It was a dark rainy, wintery morning. No seriously it was pissing it down and we were about to set off on the second day of a 900km trek from St. Jean Pied De port in the French Pyrenees to Finisterre on the West coast of Northern Spain.

Sounds like a cool enough adventure to do for a guy, or even a guy and his girl, but for a guy, his post natal hormonal girlfriend and their 6 month old baby in the middle of winter…what were we thinking!

We are still in the French Pyrenees and heading for Roncesvalles in Spain. There was a mountain to navigate over and around and it will bring us to an elevation of 1600 metres.

I thought that we had decent equipment, but contrast is a great thing at times to add a little perspective. After meeting a young Korean lady at the first Albergue, and noticing the equipment that she was carrying, I quickly realised that we were a little last century.

She looked like she had raided the North Face Store, while in comparison my rucksack was 15 years old and my sleeping bag was bought in Lidl. Lidl is something like Target for all my American compadres. She had a really cool poncho that kept her dry and also her rucksack.

I had nothing to keep me dry and a black bin liner to go over the rucksack. She had these graphite poles for assistance in walking and I had a garen rake pole which I bought in a hardware store. She had top of the range gortex boots, and I had some flimsy 20 quid plastic shoes which I like to do Tai Chi in, which I purchased from Tesco. Hence to say, my feet were soaked in the first 15 minutes of walking. I could go on, but I think you get the picture…contrast!

As we climbed higher and higher, it started to get really cold, the sort of cold that could be dangerous. I realised that Baby Indigo wasn’t wrapped up well enough for the cutting wind that was now testing us. We had a quick stop and I warmed his feet, skin to skin, on my belly while lying down. Once he was warm, I pulled a wind proof jacket out of my enormous rucksack and wrapped it around him and Victoria, which added another layer and stopped the wind chill effect.

Warming Indigo’s feet

Now we were ready to go over the summit. The wind was harsh and so we walked as fast as we could with no stops until we made it down into the village of Roncesvalles. The Albergue was in a Monastery which cost 7 euro for the night. There was no amenities in the village apart from a bar and restaurant.

Fortunately we were able to get some vegan food, pasta, rice tomato sauce and bread. Not what I would eat at home but my body soaked up every calorie with delight and gave me excess for the next days walk On The Camino De Santiago De Compostela.

P.S.We are able to take a month out to walk the camino as we earn a passive residual income online. Want to do the same? Just click below to find out more.