Monthly Archives: December 2021

On “Will I REALLY live to 120?”

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basilica of Moses - how old was Moses when he died
Moses made it to 120 years old, “with eye undimmed and vigor unabated…” (Deut. 34:7.)

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Welcome to the “Georgia Wasp…”

This blog is modeled on the Carolina Israelite. That was an old-time newspaper – more like a personal newsletter – written and published by Harry Golden. Back in the 1950s, people called Harry a  “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.” (For his work on the Israelite.)

That’s now my goal as well. To be a “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.”

For more on the blog-name connection, see the notes below.

In the meantime:

I just published a new E-book. (And also a paperback version I just handed out to 11 or so family members at our week-early Christmas get-together.) You can check out the book by clicking on Will I REALLY live to 120?: On Turning 70 in 2021 – and Still Thinking “The Best is Yet to Come.” It’s under my Nom De Plume, “James B. Ford.” And the book represents “a bet I’m making with myself. That I might just live to 120, like Moses…”

Will I REALLY live to 120?: On Turning 70 in 2021 – and Still Thinking “The Best is Yet to Come” by [James B. Ford]

Naturally I found some errors in the initial author’s copy version. Like in the paperback, Kindle Direct Publishing had to reformat the manuscript I uploaded. In the original Microsoft Word format, the paperback came out to 102 pages, but as reformatted it came out to 161 pages. There’s more on those boring details in the notes, but the point here is that after publishing the book, I happened on to a bunch of other stuff – web articles – about making it to 120.

Like How to Live to Be 120 – WebMD. Posted in 2000, the article noted the work of Roy Walford, professor emeritus of pathology at UCLA. Walford claimed that “calorie restriction with optimal nutrition (what he calls the CRON diet) can help people live for 120 years — possibly even longer.” See also CRON-diet – Wikipedia, which described it as a nutrient-rich, reduced calorie diet that involves “calorie restriction in the hope that the practice will improve health and retard aging, while still attempting to provide the recommended daily amounts of various nutrients.”

Unfortunately, the good doctor Walford died in 2004. And since he was born in 1924, that means he only lived to 80 years old. (10 years from now for me.) Which doesn’t necessarily mean his ideas are all wrong. For one thing, he suffered some trauma that most people are able to avoid. (Like me and Moses.*) “An adventurer as well as a scientist,” Walford was perhaps best known for his “two-year stint in Biosphere 2, the utopian greenhouse experiment in self-sustenance.” But the Biosphere experiment took a serious physical toll on Walford’s health:

Working six days a week in the fields left him with an injured back that ultimately required surgery. Worse, he suffered nitrous oxide poisoning because the structure’s glass enclosure prevented ultraviolet light from penetrating and dissipating the gas, an agricultural byproduct. The resulting nerve damage has made it difficult for Walford to walk.

For myself, my back is fine, it’s been a long time (if ever) since I worked six days in a field, and I’ve avoided nitrous oxide poisoning. (So far.) In fact, as noted repeatedly in the “Turning 70” book, I can still stair-step 30 minutes at a time, four days a week. but wait, there’s more!

I do all that stair-stepping wearing a 30-pound weight vest and ten pounds of ankle weights. Which is why I – like Dr. Walford – can afford what I call “splurge days.” Like the one I enjoyed last Thanksgiving – and gained two pounds. But next day it was back to my regular diet, including a breakfast “kale and spinach omelette,” sprinkled with wheat germ and flax seed.*

But back to the subject at hand: All that “make it to 120” stuff I missed before publishing. There’s You Will Want To Live To 120 Years Old, which presented a bit of a dichotomy:

Americans are saying that they want to live longer than the average American, but they don’t want to become centenarians. They want to live 11 years longer than today’s average American, but they claim that their competitive spirit will disappear…

Photo by Jim Linwood on Flikr

For myself, I’ll try to keep my competitive edge as long as possible. (With “vigorous intensity” stair-stepping and eating things like a kale-and-spinach omelette for breakfast. And not end up like the other old geezers at right…)

Then there’s Lifespan – is 120 really the new normal? From 2020, it said “it’s not enough to have a long lifespan; a long healthspan is also a vital goal and an economic challenge.”

