Good news or bad news first?

Let’s start with the sad….because of the pandemic and because the US is dealing with the pandemic in the way it is, Scout’s doctor doesn’t think she should travel over here for the Camino.  This isn’t her Camino year.  We are all sad, mad, and grieving this change of plans.  I am sure that we will all deal and yearn and the Camino is ancient so it will be waiting for her when the time is right but at this point, it just sucks big time.

In the meantime, Ana and I are deciding what is best for us.  We still have tickets to get to Biarritz on Aug. 30, the Camino officially reopens on July 1.  We are taking a beat to be sad about changing plans and figuring out what is best.

The good news is that albergues are starting to re open and figuring out how to be safe and responsible as well as welcome pilgrims slowly planning on returning.  As of right now, we can travel in Europe without closed borders or quarantine.  If we still do decide to walk out of St. Jean on Aug. 31st we think it gives albergues a bit of time to figure out how to do things well during the certain times.  People around here are wearing masks and the numbers are staying low.  Ana flew to Serbia last week for a few weeks and has found it safe to travel at the moment around here.  We will see how her return home goes as well since Serbia is not EU but it should be ok as long as the flights are flying.

We are talking about what this means for our flexibility and the reality is that there are no rules about it. If we begin and it isn’t safe or it sucks we can always leave easily. We have walked the full 800 km before so there is really nothing to prove on that level. We could skip parts or not, cut our time short or not, etc.

The Camino still is tugging at me and I think we will continue to figure out what our Camino means right now.

In the meantime send us all love and light.