But first we had better explain who we are and what we are doing. Hugh is a doctor who lives in the Gold Coast, Australia, and he has met his daughter Carrie, who has been studying engineering in Denmark. Carrie is known as Carolina in Spain.
We are starting our walk on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela (Camino for short). This is a re-creation of the old pilgrims walk across the top of Spain to the city of Santiago. We walk between hostels with our backpacks. We can walk as far as we want to, but the average person walks about 25 kms per day. Of course, we are far from average (!).
Today, we truly begin our journey, in the beautiful city of Pamplona, famous for the 'running of the bulls'. It is 700 kms from Santiago and we hope to arrive before the 5th of July. The weather is perfect, warm and sunny, a great change from Denmark.
This morning we collected our 'credencials' - pilgrim passports from the cathedral. These are used to collect stamps along the way, to show where we have been. Below, is a photo of some fresh pilgrims-to-be with our new passports.
Our Spanish is pretty basic, though has helped us out of a few jams already. Helpful old ladies in the street are happy to converse with us, despite blank faces.
For now, we should begin the walk ...
