In May of 2017, I took an intensive/immersion french class in Biarritz for 2 weeks. Nadine, our teacher, held classes every morning going through grammar (subjonctif, at that!) and some literature (Victor Hugo). After lunch, we visited the little and big towns. There was 16 of us, and 2 vans. We drove across the border to Bilbao, saw the Guggenheim museum, and had pintxos at Hondarribia.

There was some very special little towns we visited in the east of Biarritz. Espelette for its spicy peppers. Ainhoa because the name almost matched mine. And Saint Jean Pied de Port. At the time, we saw people gathering around town and walking around with heavy backpacks, and I thought it was odd that people chose to come to this corner of the world to hike.

Our trip that year was to explore the Rioja region. From France, we traversed the Pyrenees to get to Pamplona. And yes, there was again these odd people walking so so slowly up the mountain. We zipped by in our little car, and made a few random stops at some rocks or road marks with a sign of a yellow shell or arrow. We didn’t have the slightest idea that they were pilgrims walking the Camino de Santiago, or Chemin de Saint Jacques in French, or The Way of Saint James in English.

I saw the movie The Way. Still didn’t hit me that that’s something I would want to do. Life is so short and of all things still needing to be done, why spend 40 days in pain?

So that was the introduction to where we are today. In one week, I will be walking as a pilgrim starting from Saint Jean Pied de Port (SJPP). The journey from SJPP to Santiago de Compostella (SDC) is 780km long. It crosses the northern part of Spain and ends at either SDC, or one can walk further to Finistera. There are many more paths to same destination, the Camino Frances being most well-known.