12 KG plus H20

Packed and ready to go. Its a bit heavier than I would like – just under 12 KG/26 lbs – plus water at another KG per liter. But it does contain consumables, including a pound of trail mix. I will be munching and sipping my way to a lighter load.

My itinerary will follow St. Swithun's Way and the North Downs Way to Canterbury and, from there, the Via Francigena, as documented by Sigeric the Serious circa 990. It was, already at that time, a route that had been followed for several centuries, first referred to as the Lombard Way and later, the Iter Francorum.

My route this year: Winchester - Canterbury - Dover - Calais - Reims - Besançon - Laussanne - Hospice Grand St. Bernard.

Weather forecast: mud!

Off to Heathrow.

Crossing the Pyrenees

One day in 2009, I decided to take a walk. It's lasted a little longer than originally intended: Four month-long journeys, over four years from Lindau Hafen am Bodensee to Santiago de Compostela, another year from Santander to Compostela, last year from Porto. It wasn't until the third year of walking that I considered myself a pilgrim thanks to three little slips of paper I had taken from the cathedral at le Puy en Velay. I thought they were meant to give me encouragement should I flag en-route to St. Jean Pied de Port. I flagged. I read. No ¡Andale! for Gary. No ¡Vamos! for sixty-one-year-old blistered feet, short a few toenails. They were prayers, two in French, one in German, left by those who could not do the walk, asking for the recovery of a loved one stricken by cancer, harmony in the workplace, and peace for a troubled mind. No big requests. No "world peace." Just simple human hopes. I had no choice. I continued to St. Jean Pied de Port. I carried those prayers home with me to California and back again to France the following year. I walked them over the Pyenees, along the Camino Frances, from one end of Spain to the other. It did not matter that my faith is different from those who penned those pleas. I delivered them to where they were intended to be delivered, to the cathedral of St. James. My walk became a pilgrimage on behalf of others, and, by virtue of many hours of walking meditations, friendships made, and moments of synchronicity, a pilgrimage of my own. I guess my walk is not yet finished. (Photo: May 2012 between St. Jean Pied de Port and Roncesvalles)