Category: Camino 2024

As we rode east on Paseo de Prado, we passed a number of monuments that we didn’t get to on our promenade the previous day.

We turned right into a tunnel leading to A-2, a main expressway leaving the city in the direction of the huge airport (MAD) in the Madrid district of Barajas.

The Uber driver dropped us off at the hotel entrance, we walked a few steps with our backpacks to the registration desk at 11:25 and were offered a room upgrade and a room key and went immediately to our best accommodation for Camino2024. It was a great way to begin the transition from the Camino to our life at home.

We had access to an executive lounge which was open all day and offered food and snacks and drinks which we turned into dinner around 6:00.

We thoroughly enjoyed our accommodations from our 11:30 checkin to check-out at 8:30 the next morning, with a great night’s sleep in the comfortable king bed in between.

The Hotel Shuttle delivered us to the T-4 terminal at 8:45 where we checked our packs at the American Airlines reception area (no waiting in line), cleared security without incident and walked to our flight’s boarding area and waited until boarding at 11:40 a.m.

The trip across the Atlantic seemed excessively longer than usual. As it turned out, it was, taking 8:45 minutes in the air with a 120 mph headwind. This made the return trip almost 2hr longer than the trip on the same route with the wind behind us two months earlier going in the opposite direction.

By the time we landed, deplaned, cleared customs, collected and rechecked our packs, cleared TSA and made our way to our connecting flight to Greenville, we were the last to board our flight and as soon as we were buckled in, the plane pulled away from the gate.

The trip to Greenville was too long also. It took 25 minutes to taxi from the gate to the queue line for takeoff, Another 20 minutes for the 7 planes in front of us in the queue to lift off.

The actual flight only took 20 minutes from lift off to touch down in Greenville. Add another 10 minutes for a short taxi and letting us off the plane. Then another 25 minutes to wait in the GSP baggage claim area for our packs to be unloaded from the plane and make their way to Jim’s waiting hands at the turnstile.

Our friend and neighbor, Caren, picked us up at the GSP airport, drove us home and welcomed us home after 60 days of Camino2024.

A quick walk-through our home revealed it was just about the same way we left it. We luckily escaped the damage suffered by so many Hurricane Helene victims in the Carolinas and Virginia.

For our family and friends that shared Camino2024 with us via the blog, we hope you were able to enjoy our account of the experience and understand why we have continued to revisit the Camino de Santiago de Compostela now for the 6th time.

Post Camino2024 reflections will follow.

We’ve spent a number of days in Madrid. Linda did an event for Michelin here in the late 1990’s and we have stayed here either getting to the Camino and/or coming from the Camino in 2014, 15, 17, 19, 22 and now 2024. We have stayed at the MAD Airport Hilton or in three different places all near the Atocha train station.

Most of our stays have been 2-4 nights, to adjust to the time zone before walking a Camino or using it to wind down after a Camino before flying back home.

Madrid is a great city to walk in. We have walked usually in a radius of a mile or two from our accommodation to just explore, exercise, eat out or shop. There are safe, beautiful parks nearby, a wide range of architecture, museums and historical monuments, bars and restaurants. The merchants and service providers as well as residents, as a rule, are welcoming and helpful.

A wide variety of modern public transportation options make it easy and inexpensive to get around beyond walking distances. It’s a great place to visit and Jim fantasizes, especially during this visit, about living here.

Continue reading “Madrid”

No problemo.

We left Mexico (Pencion, that is). at 4:30 a.m. and walked to the Santiago train station, arriving at 4:45 and found it dark and locked up tight. We waited outside until the doors were opened and lights turned on at 5:00. We had no trouble finding an empty seat.

At 5:25 we were allowed onto Vía (platform) #1 after having our backpacks scanned by security. We also found a seat on Vía #1 and waited until 5:45 to board our 5 minute late train to Ourense.

The 20 minute ride was uneventful with nothing to see as first light was at 8:00.

The train change at Ourense occurred seamlessly. We picked up our packs, walked out of our first train across the vía (about 15 feet) and stepped up into our second train and found our seats. The 10 minutes allotted for making the change was excessive, as it actually took less than a minute.

