allowed to overnight camp wild. It's is I think different in Spain and whilst people probably do camp wild I imagine subtlety is the name of the game and that's not easy with three kids and a herd of animals is it!

It's difficult because idealy I'd just like to open the door and go with a couple of maps trusting to whatever to guide us and it's balancing that spirit against total irresponsibility and the welfare of my family (and by family I mean my animals to) and also responsibility to other walkers. I wonder if we should think of taking the lesser used route once we get into Spain and if that would be wiser.

Everything I've read says the ways are open to animals too although I doubt if that really means a herd. I think if a Donkey was arrested (poor thing) and sent back it was probably lacking a vital piece of paper there does seem to be a fair bit of paperwork involved mostly for the welfare of the animal as in vet certificates and such like.

We wouldn't be bringing our animals back or ourselves for that matter. We'll walk from our life here and then on to a new life in Portugal, at least that's the idea!

 

[JustRob]

Truth

<I'm trying to slap every romantic idea I get right down and imagine traipsing up hills in driving rain and cold wind with unhappy children and awkward donkeys.>

The cognitive dissonance one experiences trying to reconcile the ideals of the journey with the realities of the road can be the greatest burden one has.

Once you let go of the expectations, the beauty of the true journey manifests itself, if not during the journey, certainly in hindsight.

 

[aluso]

Portugal here!

Hi there!

Have you started already?
I'll be doing the Portuguse camino to Santiago in mid march it would be lovely to find you all in the way !!
If not you can email me if you need any help in Portugal!

aluso75@gmail.com

Good Camino and a happy stay in Portugal !