The article reviewed a book on supercentenarians – those significantly over the age of 100 – and added this: “On average, middle-aged people today can expect to live 120 years; the elderly can expect to live to 100; and younger people can expect to live beyond 120 years.” And just for the record, I would put anyone who stair-steps with a 30-pound weight vest and ten-pound ankle weights as more toward the “middle-aged” side of the scale. (Certainly not “elderly.”)

Then there’s We’ll soon all live to 120 years old – but this is probably the absolute limit, claims expert. Back in 2014, “Professor” Colin Blakemore said the number of people living past 100 soared by 71 per cent in the preceding decade. (From 2004 to 2014.) But his claims – that 120 is the absolute limit – “contradict those made previously by researchers at Buck Institute of Age Research, Novato, California earlier this year.” (The article gave his title as “Professor Sir Blakemore,” but the heck with that; this is America.)

On the other hand, there’s Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests. Posted in May 2021, the article noted a study using a “predictable pace of decline” to determine when the human body’s “resilience” would disappear entirely, leading to death. (Resilience being the body’s ability to recover from a “disruption.”) The possible good news? (For me?) Researchers found a range of 120 to 150 years, noting also that in 1997, “Jeanne Calment, the oldest person on record to have ever lived, died in France at the age of 122.”

And finally, there’s the book, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old, by Deepak Chopra. I have the Harmony Books paperback, originally published in 1993. The good friend who gave me the book had a marker at pages 318-319, “The Timeless Way.” That’s where Chopra noted three forces that pervade all life: creation, maintenance and destruction. And he added that as long as “creation dominates your existence, you will keep growing and evolving. Evolution thwarts entropy, decay, and aging.”

Another note: Chopra noted that the most creative people – those who tend to live the longest – share certain traits. Among those traits: Creative people are able to “contact and enjoy silence.” (Like me.) Also, they can “remain centered and function amid confusion and chaos.” Which I’ve been able to do – most of the time – during these last troubling two years or so. “They are childlike – they enjoy fantasy and play.” And finally, “They are not rigidly attached to any point of view: Although passionately committed to their creativity, they remain open to new possibilities.”

As to that last character trait (Number 7), see also Empty Your Cup, an Old Chinese Zen Saying. Which I mentioned in a post from last March in a companion blog, On “Zen in the Art of College Football.” It talked in part about how that old Zen saying sounded a lot like Philippians 2:7, where Jesus “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” As for remaining open to new possibilities, even or especially at the age of 70:

This is harder than you might realize. By the time we reach adulthood we are so full of information that we don’t even notice it’s there. We might consider ourselves to be open-minded, but in fact, everything we learn is filtered through many assumptions and then classified to fit into the knowledge we already possess.

Which brings us back to the question: Will I REALLY live to 120?

I’m betting that I can, and the bet is supported by statistics showing “by 2050 there will be seven times as many people aged 100 or older.” Since I plan to be one of them, I’m paying WAY more attention to diet and supplements – along with keeping up a vigorous exercise program. And now, you too can get in on the bet. Years from now you might look back and see just how this author stayed so fit, cheerful and young at heart. Or you might end up saying, “What a dumbass. He wasn’t even CLOSE!” Like, if I got run over by a truck tomorrow.

Either way, it should be interesting. Stay tuned!!!

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Could this be me, 50 years from now? (But with a chin beard?)

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The upper image was initially courtesy of Moses 120 Years Old Eye Undimmed Vigor Unabated Image – Image Results. That site led me to How Old Was Moses When He Died? – Crosswalk.com. The article includes a timeline of Moses’ life, including a note that he saw the Burning Bush at age 80 – also ten years from now for me – and that “if you asked someone in the Old Testament how long Moses lived, and you told them 120 years, they might say that he died prematurely.” (A note: The “Burning Bush” link is to Exodus 3:1-21, in the King James Version, the one God uses.

Re: “More boring details.” Another note: To get to that 100 pages I added some posts from this and my companion blog. But since the updated version totaled 160 pages, I may take some of them out – in the paperback version. I also have to go back and re–number the table of contents. Also, I just found out this morning that in the book I wrote about going to my grandson’s high school graduation “in 2106.” I meant to write 2016. A friend I gave the book to pointed that out.

