#vegetarianonacamino

[patrickarchana-caminofrances]

Our day as a Pilgrim on Camino Frances

It’s now day 17 of our French Camino. As you know we started in the Southwest of France in a small village called St Jean Pied de Port. Same place that my favourite author Paulo Coelho also started his Camino.

In Spanish, Camino means The Way. There are many different Caminos but they all end in Santiago De Compostella.

By now, there is a sort of a routine that we have set.

On most days Archana is up at 5:30am and after a quick shower she does her exercises, stretches and a set of InnerEngineering Yoga (Shambhavi Mahamudra).

Patrick is up by 6:45am to do his stretches and exercises followed by a shower.

We have both realised that this early wake-up is an essential to have a good start. As we say, well begun is half done!

Usually by 7:30am we have our bags packed and brought down to the concierge so they can be picked up by the baggage transport service by 8am.

We then have a breakfast, an essential request to FTC (Follow The Camino - Irish booking agency) when we made the bookings through them. Most offered a fantastic buffet breakfast, one hotel even had champagne included!! However, some have only offered a limited choice and one in Logrono only offered a glass of Fresh Orange juice, a pastry and some tea or coffee. In Quintallina del Monte, we stayed in a Rural home & the breakfast was really limited to couple slices of cheese, Patrick had some scrambled eggs and Archana just a toast (stale baguette toasted) with butter and jam. Fortunately we were carrying our own muesli, so requested some milk and yoghurt. For the amount we walk daily, we do like the full breakfast as usually on the way there are limited options and we need to ensure sustenance. On that day Patrick walked 40 km.

Between 8:30am to 9:am we usually leave the accommodation and start walking the Camino. Depending on the size of the town it could be a few 100m to 2 km plus (at times) until we get out of the town and start waking on the trail.

The longer the trail the earlier we try to leave so we are in the next town before it gets too hot around 3-4pm.

Arriving into a town is always exciting, as you navigate to the hotel, you discover some of the sights.

In most places when we reach our bags are waiting for us.

The routine is to check-in, unpack, have a good shower to relax the body and then do some stretches and have a snooze (Spanish siesta time is between 2-4pm) until the outside cools down a bit. Surprisingly the showers (water pressure and hot temperatures) have been perfect, except one!

If we need to do the laundry (usually every 3/4days) we go to the nearest coin laundry as a priority. Some hotels do offer a cheap price for a bag wash however they also use a dryer, which we don’t prefer, as we are kind to our clothes and the environment. Once the laundry is sorted we then cover the town, usually the church or cathedral and other interesting monuments.

By 7:30-8pm it’s time for dinner. We have opted dinner inclusion in most places especially if we are staying only one night, to save us hunting for places that could offer us special menu, since I am a vegetarian by choice however Patrick does have a mammalian meat allergy that needs to be managed. The dinner includes a pilgrim’s menu - 3 course meals including water, wine and bread. They aren’t very inventive with their vegetarian meals though, so most nights Archana gets a mixed salad for starter and a pasta with tomato sauce (freshly made) for the mains….. usually there is a carafe of wine, sometimes a glass but some places have given us a whole bottle (750 mls) at times.

If our package doesn’t include dinner then on those nights, we usually settle on Tapas or Pintxos and sangria or wine.

It’s usually an early night, around 10pm as we have to repeat the cycle again the next day. The wine here is really cheap, €1.8 to €2 per glass (from AUD $3 or ₹150), the wine is always excellent, easy drinking and so far never given us a headache or hangover as no sulphites added (given the wines here have no sulphites added unlike many wines in Australia)!

The Camino is obviously one of Spain’s major revenue earner - Religious tourism!

We booked through an Irish Company called Follow the Camino #followthecamino. Along with the baggage tags we also received a guide and app from them to assist us during the Camino. So far we had a great selection of hotels, monasteries, B&B type accommodation ranging between no rating to 5 star rating. Similar to the breakfast it’s been a mixed bag experience. Some average experiences and others absolutely splendid surprises! Like in the Tom Hanks movie, life is a box of chocolates……🙏🏽