Hola!

Tonight Em and I are having dinner with our mate Tony. About six years ago, Em and I were attempting to walk 750kms from St Jean Pied du Port in France to Santiago in Spain - The Camino. It was (my) crazy idea...and I'm still not sure why I wanted to try and do it, given I was a very unfit (still am) smoker (I quit) who had never camped for than two days and had no experience with long distance trekking. However, there is a part of me that likes to have a go at things and see what happens.

In the end, we walked 250ks in three weeks, but ran out of time. It was an amazing trip, even though there were moments of awful frustration. Em could have easily done the whole thing on foot and was incredibly understanding when I transformed into Patsy from Ab Fab, insisting that just one more cigarette and short black will definitely help me climb the next &*$)@_ mountain. What the? Oh. Did I mention that when things got bad I caught a taxi? I've never lived it down...

Accommodation consisted of basic cabins (refugios) specifically to accommodate pilgrims (walkers). Em and I had trudged into a very small town; tired and footsore. We were sitting outside the refugio having a "why didn't we just go to Disney Land?" moment when this guy wandered up for a chat. We all clicked. He was from Brisbane and within in minutes we'd found a pub and started sharing stories over cold, Spanish beer. Over the following days he slowed his pace considerably to walk with us...which led to drinking too much red wine in Pamplona and having a blast.

We've kept in touch with Tony ever since, though he's been travelling around for ages. Tonight we're having dinner at one of the best Spanish places in town (I think)...Movida. Bring on the Sangria!