Re: “Me and Moses.” Most people reading that sentence will say automatically, “Oh no, that should be ‘Moses and I.'” But years ago I discovered a simple rule to get the right grammar. Take out the “other guy” and repeat the sentence. In this case, talking about Professor Walford suffering “some trauma that most people are able to avoid. (Like me and Moses.)” If you say “able to avoid, like me,” that sounds better than “able to avoid, like I.” On the other hand you wouldn’t say, “Me went down to the lake,” just as you shouldn’t say “Me and Johnny went down to the lake.” Is that simple, or what?  

Re: “Kale and spinach omelette.” Technically an omelette has two or more eggs, plural. I have one egg for breakfast, but figured I had to dumb it down, like Moses and Jesus and Paul had to do…

“Healthspan” is the part of a person’s life during which they are generally in good health. See also The Free Dictionary, which defines it as “a period of good health in a person’s life.”

Re: “Will want to live.” The full cite is You Will Want To Live To 120 Years Old | Advice | Travels. The article talks about the dichotomy mentioned in the main text, along with this: That nearly twice as many people (14% versus 8%) would rather die before 79 years old than live to be over 100. For one thing, I doubt that those in that 14% are even close to being 79…

And speaking of the Ageless Body, Timeless Mind book, here’s the full list of Deepak Chopra‘s seven traits shared by us (or “we”) creative people:

  1. They are able to contact and enjoy silence.
  2. They connect with and enjoy nature.
  3. They trust their feelings.
  4. They can remain centered and function amid confusion and chaos.
  5. They are childlike – they enjoy fantasy and play.
  6. They self-refer: They place the highest trust in their own consciousness.
  7. They are not rigidly attached to any point of view: Although passionately committed to their creativity, they remain open to new possibilities.

The lower image is courtesy of Moses Eye Undimmed Vigor Unabated Image – Image Results. The image accompanied an article, “Special, Not So Special, Special” | Faith Lutheran Church.

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Re:  The Israelite.  Harry Golden grew up in the Jewish ghetto of New York City, but eventually moved to Charlotte, North Carolina.  Thus the “Carolina Israelite.”  I on the other hand am a “classic 69-year-old “WASP” – White Anglo-Saxon Protestant – and live in north Georgia.  Thus the “Georgia Wasp.”    

Anyway, in North Carolina Harry wrote and published the “israelite” from the 1940s through the 1960s.  He was a “cigar-smoking, bourbon-loving raconteur.”  (He told good stories.) That also means if he was around today, the “Israelite would be done as a blog.”  But what made Harry special was his positive outlook on life.  As he got older but didn’t turn sour, like many do today.  He still got a kick out of life.  For more on the blog-name connection, see “Wasp” and/or The blog.

Back to Camino 2021 – Pamplona to Logrono…

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Encierro de San Fermín
One thing I’ve never done – and never plan on doing – is run with the bulls in Pamplona…

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Last September I spent a month in France and Spain. Mostly to hike over the Pyrenees Mountain part of the Camino Frances. When I got back home I did posts on arriving in Paris, taking the train down to  Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, and from there hiking some 177 miles in 17 days. I got the Faithful Reader as far as Pamplona, on September 4. (After arriving in Paris early on the morning of August 26.)

Incidentally, the image at right is from the BULLFIGHTING MUSEUM … Plaza de Toros in Pamplona. And speaking of which, in my last Camino-post I wrote that in the next post I’d discuss more about our day off in Pamplona, “including a touristy visit to the bullring that Hemingway made famous.”

Then I said I’d discuss the 14-day hike to Burgos – with a day off in Logrono – and eventually about making my way back home, via Madrid. (On September 24, 2021.) I added:

I’ll also talk more about the drudgery of hiking, mile after mile, hauling a 15-pound backpack. From my Facebook posts most people would think all I did was drink beer, have great meals and enjoy the sights. “Tra-la-tra-la-tra-la!” But there was real drudgery involved, which seems to be where the spiritual breakthroughs happen… In the meantime, Buen Camino!

But alas, I got side-tracked. By Donald Trump and Holden Caulfield.

And here’s another news flash. In this post I’m only able to get the Faithful Reader as far as Logrono. That’s still 75 miles worth of Camino-hiking to Burgos. And Burgos is where I left the party to head for home, via Madrid, while the other three kept on hiking to Santiago.*

But now I’m back home and “back on the Camino,” if only in spirit. And taking up where I left off, I’ll start back with our first day off, on September 5, after hiking over the Pyrenees. (Eventually I’ll get to the spiritual breakthrough part.) Not surprisingly, that Sunday in Pamplona we slept a bit late, after hiking ten-and-a-half, 13-and-a-half, and 13 miles the previous three days. (A mere five miles on the first day, but it was all uphill.)

