earlyoungnz
- Jul 29
- 3 min read

# 1: Camino "The Way"

Start of the Adventure!

T minus 2

I landed last night in Barcelona, Spain and after the relief of seeing all 5.5kgs emerge on the baggage carousel, I was pretty proud of my efforts to bus and then walk to my accommodation. I didn’t need a massive excuse but I had a beer across the road from the apartment so I could use the wifi to call the property owner to let me in. I remember from a trip here 25 years ago that most didn’t speak English and between pointing and likely poorly pronouncing “Cerveza” (I was told to learn a keyword or two…), I handed over a pretty modest 2.30 euros for some deserved Spanish nectar.

The room was really nice and as I was going to only be spending 9hrs here I didn’t exactly splash so I was pretty impressed - hey, and let’s not be fooled by the Abu Dhabi experience, I’m living life as a pilgrim now whilst “in between jobs”.

With only two outfits packed, one I wore for the long haul up from NZ (let’s call that lounging) and one to walk in, I did the first of what will be many “administrative” duties by hand washing the kit once settled. Nice to trial what will be a basic necessity once the walk starts proper and good to do so in somewhat pleasant facilities although the hand wash with some soap will be fairly standard throughout the journey. The drying rack in my room, and a fan to accelerate the drying process maybe not so much!

As someone that takes their sleep when they can whilst travelling, the body wasn’t really feeling “night or day” and although I fell asleep quickly, I feel like I woke up equally fast…at 2am. Being Barcelona the locals were probably just getting home from dinner!!!

I’ve set up an eSIM (gosh I hope that worked and someone isn’t getting exorbitant roaming charges just now!) whilst killing some time for sunrise and the cafe across the road to open.

Same pointing and looking stupid exercise again to select a croissant and what I thought was a lemon drink. It was lemon, however on closer taste and inspection, it appears it was infused with “cerveza” so indeed I was having an unplanned “breakfast beer” albeit slightly acidic!

Whilst all roads lead to Santiago de Compostela once the walk is underway, it appears not all roads lead to St Jean Pied de Port in France where the trail begins. Today was another travel day, this time on a fast train up to Pamplona in the north of Spain where inconveniently, the schedule failed to connect with the once-a-day bus to SJPDP so that waits until tomorrow.

My accommodation is in the old part of town which is just incredible. Tiny narrow one-way streets closely lined with shops and living all stacked on top of each other. It truly is beautiful and after snapping the first four or five streets I walked down, I realized it was probably like a tourist to New Zealand snapping their first picture of a sheep.

I walked the town and took in a number of sights such as the famous bull arena, the cathedral, and the old Pamplona fortress but the enjoyment was actually wandering the streets, devouring gelato and taking in all the normal, but not normal, sights and sounds.

Being the napping champion I am back home, the one thing I was hoping to embrace here in Spain was the Siesta…. things go very quiet here mid-afternoon it seems. After the messy sleep last night, I tried my absolute best to hold off in order to properly snap into some rhythm tonight. I’m sure I’ll take that challenge up at some stage over the next 35 days!

“We” ride to France at midday.