The 2 hour and 15 minute ride to Madrid was also uneventful. A Colacao and croissant from the train snackbar served as a temporary breakfast. We only saw the central Spain countryside for the last 30 minutes as first light and a pretty sunrise welcomed the new day.

We came to a stop at Madrid-Chamartin train station at 8:45, donned our packs and made our way along the vía, up a welcoming escalator to a couple of empty chairs in the station waiting area to begin killing the next 6 hours until our apartment is ready for checking in.

Last night using Whatsapp, we negotiated a deal with the apartment owner of our accommodation in Madrid. Holding firm to the 3:00 checkin time, she agreed to meet us at the apartment to let us drop off our packs at the apartment and to give us the key to the apartment at 11:30 for an extra 10€. This will allow us to spend the wait time eating lunch or getting re-familiar with the area surrounding the apartment, rather than just sitting somewhere with our packs. So step one of our time killing strategy is to wait at the train station with our heavy packs at our feet and not on our backs until about 11:00.

At 11:00, we put on our packs and walked to the area where all the taxis were. When we couldn’t get anyone to stop for us, we realized that all these taxis were letting people off at the station, then going around the building to a new area that wasn’t there last year. So we walked around the building too and saw a million taxis waiting for someone to ask them for a ride. We hopped into the first taxi we came to and showed the driver where we needed to go. It was now 11:08 and we were concerned we’d be late for our appointment.

We monitored the maps app on the taxi dashboard as we worked our way through the busy Madrid, mid-day Saturday traffic. We seemed to be holding the 11:20 ETA on the app and at 11:20, the driver dropped us off at the front door of the apartment.

We waited until 11:35 but no one showed up. So we began sending Whatsapp messages, calling the owner’s mobile phone number and messaging through Booking.com. We finally got a response that someone would be there in 15 minutes. At 12 noon, a lady showed up at the door with a key and opened the door to the apartment building followed by our apartment and began showing us around but dwelling on rules about the apartment, etc. She then asked for the 10€. Jim pointed out that we were disappointed with their preoccupation with the rules (some of which were either obvious expected standards of behavior and insulting or frivolous such as being fined if any linens had makeup stains on them) The owner had also flooded us with multiple messages through Booking.com and Whatsapp during the past week, leading up to our arrival about our need to communicate any problems promptly or be faced with being held responsible at departure. Jim also pointed out that they had disrespected us by not showing up on time.

The lady apologized and said that in exchange for the 10€ they were now going to let us occupy the apartment immediately rather than wait until 3:00 p.m. Jim told her that they had started our contractual relationship on the wrong foot and we hoped the rest of our stay would be better. We then paid the 10€ and took the keys and immediate possession of the apartment at 12 noon, eliminating the need for any further waiting to check-in. Hopefully we have also layed the groundwork for a more pleasant experience for the 3 day duration of our stay.

The apartment is in a great location. It is not modern, but it has a kitchen and gives us a good base to operate from as we wind down from Camino2024 in this great city.

We did some grocery shopping at a close-by supermarket but otherwise crashed for the rest of the day.

Today we began the winding down/get-back-to-the-real-world process.

First, we didn’t set an alarm and slept until 9:00! We still had cafe-con-leche and tostadas for breakfast (didn’t want to shock our system too much.)

After breakfast we did a “trial run” walk to the train station to check the time it took and to help us decide if we wanted to walk it tomorrow morning with our full packs or use a taxi. We decided we’ll walk it.

We returned to our room and chilled until 3:30, when we walked a few blocks to a restaurant for lunch/dinner.

We spent the rest of the afternoon reorganizing our stuff to make it as easy as possible to maneuver with our packs getting in and out of the trains tomorrow.

We were unable to get seats on a direct train to Madrid when we bought our tickets yesterday, so we’ll have to change from one train to another in Ourense with 10 minutes in between exiting the first train and boarding the second one. We’ve never been in the Ourense train station before, so we’re a little anxious about that process.

Our train departs from Santiago at 5:40 a.m. tomorrow morning. We arrive in Ourense at 6:20 and the train for Madrid departs at 6:30. It arrives in Madrid at 8:45 a.m.

