Are we ready for the Camino again?

Stages and mileage on the Camino

It's been 7 1/2 years since we did the first stage of the Camino de Santiago in May of 2007, from Roncesvalles to Burgos, although we went by bus the last stretch from Logroño to Burgos because of Fernando's feet.  This time he will take his boots and I will make him practice beforehand.

This time Fernando also wants to end up in Santiago de Compostela so that means we need to start closer to the end, perhaps in O Cebreiro which is 159 kilometres/98 miles from Santiago.  This means going through the hills of Galicia where it often rains and means mud so we'll need to be ready for that.   Mundiplus has an itinerary from O Cebreiro to Santiago that takes 10 days.  And CaminoWays shows the elevation of the route under their "itinerary" tab from Ponferrada to Sarri (O Cebreiro is midway between them) and then from Sarri to Santiago.   It is quite hilly.  Sarri to Santiago takes 6 or 7 nights and covers the minimum 100 km required for the Compostela certificate.  The advantage to self-guided tour companies like Mundiplus and Caminoways is that they carry your luggage from hotel to hotel and include the accommodations as well as breakfast and dinner.  One happy customer said "Unlike other pilgrims, we didn’t have to carry our luggage and we didn’t have to hurry to the next town to find a place to sleep."

The disadvantage is that it comes at a price: Mundiplus charges 790 euros ($977) per person sharing a double room for its 10 day self-guided tour from O Cebreiro to Santiago.  That would be $1,580/10 or $158/day.  The Outer Banks is about $126/day for us and that doesn't include two meals and luggage transfers, so I suppose Mundiplus isn't outrageous, except that we still have to get to Spain.  And of course, we might feel a bit extravagant walking among other pilgrims who are roughing it in refugios for 10 euros a night...