How it ended.

How it ended.



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2019 How it began

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My journey to the Camino began many years ago. In the fall of 2011, we had just moved from Philadelphia to Chapel Hill.   We got settled in and then headed off for a barging trip on the Canal de Midi in the south of France. Our barging route took us past Moissac on the Canal de Garonne.   We stopped at the old church and learned that it was a pilgrim church for the Camino de Santiago.  (I now know it is a stop on the French Way- the Le Puy Camino.) We even received a credential (pilgrim passport) and had it stamped with a sello  or a stamp saying we had travelled as a pilgrim to this spot.  Along the canal route,we'd sometimes see pilgrims walking with their big backpacks.   Thus a seed was planted. Fast forward to 2019. Two friends asked me to join them in an Ollie class about the Camino de Santiago, offered by John Saxon, an inveterate pilgrim.  I went and we all were hooked.       We began planning a trip for 2020 and ...
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My first view of the Pyrenees - and SJPP

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  Wow, these mountains are steep!  I'm on the train from Bayonne, heading along the river Nive towards SJPP getting my first glimpse of the mountains.   I'll be crossing these in two days.! St Jean Pied-de-Port,literally "foot of the pass", sits in Basque Country, at the foot of a pass into Spain. We are only crossing foothills of the Pyrenees.  St Jean is an old,walled town complete with a fort that was garrisoned for many centuries.  We arrived at the train station began our walk into the old town and I got my first taste of these hills. Although I was planning to have my pack transported once I started the Camino, for this part of the trip,I was carrying everything -- UPHILL      
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