This is some of what I need for tomorrow. My task today will be to organize this -and a lot more like travel insurance documents, plane and train tickets ( yes, I know, on my phone right?) and be able to walk through the next week without totally losing it! Those torn out pages from two different guidebooks will be left behind . Turns out the Camino Portuguese after Porto is split into three routes. Unlike the Camino Frances-just follow those arrows for several hundred kilometres – this one offers you choices. And we all know choices mean complications. Weight is important when you travel alone and have to use a back pack. Baggage transport systems on Caminos do not take kindly to wheeled suitcases and I will have to carry my stuff in some places. So, superfluous pages for routes I won’t be taking got ditched. For a book lover, tearing out pages is a special kind of pain.

I will start this Camino as a hospitalera in Porto. What will I do there for two weeks? Not really sure. Will I transition smoothly from two days in Lisbon to train travel up to Porto? Not really sure. Will the weather be good enough for me to walk part way along the coast? Not really sure. There are a lot of “ not really sure”s.

The thing about doing this sort of thing alone is that there is no one else to commiserate, scold, hug, find a solution with you. There is a wonderful freedom, of course in not having to worry about the other’s passport, tickets, stomach bug, sleeping problems, blisters… Freedom is a shiny coin with a dark flip side. That’s loneliness.

What is it that drives some of us to set off on these adventures, treks, dives into the unknown? For me what is more scary than any unknown would be a certainty that I would never set off again.

It’s mid-morning. Time for a quick walk around the lake and then putting all these useful bits of paper in order.