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Running the Camino de Santiago, Part 2

This is part 2 of a guest post written by Mr. Snacks. Make sure you read Part 1 first!

Because walking is too normal for us.

In part 1 of this post, I explained the background for where the (hairbrained?) idea came from to run the Camino de Santiago. In part 2, I will focus on the trip itself. Since there are about a billion excellent blogs, videos and guide books that will give the details and logistics for the Camino, I am going to focus on our trip and the pros and cons for running vs hiking.

The Adventure Begins: 

Our journey started in Porto, where Cameron and Mr. Pickles arrived with Cameron’s partner and long-time BFF of Mrs. Snacks. The plan was for the boys to head off on our adventure while the girls spent the week in Porto drinking port wine. Yes, this isn’t the first time in our marriage where I’ve wondered if I am making the wrong life choices.

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Running the Camino de Santiago, Part 1

Let the crazy adventure planning begin!

This is a guest post written by Mr. Snacks

Last year, while we were living in Panama City, I started to realize that while our nomadic lifestyle was amazing and all, I was missing the kind of outdoor endurance adventures I have always loved and taken for granted after living in Colorado for much of my life. 

The problem was both logistics and people. Travelling in only 2 suitcases per person doesn’t leave a lot of space for skis, bikes, stand-up paddleboards, rock climbing and hiking gear plus all the associated tools and clothes that used to reside in my garage. Yes, I can rent gear in many places, but that greatly increases the cost and complexity, and the availability and quality of gear varies wildly in different places around the world. 

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Quick jaunt to the monarchs

I finally get to visit the monarch migration!

For many years, I’ve wanted to see the monarch migration.  While we’ve been in Mexico in almost the right time, or almost the right place it’s never all worked out before.  Since we finally had all of the pieces, I was excited to plan this trip.

Our choices were to go on a tour or rent a car and do it ourselves.  Still scarred from a less-than-stellar van tour in Oaxaca, we immediately threw that option out.  Finding a rental car was no problem—there are a million options in Mexico City.  After previous experience, we were also familiar with the document we needed to request from our credit card to show that we already had the insurance coverage they might push us to pay for.  

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El Valle de Anton Roadtrip

Roadtrip from Panama City!

El Valle de Anton (El Valle) is a small town developed in the crater of an extinct volcano.  While I can guess that this area was super fertile and that’s why it was chosen, I wonder who (back in the day) was willing to say “I’m sure this will never erupt again; let’s build our town here!”.  Regardless of how they conned their fellow townspeople into settling there, the decision seems to have been a safe one thus far.  

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Movies in Panama

Going to the movies when you don’t speak the language.

This is a guest post by Mr. Snacks.

I’ve always been a lover of movies, and in particular the experience of seeing a big budget blockbuster in a great theater. Like many other things, as the world shut down in 2020, I saw movie after movie I was looking forward to get placed on indefinite hold and I added “seeing a movie in a theater” to the top of my “what I can’t wait to do when the world reopens” list. 

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Are we there yet?

Let’s get back to traveling!

After spending an amazing summer in the Colorado mountains, we are ready for a little international travel! 

We’ve passed the summer doing as many sports as we can cram in—and even decided to learn rowing/sculling at Dillon Reservoir to mix things up.  What I can say is any minimal time on the rowing machine at the gym did absolutely zero in preparing me for the real sport!  You can’t just go get a cardio workout trying to go as hard as possible when you are worried about wobbling around in a very unstable boat and not wanting to swim in ice-cold waters.  Fortunately, we took lessons with the Frisco Rowing Center where we learned how to stabilize the boats (oddly enough, it’s mostly to do with holding your hands at a certain height), how to position your hands and wrists (oddly challenging to get this right), and how to put together the pieces of the stroke/recovery (not at all what I was doing when I was on the gym rowing machine!).  

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