Which meant we had a late lunch…

Which brings up how they make hamburgers in Spain. They call them hamburguesas, and they usually come with an egg on top. (A “huevo,” shown above left, along with lots of fatty bacon.) Back home I try to eat healthy, which normally means little or no beef. However, after four days on the Camino – hiking over steep mountains – I was ready for a change. As I wrote later:

I finally broke down and had an Hamburguesa. I told the waiter, “No huevo” – an egg, like they love in Spain on their burgers – but I got the (silly) huevo anyway. At the restaurant in the Plaza del Castillo, next door to the Cafe Iruna.

By the way, I also had two “grande cervezas,” Amstel draft beers. Aside from that we also checked out the route of the Running of the bulls. (Which happened in July. “Dang, we missed it!”) Starting with a pen on the outskirts where the bulls are first gathered and then let loose, to run up the sectioned-off streets to the Plaza del Toros. Two hiking companions and I – Tom’s wife Carol and her brother Ray – paid six euros each to do the tour of the famous bullring.

“Very comprehensive.” For one thing we learned that they pay great attention to the minutest detail, down to exactly the right kind, color and texture of the sand covering the inside of the bullring. (Along with having to have “good drainage.”) Like I said, very impressive.

But mostly we relaxed. In part because starting the next day – Monday, September 6 – we were set to hike six straight days. (59 miles.) But as long as we’re talking about Pamplona, I should say a word or two about the Café Iruña, of Hemingway fame. At least in September 2021, the place was “all crowded and touristy.” Partly because you weren’t allowed to sit inside, where all the “color” is. And our waiter was kind of rude. But the nap we all took later helped out a lot.

There was one other episode of note. We did laundry every night, since we carried only two sets of clothes in our “10 percent of body weight” backpacks. (One set for hiking in and one for relaxing in at night. With some variation, like my bathing suit that could serve as a second pair of shorts, or underwear if need be.) And on this Sunday in Pamplona we also did our wash, and hung our clothes on the lines just outside the windows looking out onto an “atrium” or central court. Then about 6:15 the doorbell rang, as we were relaxing. The guy from the apartment above explained that his wife dropped her bra while hanging it on the line outside their window. As it turned out, it landed on the line where our laundry was hanging.

Being ever the gentleman, I retrieved it. “Always glad to help out a lady in distress…“

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Leaving Pamplona, we headed for the Hotel Jakue in Puente la Reina. (“Queen’s Bridge.”) On the way we hiked up to and over the Alto de Perdon (“Hill of Forgiveness”), some eight or nine miles out of Pamplona. (With its “remarkable steel sculpture of pilgrims on the road to Santiago” and panoramic views of the surrounding countryside.)

Google Maps says it’s a 14-mile hike from Pamplona to Puente la Reina, but Brierly* says it’s more like 16 miles. (On the Camino.) Either way, we only made it as far as Uterga, some 11 miles from Pamplona. We started late, about 9:00 a.m., a practice we changed as the hike went on. (From that point on we started getting up at 5:30 a.m., mostly because of that first and only time we took a taxi. And felt guilty about it.)

It turned out there were only two places to stop for a drink or whatever the whole 11 miles. One was in Zariquiegui, seven miles out of Pamplona. The other was in Uterga, and by the time we got there it was 6:30 p.m. Which meant five miles left for us to hike in the fading twilight. Thus the feeling guilty, and later getting up at 5:30 and starting the day’s hike in the dark.

But that didn’t happen until the following Thursday and Friday, September 9 and 10.

Tom’s original plan was to hike to Muruzabal, the next town after Uterga, that Monday. But he found out via Wi-Fi – always spotty on the Camino – that the place in Muruzabal cancelled on him. (That happened a lot this trip, which kept Tom constantly checking the reservations he’d made.) Then there was the taxi ride from Uterga to Pamplona. (Where Tom made an alternate reservation.) But as it turned out, that re-assignment to Pamplona cut out miles from Tuesday’s hike. (Back home I tried to figure out exactly how many, but for now I’ll let the Reader do the math, if “they” so choose. It’s enough to say it made a big difference on Tuesday’s hike.)

