Life's a Stitch

So, you're thinking about doing the Camino de Santiago, or you don't want to do it but you're curious. Here are some suggestions and what I wish I'd have known ahead of time:

1. Almost everyone I talked to on the Way agreed with me – it's harder than they were expecting terrain-wise. The only exception being C, who for some reason, had an easier time than the rest of us. Expectations? The power of positive thinking? Ahead of time he told me he would not suffer from blisters and guess what? Not a one, no blisters for C. That alone is a Camino exception worth noting.

2. Pain control: walking 20k+ per day you can count on pain. Bring whatever drugs you need. If I had known that bursitis and tendinitis we're going to be significant I would have brought my tens unit along to place on relevant trigger points. Voltarin gel and Ibuprofen, AKA Vitamin I, are available in Spain.

3. Foot care: as soon as you feel the slightest discomfort, attend to your feet. The pebble in your shoe or that hotspot of pain can cause bruises and blisters that take days to heal. Some people swear by applying little pieces of duct tape to the painful spot to avoid the b word.

4. Allow yourself a slow start. Get over the jetlag prior to beginning and take the first few days slowly. If you're limited for time start farther down the route.

St Jean Pied de Port, the French starting point, which became particularly popular due to the movie "the Way," does not allow a gentle and gradual start. Even if you taken the break in Orrison, the second day, particularly the decent, can have a negative impact on your Camino if you are prone to knee and ankle issues. If those areas of your body are in good shape, have at it.

5. Make sure you take breaks even if you don't feel like it. It makes a difference to the wear and tear on your feet and exhaustion level.

6. Phone service. This is a long one, but not Camino specific. It applies to any phone service from Europe.

If your phone is unlocked it's easy to find SIM cards in Spain. If you are starting across the border in France, keep in mind that your reasonably priced Spanish service won't work there. You can buy SIM cards that reach farther than Spain at a higher price.

We bought Vodaphone cards for 15e for an hour of worldwide calling, 60 texts and 1.5 gigs of data, good for 30 days with the ability to carry forward the unused portion. Good in theory, but the online/call-in recharge feature didn't work with foreign credit cards. Instead we recharged at Vodaphone stores, which always wiped out our carry forward credits, necessitating a call to customer "service." The quotes indicate the level of service to expect. Next time I'd get the lower 10e card and recharge when necessary without concern for carrying forward the unused portion. If you run out of phone minutes you can always use data to call on Skype.

7. Bank Machines: if you are a Scotiabank or Bank of America customer, there is an agreement with Deutsche Bank in Spain, allowing you to use the ATMs without fees, however they are located mostly in the big cities. Deutsche Bank has a partnership with the Spanish postal system, Correos, and occasionally there are ATMs outside of post offices. The withdrawal limit is 600e per day, so planning is required. Avoid bank machines on the weekends. If your card is kept, you won't be able to recover it until Monday.

Plan carefully, there are multi day stretches on the Camino without access to ATMs and some of the Spanish banks will not honour foreign cards although their sign indicates they are on your bank's debit system.

8. We found we could purchase bus tickets onboard and bus drivers can give change. Sometimes, on city buses, there's a limit of 10e in change.

9. Business hours: most stores are on the siesta system, closing roughly between 2 and 5:00pm. The larger grocery stores (Mercadona, Dia Max, Eroski, Frioz) didn't close. Most restaurants open for dinner at 8:00pm, some catering to pilgrims, a bit earlier. Museums are generally closed on Mondays.

I'll be doing a separate post on the budget.