Getting to Saint Jean

Sunrise in Phoenix the day before heading to Spain

“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.” – Anonymous

We both enjoy motivational quotes. Elizabeth has been creating a list of quotes so we will have plenty to share over the next several weeks.

Gary – We made it to Saint Jean Pied de Port. Our friend Mark (who is watching Rangeley till Cooper pick’s R up this weekend) picked us up at 5AM on May 16th to bring us to the airport. We flew from Phoenix to Charlotte then connected to our overnight flight to Madrid, landing early morning on the 17th. Using American Airlines frequent flier miles, accumulated by some flying, but mostly by using the AA credit card for all of our purchases, we were able to get round trip Business Class tickets for $53.00 each. So all that driving around the country visiting the National Parks had the added bonus of us being able to fly Business Class “across the pond”.

Once in Madrid we had some time before our flight to Pamplona. Our two previous trips to Pamplona we took the train, which is great. We just are trying the flight this time. The train is 3 hours 11 minutes and takes off from central Madrid. The flight is 60 minutes and we are already at the airport. They arrive in Pamplona within 30 minutes of each other, so we had some time to kill at the Madrid airport.

Our Madrid flight arrived 45 minutes early, which you would think was good, but.. It made the flight 7 hours and 15 minutes. They served dinner late because of some turbulence in the beginning, then they serve breakfast before landing so the “lights out” was about 4 hours. Not much time to sleep. Then when we landed at 6am we had to clear customs. Trouble was there was another big flight before us and the majority of the customs agents started their day at 7am. Oh, well, we had a long connection anyway, may as well chat with other passengers as we go through the “cattle chutes”.

May 16, 2023

Elizabeth:

Happy 64th B Day to Gary yesterday!

For anyone who wishes to see my very detailed pack list, feel free to email Gary at: GPHP2AZ@gmail.com and we’d be happy to forward it you. 

My pack weighed in a bit more than I ideally wanted (14lbs) before water. Items I added this trip, that were not in my 2019 pack, is a knee brace…all good currently but I have a history of needing one 🙃; a wrist brace ( history of radial tunnel nerve issues this last year and will be using my hiking sticks each day, so…); two inhalers due to recent allergy related breathing issues. I am seriously hoping those will not be needed in the near future 🤞. I also packed vitamins that most likely will be available in Spain but I am accustom to the calcium/magnesium/ zinc and joint vitamins I have been taking so I brought what I needed. It is common to “carry your fears” so besides carrying too much water most of time 🤠, the above items were my security extras.

Our three year old silver lab, Rangeley, was confused at 4:45AM when a good friend dropped Gary and I off at the airport. Mark drove away with Rangeley looking out the window, as if to say: “But, But, wait! Where are they going without me!?”. After a week in the increasingly hot temps in Phoenix, having a grand ol’ time with Mark and his dog, Rangeley will be pleasantly surprised to see his human brother, our son Cooper, next weekend. Cooper will take Rangeley up to cooler, higher elevation Prescott Valley, AZ to romp on a large, off the grid farm with, our daughter-in-law Chelsea, until we return in July! 

While in the Madrid airport (now May 17th with the 9 hour time change added onto our day 😴) we met a woman from New Orleans, Leslie, and a woman, Julie, who used to live in San Diego, is from Vietnam and now working full time in southwestern Spain as a civilian on a US Navy base. Within moments of our lining up for the Pamplona flight, we met many other interesting international people with backpacks on, chatting about their plans to do the Camino in part, in it’s entirety, for the first time or, in our case, for a 4th time!

The prearranged taxi driver was standing in baggage claim after our short one hour Iberia Airlines flight from Madrid to Pamplona with a sign: GARY PARKINSON. We offered for Julie, from Vietnam,  to share our 1.5 hour cab ride over the Pyrenes Mountains to Saint Jean Pied de Port,  France. The official start of the Camino Frances route.

We stopped in at the Pilgrim office to get our very first stamp in our “Credential” a passport of the Camino 2023. After checking into “Plan B”, our accommodations for one night, we visited the macaroon store, walked around town taking pictures of classic shots from the movie The Way, had a fabulous dinner with Julie and another women from San Francisco, Claire, and after 24  hours of travel with a significant lack of sleep we showered and crashed in our private room, falling fast asleep for the next 10 hours!

Tomorrow, May 18,  we will walk five miles uphill, 2,000+ vertical feet, to just beyond the famous Orisson to a 2019 opening of a place called Borda. The day is slated to be in the mid 60’s and sunny. A slow going,  magnificent beginning to our month and a half long journey to Santiago.

Here we go!!

Above is a map of Spain. The blue box is what the map below is showing. We will be starting on the far east side of the map in Saint Jean Pied de Port France and walking west 500 miles to Finisterre Spain on the Atlantic coast. You can see we will walking through several cities (of 100,000+ people), Pamplona, Logrono, Burgos, Leon and Santiago.