Why the Camino?

I first heard about the Camino in 2006 when I met a woman from South Africa on a beach in Mexico who had just completed the Camino Frances from St Jean to Santiago de Compostela. I had never heard of it before and she was so enthusiastic about it, I thought I might do it one day. Years went by and then I had an opportunity in the summer of 2013 to go off walking for a few months.

I thought about going to Andorra first, as I have never been there and join one of the routes in France. Then I met up with a friend who told me she, too, had done the Camino years ago and had just completed another route from Portugal. I looked at her guidebook and realised that there was a route from Geneva, Switzerland via Le Puy and St Jean. Now, that really appealed to me because it was along a marked long distance path - the GR65.

But!!!! It was 2000km and therefore 4 times longer than any walk I have ever done and it would mean over 3 months of walking. I had the time but could I actually do it? I didn't know but I decided that I was going to try. I knew right from the start that I might not make it. Anything could happen, including sickness and injury, and it might rain so much that I ended up just being miserable. There was no way of knowing and, just like Kilimanjaro last year, I was going to make an attempt. If I made it, great. If not, well I tried.

Return to the Camino in 2014:

I returned to walk all the parts that I had to miss out last year due to swollen knees and connected the dots, as it were. I also walked the Portuguese Camino from Porto to Santiago. All in all I did it in 54 walking days, a total of 1297.7km (811 miles)!