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My completed\u00a0pilgrimage<\/a><\/em>\u00a0started at\u00a0Pamplona<\/a><\/em>, which you can see at the lower right of the map at\u00a0Camino de Santiago 800 PROJECT: Map of the Route<\/a>silverarrow18.blogspot.com<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n * \u00a0 * \u00a0 * \u00a0 *<\/p>\n * \u00a0 * \u00a0 * \u00a0 *<\/p>\n I did my last post from\u00a0Puente Villarente<\/a>, in Spain – “about eight miles shy of\u00a0Le\u00f3n<\/a>” – on October 3, 2017.\u00a0 For reasons including that I only had my\u00a0tablet<\/a>, the post was extremely primitive.\u00a0 But it did note that – upon reaching Leon – “we will have hiked 250 miles from\u00a0Pamplona<\/a>, in the 21 days since we left on September 13.*”\u00a0 Here’s what I also noted:<\/p>\n The first 10 days hiking after leaving Pamplona<\/a> were pretty miserable. My left foot constantly throbbed, until it blistered up and got tough. But the day off in\u00a0Burgos<\/a>\u00a0helped a lot.\u00a0And since then we\u2019ve made good progress.\u00a0Still, we had to implement a Plan B, which involves renting bikes in Leon and cycling the remaining 194 miles.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n And speaking of Burgos: [Here I shared a picture of the city’s famous cathedral, with my “fellow traveler<\/a>,” taken the morning of September 26, on the way out of town.\u00a0 (Which took over an hour, hiking.) And to make a long story short, we covered the last 195 miles or so in seven days, riding\u00a0mountain bikes<\/a>, complete with\u00a0panniers<\/a>\u00a0on the back.<\/p>\n In other words, in the first two weeks hiking we averaged 12\u00a0 miles a day.\u00a0 In the last seven days we averaged close to 28 miles a day. But in a way that was just a variety of\u00a0Dorothy Parker<\/a>‘s “different kind of hell.*”\u00a0(We just got way too sore again, but in different parts of the body.)<\/em><\/p>\n You can get a better idea from a map at Camino de Santiago 800 PROJECT: Map of the Route<\/a>silverarrow18.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/em> It took ten days to hike from Pamplona to Burgos, where we took our first day off.\u00a0 It took another 10 days to reach Leon, where we took our second day off and picked up our pre-ordered bikes. Then in that long section from Leon to Burgos – of the total 450 miles – we covered 195 in seven days.<\/p>\n But not without mishap.\u00a0 Neither one of us had ridden a bike in 40 or 50 years, so it wasn’t really<\/em> surprising when my right handlebar took out – smashed the heck out of – the side-view mirror of some poor slob’s nice new car.*\u00a0 In the second mishap I literally “ran my ass into a ditch…”<\/p>\n We were zooming downhill one afternoon.\u00a0 I tried to adjust my left pantleg, and the next thing I knew I was laying in a ditch, bleeding like a stuck pig.\u00a0 And not just any<\/em><\/strong> ditch.\u00a0\u00a0A nice deep ditch covered with thorns and brambles on the sides and bottom.\u00a0 The “stuck pig” part came when my\u00a0Ray-Bans<\/a>\u00a0gashed the bridge of my nose, causing it to bleed profusely…<\/p>\n The third major mishap came a mere six kilometers from Santiago, when my rear tire when flat.<\/p>\n We finally got a new tube on and inflated, but then\u00a0had a time<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>getting the chain back on the\u00a0derailleur<\/a>.\u00a0 I finally flagged down a passing Spanish cyclist.\u00a0 He helped get that straight, but then – after he peddled on his merry way – we found out there were no rear brakes, which posed a problem.\u00a0 We knew much of the remaining six kilometers was downhill, and also that if applied too forcefully, using front-only brakes can cause a cyclist to go “ass over teakettle<\/a>.”<\/p>\n So my brother had us switch bikes, and we both glided – carefully and gingerly – into Santiago.<\/p>\n I’ll be writing on more of these adventures, including the several times I – or we – got\u00a0Lost in Spain<\/a>. But after five weeks in Spain – the last part of which included a nine-hour bus ride from Santiago to Madrid, and a 10-hour flight from Madrid to Atlanta – I can only say, with feeling<\/em><\/strong>:<\/p>\n * \u00a0 * \u00a0 * \u00a0 *<\/p>\n The upper image was courtesy of\u00a0Camino de Santiago 800 PROJECT: Map of the Route<\/a>silverarrow18.blogspot.com<\/a>. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The “Tipperary” image was courtesy of\u00a0It’s a Long Way to Tipperary – Wikipedia<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cNote\u201d also that an asterisk in the main text indicates a statement supported by a reference detailed further in this \u201cnotes\u201d section. \u00a0Thus as to the asterisk next to the passage “the 21 days since we left on September 13:\u201d\u00a0 We actually reached Leon on October 4.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Re:\u00a0Fellow traveller<\/a>.\u00a0 Here referring to a person who is\u00a0“intellectually sympathetic” – in this case, to the crazy idea of spending thousands of dollars and five weeks to hike in a foreign country – as opposed to the term as used in U.S. politics in the 1940s and 1950s.\u00a0 At that time and place the term\u00a0was a “pejorative term for a person who was philosophically sympathetic to\u00a0Communism<\/a>, yet was not a formal, ‘card-carrying member<\/a>‘\u00a0of the American Communist Party.”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/a\/ac\/It%27s_a_Long_Way_to_Tipperary_-_cover_2.jpg\")
Well, we did it.\u00a0 My brother and I arrived in\u00a0Santiago de Compostela<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday, October 12.\u00a0 This was after hiking – and biking – the\u00a0Camino de Santiago<\/a>. (As was shown on a map at the top of the post page.)\u00a0\u00a0as shown in the map above.\u00a0 Along the way I occasionally listened to my iPod Shuffle – to help pass the time – and one of my favorite songs was\u00a0It’s a Long Way to Tipperary<\/a>.\u00a0 Except in my mind I had to change the words to “It’s a long way to\u00a0Santiago<\/a>!”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nThere’s No Place Like Home<\/a>!!<\/em><\/h2>\n
![\"Young](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/0\/04\/Young_Dorothy_Parker.jpg\/220px-Young_Dorothy_Parker.jpg\")
Re:\u00a0 “Different kind of hell.”\u00a0 The allusion is to\u00a0Dorothy Parker<\/a><\/em>‘s famously saying – whenever the door rang in her apartment – “What fresh hell is this?”\u00a0 That’s also the title of Parker’s 1989 biography by\u00a0