And now a word about those mileage calculations. The Brierly guidebook sets out distances in kilometers, with one page generally representing a hike of 15 miles per day. But being in a small, 4.5 x 7.5-inch format, the maps are far from being accurate in scale. Then there were side trips. As an alternative, Carol kept count of “steps walked,” on her fancy-schmancy wrist watch. (Which also had GPS, which quite often helped us better find the lodging on a given night, usually a rental apartment with no “outward and visible sign” of its location.)

For myself, I kept count of “minutes spent actually hiking.” (Via my own wrist watch, a ten-dollar much-less-fancy-schmancy Walmart special.) So for the 10.9 miles we spent hiking on Monday, I listed 230 minutes of actual hiking. That system worked well for the 2017 and 2019 Camino hikes, but for some reason this year we took a whole lot more “standing stops,” especially when we were hiking up to and over the Pyrenees. But for that system to accurately reflect a medium intensity aerobic workout, you have to go at it for at least ten minutes straight. So, to make up for the frequent standing stops this trip, I’d walk a certain number of paces – after each stop – before starting up the stop-watch again.

Which is relevant to me but boring to you, so let’s get back to “Camino 2021…”

Tuesday we left the Hotel Jakue* in Puente la Reina and hiked about 8.5 miles to the Casa Nahia in Lorca. (I had it as 130 minutes of actual hiking, with “lots of breaks.”) And for the first time on this trip we finally found a place in the morning for a place to stop and get a cafe con leche, in Maneru. Wednesday was a short day, a little over five miles hiking to Estella. We were able to check in a 3:00, so I took a nap and did some yoga. We had dinner at 6:30 in the Estella town plaza, packed and busy. “Lots of people promenading, kids playing soccer, cute girls roller skating.” Definitely a pleasant dinner, but “tomorrow, a long day, up at 5:30 a.m.”

And by the way, I realize this post is way longer than I like to do normally, but I’m trying to get at least to Logrono, on Saturday, September 11. Besides, I figure on using these posts for a new book I’ll start writing in 2022. On all three Camino hikes, 2017, 2019 and 2021, so bear with me…

Getting back to the Camino, on Thursday, September 9, we got up at 5:30 and left Estella while it was still dark. (And took some wrong turns getting out of the city.) We hiked from 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. That nine hours on the trail I calculated as 220 minutes actual hiking. (Three hours and 40 minutes, which gives you an idea of the discrepancy.) That day there was a long stretch of nothing. After seven hours hiking, with no place to stop and get a drink, we ran across what seemed to be a mirage; too good to be true. Complete strangers handing out free water…

The Brierly guidebook shows a “Cafe movil” some seven hours out of Estella and about 3.8 miles short of Los Arcos, our goal for the day. The one place to stop came right at the start of the day’s hike, at the Irache Wine Fountain – the “Fuente de Irache” – a mere half-mile or so out of Estella. (The “owners of Bodegas Irache have kindly put a wine fountain, so that pilgrims can serve themselves a free glass of red wine to help them on their way.”) I added a smidge – or more precisely, a dram – of wine to my water bottle: 1) I didn’t want to get too tipsy on the long day’s hike ahead, and 2) in compliance with 1st Timothy 5:23.

Other than that there was no place to stop for seven long hours of hiking. (We went through some villages that had cafes open in 2017, but this year they were closed for the COVID.) Then too, when we got to where Brierly listed a “mobile cafe,” it wasn’t there. What was there was a group of three people, as noted, handing out free cold water. (See “The Camino provides.”) And one of them was “Sweet Katie from Alabama,” pictured at the bottom of the main text. Katie and her co-workers were from the “Pilgrim’s Oasis” in Viana, Spain. See Pilgrims’ Oasis – Home | Facebook. And Viana was a mere six miles shy of Logrono, where this post ends.

Katie and I had a nice long chat. (For one thing it was nice to talk to someone outside the group who also spoke English.) She was 33, had been married but no kids, and was now divorced. She was in Spain for three weeks or so, volunteering to help out at Pilgrim’s Oasis. I noticed a tiger on her ball cap so I said, “You’re an Auburn fan?” She answered, “Only somebody from the South would know that.” All things considered that free cold water and nice chat with a lady from Back Home definitely lifted my spirits – after that long seven hours of hiking, with “nary a place to stop for a cold drink.” I took a couple pictures of her – she could have been a model – with the one below showing her charming someone else. (One of the local Guardia Civil, stopping by to check out the situation. “Wait. You’re giving out free cold water?”)

