Every journey begins with a single step...

...or in this case, an 8 hour flight, a 7 hour stopover in Vietnam, in the most boring airport ever, another flight, this time of 12 hours, and about 9 hours of train journeying. It was hard. Noni and I were exhausted. We couldn't even go shopping during our stopover because we couldn't buy anything unless we were happy to carry it around on our backs for the next 6 weeks. There is no fun wandering shops knowing you cannot buy anything. Not just don't want to buy anything, but can't. The worst. 

But the hardest thing of all was knowing that at the end of this mother of a commute, I would be undergoing possibly the hardest physical event I've ever attempted - walking 800km from Saint Jean Pied de Port in France to Santiago de Compostella in Spain. As I watched the definitely-not-to-scale plane fly over Asia and Europe and get closer to our Paris destination, it suddenly became real- the idea that in a couple of days, day after day, Noni and I would wake up, pop our backpacks on, and walk about 25kms to our next destination.  

When we finally reached SJPdP, exactly 48 hours after leaving home, everyone hopped off the bus (yeah, forgot to mention the additional bus - apparently the train doesn't go here anymore or something? Urgh) and apparently knew exactly where in the town they were going. Meh, we were exhausted. We followed the throng and eventually made it to the Pilgrim Office, where we were greeted by one of the volunteers who gave us our credenzial or Pilgrim Passport. And our first stamp! Stamps are so much fun.

Basically, this passport is very important to us for the next few weeks- it's proof that we're pilgrims and allows us to stay in pilgrim-only albergues. Also, we get stamps everywhere we go as proof that we actually did the Camino, and then we'll get a fancy certificate at the end. Yes, this is the sole reason I am doing this.

When we finally got our passports and made our way to Gite Ultreia, our guesthouse we'd be in for the next two nights, we immediately wanted to crash. Instead, we forced ourselves to get something to eat, and made nice with the other guests who were also about to start the pilgrimage. We were very lucky that one man, Oliver from Devon (by way of South Africa) had an iPod charger. See, our iPads and my iPhone had died over the 48 hours we'd been travelling, and for some reason, the special charger with multiple USB ports that would have been perfect for us just wouldn't charge the iPads. My phone, yes, the iPads, nah. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! We needed our technology- we had nothing to read! Instead we'd have to interact with people, or worse, each other. But Oliver came to our rescue and charged our things overnight in exchange for a beer. Worth it!