I' m Off Then

I'm Off Then

June 9, 2001 Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port

I'm off then!" I didn't tell my friends much more than that before I started out-just that I was going to hike through Spain. My friend Isabel had only this to say: "Have you lost your mind?"

I'd decided to go on a pilgrimage.



My grandma Bertha always knew something like this would happen: "If we don't watch out, our Hans Peter is going to fly the coop someday!"

I guess that's why she always fed me so well.

I could be lying on my favorite red couch right now, comfortably sipping a hot chocolate and savoring a luscious piece of cheesecake, but instead I'm shivering in some café at the foot of the Pyrenees in a tiny medieval town called Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. An enchanting postcard idyll, minus the sun.

Unable to make a complete break with civilization, I sit down right by the main road. Although I've never even heard of this place before, there seems to be an unbelievable amount of traffic whizzing down the road.

On the rickety bistro table lies my nearly blank diary, which seems to have as hearty an appetite as I. I've never felt the need to capture my life in words before-but since this morning I've had the urge to record every detail of my unfolding adventure in my little orange notebook.

So here begins my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

The journey will take me along the Camino Francés, one of the official European Cultural Routes. I'll be trekking over the Pyrenees, across the Basque country, the Navarre and Rioja regions, Castile and León, and Galicia, and after about five hundred miles I will stand right in front of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. According to legend, this is the location of the grave of Saint James, the great missionary for the Iberian people.

Just thinking about the long trek makes me want to take a long nap.

And here's the amazing part: I'll hike it! The entire length. I will hike. I have to read that again to believe

Hape Kerkeling