Köln➡️Barcelona➡️Pamplona➡️Saint Jean Pied de Port. Few days of travel, by plane, train, and bus, with some walking of course.
I will be back in Pamplona in a few days after the hardest elevation gains of the entire trek tomorrow. I’ll stay there for a rest day, and I’m very excited to explore that city.
Köln ➡️ Barcelona ➡️ Pamplona ➡️ Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port
After a few days of planes, trains, buses—and, of course, some walking—I finally made it to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.
Tomorrow, I begin.
In just a few days, I’ll find myself back in Pamplona, but getting there means first crossing some of the hardest elevation of the entire Camino. I’ve planned a rest day there, and I’m already looking forward to exploring the city. But first, there are mountains between here and there.
Getting to Saint-Jean today included a 1½-hour bus ride that felt more like a roller coaster—except without the reassuring safety restraints. Our driver was fast. This is clearly a road made for motorcycles, and several riders seemed to agree because they actually motioned for our bus driver to slow down! Needless to say, I’m very happy my return to Pamplona will be on foot.
Along the way, I met a sweet woman from Canada who has been traveling around Europe for several weeks and is walking four days of the Camino, basically back to Pamplona. She became an instant lifesaver because she speaks French. Apparently, my high-school French has decided it’s not ready to join me on this journey.
And maybe that is already part of the Camino.
You arrive somewhere unfamiliar. You don’t know exactly where you’re going. You meet a stranger who helps you find your way.
I also met two women today, Meliza and Lisa.
Lisa is from Washington State, in her 60s, and I immediately connected with her story. Like me, she reached a point where she decided it was time to focus on herself after spending so much of her life taking care of a spouse, kids, work, and everything else that comes with life.
She’s also a runner, and we laughed about how the hardest part of the Camino might actually be walking. I get it. I’ve honestly considered sending my bag ahead on some of the shorter days and just running them. It would be so much faster! But somehow, I think that defeats the entire point.
Lisa said people back home have asked her if this is some kind of midlife crisis.
We are definitely on the same page about that one.
No. Maybe it’s the opposite.
Maybe reaching this point in life means finally realizing that we don’t have to be busy every minute of every day.
I read something today that really resonated with me: being still and wasting time are not the same thing.
Sitting quietly, walking without a destination beyond the next town, thinking, noticing what’s around you—that isn’t wasting time. Constantly scrolling through shopping, social media and emails can consume hours without us even realizing it. I’m only at Day 0, and I’m already starting to see the difference.
Then there’s Meliza. She lives in Madrid but is originally from the Philippines, where she was a nurse. Today she works as a nanny. She has walked part of the Camino for several years, but this is her first time on the Camino Francés.
At one point we asked if she liked being a nanny.
“No.”
Would she ever go back to nursing?
Also no. She hates blood!
We laughed, but that conversation stayed with me.
There have been times I wished I’d had the courage earlier in life to leave accounting when I realized it wasn’t something I enjoyed and try one of the many other things that interested me.
But lately I’ve wondered if accounting was really the problem.
Would I have felt differently if I had spent more of my career surrounded by people who genuinely supported one another—people who wanted to see each other succeed instead of always looking out for themselves?
Maybe it wasn’t entirely the work I grew tired of. Maybe some of it was the environment I was doing the work in.
And maybe that’s another thing I’m hoping to understand somewhere along this walk and the reason I’m here.
Not because I’m having a midlife crisis, but because at some point you realize there is still life left to choose.
Tomorrow is HARD! It’s 17 miles with 4700 ft of elevation change. Saint Jean France across the border to Burgette, Spain.
One step at a time. Buen Camino