Name: Walking the Camino de Santiago with UTracks
Uploaded: 2017-05-20T12:24:50.000Z
Duration: 6 min 6 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

To-infinitive

I'm about to take part in a pilgrimage through the beautiful Spanish countryside

Present continuous

I'm going to be following a path that's been used by pilgrims for over a thousand years and

still to this day over 200,000 travellers from all over the world decide to walk

this path every single year. I'm about to do the Camino de Santiago and I'll be

The Camino de Santiago is essentially a collection of old pilgrimage paths that

have been traditionally used by pilgrims to walk from their homes across Europe

to Santiago de Compostela, where it is believed that the remains of the

Apostle St James are entombed. On this journey we'll be travelling along the

Camino Francis from Sarria in Spain and walking 115 km to our final destination.

The official start of this path is a whopping 800km out of

Santiago, across the French border and takes about a month to complete. When I

joined the path in Sarria many had already been walking for weeks.

I've walked about six months all the way from Czech Republic

Since it is required that you travel at least 100km by foot in order to obtain your Compostela, the closest town you

can start from on the Camino Frances and still gain the certificate is Sarria,

making it a very manageable, but still quite challenging six-day journey

walking between four and eight hours per day. By bike you must travel at least 200km.

And while the roots of this pilgrimage are set deep in a

Christian realm you definitely don't need to be religious to benefit from this journey.

I think it's an opportunity to find some space and some quiet.

For me, I'm not necessarily the most religious person.

There was so much stuff going on that I just needed to walk for a little while

and have a little think and walk and meet people.

I'm sharing these experiences with my best friend Lisa.

A little bit of everything. Spiritual. Natural. I mean it's so beautiful.

Everything. I don't know. From the little flowers to the mountains.

There's something about waking up in the morning.

You know, walking day after day, hour after hour. It's that repetitive action of

walking that gives you time to meditate and contemplate not only that but you go

at a pace where you can really suck in all the sights, the smells, the sounds.

By booking your your trip with UTracks you'll be doing yourself a huge favor.

The first reason is knowing that at the end of each day's hiking you have a

great quality private room and bathroom waiting for you, as well as a delicious

local meal most evenings. That means no wandering around searching for a bed which

could well be booked out and the only snoring and smelly socks you have to worry about are your own.

You'll awake well rested to a delicious breakfast each morning before hitting the trail again.

Each day you'll have your bag transferred to your next hotel for you

meaning you don't have to carry anything with you other than your bare essentials.

If our legs were tired we wanted to go at a slower pace.

If our, if we felt energized after our three o'clock beer we wanted to pick up the pace.

And yet we wanted also to have the luxury of not having to carry all of our belongings on our back.

So, this has been a perfect balance of experiencing a hundred and ten

kilometers but also doing it with a nice warm shower and plentiful food.

UTracks will organize all the details for you. All you have to do is enjoy the ride

and suck in the experience. And what an experience that is. Not only is the scenery

this path is one of the most culturally rich paths on the planet

boasting art and architecture dating back centuries and centuries.

Then of course you have the delicious local food and culture, and each town will have their

own unique delicacies and regional specialties for you to try.

But the most impressive part of all are the people you meet along the way.

Well, I started alone. But I've never been a alone. Never. Never. Even one day.

I think you walk with people and in that time you get a chance to learn

something from them or give them something.

I think you, you skip the beginning phases of getting to know people and you

It makes everyone equal in a way. That's nice.

And so after one of the most beautiful and reflective weeks of my life

the chapel of Santiago de Compostela is within our sights.

This marks the end of my Camino and many other people's Camino as well.

Some people will continue onto the ocean. Most people will fly home.

As for me,  I'm going to start planning my next adventure. So a massive thank you

to UTracks for making this an experience that I'll never forget.