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 A meetup on the coast of northern Spain with our two Basque overlander friends, Josu and Ana, wasn’t just a fun reunion. It also helped to illuminate some of our early experiences in Spain, including: our visit to Pamplona, the Basque festival we accidentally crashed in Durango, our overnight in the fishing village of Lekeitio, and our jaunt to Basque Country’s biggest city, Bilbao.      The continuing saga of our Camino de Santiago, including an update on the blister situation and a few new challenges. Included in this blog post is an explanation of why we stopped walking, afterthoughts on the journey, and whether or not we recommend walking the Camino. There are also a few practical tips for those preparing to become pilgrims, like useful websites, packing tips, dealing with albergues, and designing realistic daily steps.
 In this blog entry, read about our early experiences as pilgrims walking the Camino. This post includes impressions, challenges, highlights, information on the “credencial del peregrino,” “albergues de donativo,” eating on the Camino, and what to do when blisters happen.
 Bruno and I embarked on an unusual adventure for us: we became walking pilgrims on the ancient and infamous Camino de Santiago. In this blog post, learn about what the Camino is, why we decided to take the journey, how we prepared, and how we packed.  We’re not the only ones living a nomadic lifestyle in a home-on-wheels. Just meet fellow overlanders Frank and Sharon if you don’t believe me. We first met them a couple years ago in Uganda, but recently reconnected with them in Spain’s Pyrenees Mountains. They had some very exciting news to share with us!
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Louise Jones-Takata - Nicely done. I like the “Reportage” on Basque Country. I actually travelled to Bilbao because I wanted to experience/visit the Guggenheim Museum designed by Canadian/American architect Frank Gehry. In my opinion the Museum outdoes the collections.
Brittany - Thanks for the comment Louise – the Basques are a fascinating group of people. I would encourage you to read the book I mentioned in the post if you’re interested in learning more.
Sadly, we didn’t catch the Guggenheim in Bilbao, but that makes for a reason to go back one day! 🙂
rcs - Perhaps one of your most enlightening articles ever. Made me see a lot of similarities with Canada and other parts of the world.
Distinct in culture and wanting to be recognized as separate from Spain is very similar to the Quebecois here in Canada.
Also the Basques ‘rural’ sports make me think of the Highland Games found in Nova Scotia; these were brought to Canada from Scotland hundreds of years ago.
Brittany - Well, as I mentioned, the Basques may have been the first Europeans in Newfoundland, and apparently there are a few place names after them – as well as actual Basques – in the east coast of Canada. We should go on the lookout for them this summer!!