Our train will arrive at the Chamartin station in Madrid, but our booked apartment is located near the Atocha train station some distance away. We’ll wait until we get to Madrid to decide how best to get to our final destination with our packs: either catch a local connecting train or take a taxi.

Needless to say, we’ll get to bed early and set two alarms to make sure we get up in time to board our first train.

So we’re moving from a relatively calm, uncomplicated life of the past two months to meeting a tight schedule in unfamiliar territory in an unfamiliar process where we don’t speak the language, understand what station announcers are saying or what the arrival and departure boards mean. It’s a slight increase in stress to say the least, but part of our transition back to the real world.

Depart Time: 8:25. Temp: 61F RH: 100%

Walked: 8.9 mi. Camino 2024: 296 mi.

We completed our 6th Camino today at 11:55 a.m. when we arrived at the Santiago de Compostela Pilgrim Reception Office, presented our credentials and were rewarded our 6th Compostela.

This morning we walked our final day totally in daylight, where as the previous 5 final walking days, we began the walk from Lavacolla in the dark.

After so much rain the last weeks of Camino2024, today was dry… not a single drop of rain.

It was the quickest processing for us at the pilgrim’s office, arriving at 11:50 and receiving our Compostela’s at 11:55! In 2019, our wait time was over 5 hours.

We were two of the 2540 Compostela’s rewarded today.

A pilgrim couple from Australia offered to take our photo and we walked together and chatted for a while on our approach into the suburbs of Santiago.

We walked to the train station to purchase our tickets to Madrid on Saturday morning and had lunch, while waiting for a 2:30 checkin at Pencion Mexico ( of all places!)

We’ll pick up from here on our blog entry tomorrow.

Depart Time: 8:45. Temp: 64F RH: 100%

Walked: 4.7 mi. Camino 2024: 286 mi.

Not necessarily a complaint but a statement of fact. We have walked in more rain in the last 3 weeks (12 days) than we have experienced in our previous 5 Caminos combined, which spanned a total of 260 days!! Camino2024 is clearly unique in that respect, alone.

As we get ready to begin todays short walk, it’s raining cats and dogs! We may need to organize all these pilgrims and begin work on an ark!

Today was our worse rain day so far. It rained without stopping, sometimes very heavily. The path was often a stream which was constantly wandering from one side of the path to the other. There was more mud and muck to try to avoid often unsuccessfully. The only good part was it seemed to be mostly dirt and organic material and not manure.

Needless to say, we didn’t do much photography. The few shots we took are shown here and resulted in a wet phone and wetter clothes.

We stopped at our hostel at 11:30 during a major downpour and then moved on to a familiar bar in the village, as our room would not be clean until 1:00.

We hung out at the Bar Botana, which was the dryest place we could find and it provided food and drink and restrooms and a place to sit. The manager/waitress was pushing the homemade soup, but we declined and went for bulk!

Remembering the earlier pitch for the homemade soup and the potential need for a light dinner option (we vowed not to venture out in the rain for the rest of the day)…. Jim approached the waitress/manager about some soup-to-go. She sadly shook her head but Jim showed her his empty 1/2 liter water bottle and she disappeared into the kitchen and quickly returned with a just emptied spaghetti sauce bottle. Jim smiled, she smiled and she disappeared again, returning with the bottle filled with hot, homeade soup.

Jim explained to her, I have a room, access to a kitchen but no food, klinging to the warm bottle of our soup-to-go. He then shoved the bottle into the side pouch of his backpack and said it was his “soup pouch”, which brought a shared laugh and he paid our bill.

We walked back to the hostel in the rain and found our room waiting at 12:45. We checked in and began the process of removing wet clothes, cleansing and warming wet bodies in a clean, walk-in shower, washing and drying wet clothes and shoes and then other more routine activity for the rest of the afternoon.

We visited the well equipped hostel kitchen at 5:30 to have a light dinner of soup and crackers.

Two interesting young ladies joined us at the table with their own versions of dinner and we added entertaining conversation to our evening meal. Our dinner companions were from Florida and Singapore.

After dinner and goodbyes to our new friends we parted with a concerted wish for a dryer tomorrow.

Tomorrow>>>>>Santiago!!