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So anyway, that Thursday the 9th, we hiked from Los Arcos to Viana. 11.4 miles or 220 minutes of actual hiking time. The day was mostly overcast, with some sprinkles of rain. Once again we got up at 5:30, in the dark, and reached the apartment in Viana at 1:52 p.m. I won the draw and so got a room to myself. (The others shared a room or slept on the living room couch.) Then too there was a mini-bar, with four cold beers that cost only a euro apiece. “I’m in heaven!”

Which is almost a pretty good place to stop. Except to say that Saturday’s hike from Viana to Logrono was a mere six miles, which gave us time to stop by the Pilgrim’s Oasis in Viana and say hello to Katie one more time. (Before she left for Back Home in a week or so.) And we got to stay in Logrono for a well-deserved day off from hiking, after six days straight. In the next – and hopefully final – post on this year’s Camino adventure, I plan to get the Faithful Reader from Logrono to Burgos, and from there down to Madrid. At which point I’d have to take another COVID test within 72 hours of my flight home. And if I failed that test I would find out what it means to be quarantined in Spain for 14 days. In the meantime:

Buen Camino!

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“Sweet Katie from Alabama,” handing out free water on the Camino..

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The upper image is courtesy of Pamplona – Wikipedia. The caption: “Encierro de San Fermín.” In Spanish “encierro” can mean confinement or prison, but as usually translated refers to a bull-run where “bulls are driven through streets to a bullring.” The running of the bulls in Pamplona happens during the San Fermín festival, “held annually from July 6 to July 14. This festival was brought to literary renown with the 1926 publication of Ernest Hemingway‘s novel The Sun Also Rises.”

For more on the four days in Paris, see A post-trip post mortem for “Paris – 2021.” About visiting the Picasso Museum, and the outer part of the being-rebuilt Notre Dame cathedral, and getting the Covid test – required to get on a train – at a sidewalk clinic just off the Pont Neuf on the Left Bank.

Re: “170 miles in 17 days for me,” and leaving for home in Burgos. I had already hiked the Camino from Pamplona to Santiago in 2017, as noted in previous posts. Thus I finished my portion of the hike, in Burgos, on Sunday, September 19, while the other three finished up in Santiago de Compostela on October 26.

Re: 10 percent of body weight. The link is to 10 Essential Tips for Hiking the Camino de Santiago, including “the weight of your backpack should not exceed 10 percent of your body weight. Keep in mind that the magic “10 percent” number includes your water for the day, so factor in a bit of wiggle room.” In my case, my backpack should not have weighed over 14.5 pounds, including water.

Re: “Brierly.” That’s the Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino de Santiago: Camino Francés, by John Brierley. This “comprehensive guidebook to the Camino de Santiago and its offshoots contains all the information needed by modern-day pilgrims wishing to walk the sacred Way of St. James.” 

Re “Dram.” Defined in part as small amount of an alcoholic drink.

See also 8 Words for Small Amounts | Merriam-Webster.

Re: 1st Timothy 5:23. “Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.” And of course as a prophylactic precaution against snake bite…

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Here are some other notes from earlier posts I did on the trip:

I flew into Paris last August 25, 2021. I spent four days there, meeting up with three other family members on the 28th. After that the four of us took a train down to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, starting point for the Camino Frances. From there we started a long hike over the Pyrenees Mountains into Spain. (170 miles in 17 days for me.*) On the second day’s hike “we got up fairly early for the remaining 10.5-mile hike to Roncesvalles. (A ‘small village and municipality in Navarre, northern Spain.’) On the Route de Napoleón it’s about five miles past the border with France. From Roncesvalles we hiked 13.6 miles to Zubiri on Friday, September 3, and on Saturday the 13 miles to Pamplona.”

That pilgrimage-by-hiking usually ends at Santiago de Compostela, in northwestern Spain. But I stopped in Burgos, thus finishing the unfinished business of not hiking over the daunting Pyrenees back in 2017. I detailed that accomplishment in Hiking over the Pyrenees … finally, but in that October 16 post only got as far as Pamplona.