I haven't posted anything on this blog for quite a while. Luckily, you will soon see that things are about to change because I am about to start the Caminho Português towards Santiago de Compostela and then Finesterre in Spain! I was in a bit of a hassle the last days because of uni but now I am ready for my new adventure. Boy, have I been waiting for his. I really need some time off an the "pilgrimage" is the perfect thing for me to relax mentally because my brain gets some leisure as well and can think about myself and the steps I have done so far.
Do you know what the Camino de Santiago is?
Well according to legend (or history) the apostle Jakob evangelised half of the Iberian peninsula back in the days, dying a Merthyr. His body was transported to the nowadays known Santiago de Compostela in Spain. This was in the beginning of the 8th century, Spain (as it is known today) was still occupied by the Moors and people where slowly getting into Christianity. In 811, the grave of apostle Jakob was rediscovered and he was used as a legend in order to help Iberian reunification against the occupation of the Moors. The result was the start of the pilgrimage towards Santiago in every form. On foot, boat and donkey ;). The Catholic Church has the official possession of the remains and if it issues you a "compostela", certificate that you have walked the way, all your sins will be forgiven. Technically, the Camino starts in front of your door although nowadays the most popular way is by far the Camino Frances, starting in France. However, I will walk the camino in Portugal, a map f which is posted below.
Let me say upfront that I am not a religious person but I do not want this journey to be religious anyway. The first thing I will keep in mind is that I will take my time! At the moment I am in Porto in Portugal and I am happy that everything has worked out smoothly, more or less! The first thing that happened at home was that I found out about my online order disaster. Since I was super busy in Leiden, studying and all, I thought it would be a smart idea to order all my hiking gear online. What a bad idea that was. Not everything in the package was not as I expected. The pants were to small and I did not had any pants to properly hike in. For a moment I was picturing myself, all geared up with proper backpack, hiking stick and everything, but in my polka-dot underpants. Ok, that was the exaggeration in my mind during that moment but it was not that big of a deal. Since I have a few days of leisure and sightseeing in Porto before starting the hike, it was not that big a deal but I will not order online again. After my parents took me to the airport I flew to Porto with Ryanair. Turns out that locals are actually really thankful towards Ryanair because since they started flying here, tourism is booming.
I will tell you all about my Porto adventures, including pictures, tomorrow. But first things first, for those who want to follow me during this journey I will post everything on my Tumblr blog, because I only have my IPhone and its easier to post stuff on the road with Tumblr:
If you still are a lazy-ass though, you can still follow me via my usual blogger ;). Just click on the above page of "wicked journals" and you will see my Tumbler postings.
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