Wizard's Blog

Camino de Santiago -- Part 4

September 5, 2024, was day 3 out of 16 on the Camino. It would also be the worst day. Writing this chapter will not be easy. However, in any big trip there has to be some worst day.

The day started out in off and on light rain in the small town of Nasbinals. However, it was a big improvement over the pouring rain the previous day, so I was eager to move on and have a decent mileage day for once. In the first two days I had covered only a sad 70 miles. Remember, that I was on a bicycle and was hoping to average at least 50 miles a day.



Estaing, France

The day started out pretty well. I gained altitude with which came a drop in temperature. I put on extra layers of clothes. Unfortunately, I lacked a proper beanie and gloves for cold weather, but I got through it. After a couple hours I dropped down in altitude and was able to shed the extra layers.

Despite a lot of ups and downs I was making good time and didn’t waste any time with issues that beset me the first two days. My goal for the day was Conques-en-Rouergue, as it was labeled on maps, but referred to as just Conques on signage and by other pilgrims. In France, there are often multiple cities with the same name, so they put on the province in the name on maps for clarity. In this case the “en Rouergue.” There is another Conques in France, known on maps as Conques-sur-Orbiel.

I took a little break about six miles from my destination in the charming little French town of Senergues. It was looking to be a very good day, getting me to Conques about 3:00 with the rest of the day to eat, drink and explore the city. I put in Conques into Apple Maps which correctly mapped out a simple way to get me there.

As I got close to Conques, suddenly Apple Maps rerouted me and told me to take a heavily overgrown road. As I would learn later, accepting this advice was a huge mistake. At first the road wasn’t too bad, but it kept getting worse and worse. However, I kept going because the distance to my destination was measured in the hundreds of feet. I’m also a little too stubborn for my own good to admit I made a mistake and turn around.

Suffice it to say that after about two hours fighting through vines, fallen trees and whatever else, Apple Maps had announced “You’ve arrived at your destination!” I was absolutely in the middle of nowhere. What little path there was had at this point faded into nothing. I was on the side of a hill and there was simply nowhere to go from here. There was no choice but to turn back.

By the time I got back to the road, two hours had been wasted. At least I survived. Had I suffered an injury, my dead body would probably still be there today as nobody would have thought to look for me there.

My bicycle, however, suffered a flat tire. I had a spare with me, but my European bike required an Allen key to remove the wheel, which I didn’t have. On all my bicycles at home the wheels can removed easily with a quick release. The good news was that I was only about two downhill miles from the real Conques, where I could find an Allen wrench and fix the flat. So, I rode downhill on one flat the rest of the way.

The village of Conques was just beautiful. I’m told the location of the movie ‘Beauty and the Beast’ was based on Conques. It was also crawling with other pilgrims and I feared again I would not find a place to stay. I was rebuffed at the 100-bed Albergue behind the main church, but they kindly referred me to a house that operated kind of like a hostel.


This is a former monastery turned 100-bed albergue, which was completely full.

I went to said house, but nobody was there. Finally, a woman came by to clean. Despite a serious language barrier, she conveyed that the person to speak with would be there fairly soon. Said man arrived at bit early and sold me a five-bed bedroom, which I had all to myself. He also kindly let me borrow a set of Allen wrenches. That afternoon I would use them to fix my flat tire.

After a much-needed shower, I spent the rest of the day exploring Conques, including a nice dinner and a pilgrim’s mass. It was nice to be clean and back in civilization after the ordeal trying to get to the fake Conques.


Typical street in Conques

The next morning, I woke up with a stabbing pain in my right big toe. At the time, I had no idea what had caused it. There seemed to be a lot of unusual bugs in my room. Perhaps one of them bit me. I recalled a scene in the movie ‘The Other Side of Heaven’ (link to https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250371/?ref_=ls_t_10) in which a missionary sent to Tonga woke up with bloody feet in an insect-infested hut.


My inflamed right big toe.


There was nobody else in the house. Based on noise that morning, a handful of other pilgrims already left. The man in charge was nowhere to be seen. I simply had to wait around in pain for the tourist office to be open to ask about the nearest doctor. That I did. The closest doctor was in St-Cyprien-sur-Dourdou, or just Cyprien as they and signage referred to it. The people at the tourist office were kind enough to make an appointment for me and explain how to get there by bus.


House where I spent two nights in Conques.

I took said bus there and hobbled my way between the bus stop and medical clinic. The doctor, a young man in plain clothes, did an exam. My right toe was significantly inflamed compared to the left one. I asked him if gout might be a possibility, which my daughter, who is a doctor, suggested by text previously. He said he didn’t think it was gout, but neither did he have any other ideas. So, he gave me a prescription for prednisolone, an oral anti-inflammatory and told me to take it easy for a couple of days. The cost for said medical visit was about 25 Euros, as I recall. Thank you, France! I got it filled at a pharmacy in the same town and immediately took one. Then I took a cab back to Conques, as I would have had to wait hours for the next bus.

After I got back and hobbled my way between the bus stop and the large house I was staying, I took a nap. By the time I awoke, I was feeling about 75% better. On my way back to town to get something to eat I checked on my bicycle, which I discovered to have two flat tires! Recall, I used one of my spare innertubes the previous day and had only one left. My explanation is that when I fixed the flat the previous day ono the rear wheel, I pinched the innertube and caused the flat myself. This has happened to me before. The front wheel I assume had a slow leak from fighting brush the previous day.


Conques church in the background.

I was now in a pickle. Conques not only didn’t have a doctor, but certainly no bicycle store. No, the closet place that had a bicycle store was Rodez, which was about an hour away by bus. Between my swollen toe and a bicycle with two flat tires, I was not in a good mood. It would seem nobody else was stupid enough to bicycle the Camino in this section, so I was left with few choices. One of them was giving up and going home.

While I was wandering around a garden and cemetery next to the church, I ran into an older hippy pilgrim named Mark. I met him previously the day before when I went to his Albergue. Despite this famous Albergue in a former monastery being filled to capacity, they were nice enough to let me sit around the courtyard and showed me around a bit. It was there I first met Mark.

In our second conversation, Mark told me about the thousands of kilometers he has spent on the Camino. It would seem he lived a significant portion of his life on it, doing just about every available route and many multiple times. For him, the Camino was a way of life and he as absolutely evangelic about it. As to my situation, he didn’t offer specific advice, other than he urged me to not give up. He didn’t say so, but he seemed to think doing the Camino by bicycle in this section of France was an awful idea and he would have been right. One thing he emphasized was that “The Camino will provide.”

I have heard this said about Burning Man many times before, except there it is “The Playa will provide." To be honest, I didn’t like to hear this so often about Burning Man, which has a lot of moochers. When said freeloaders happen to be attractive women, they are known as Sparkle Ponies. Both Burning Man and the Camino have a lot of good people who are happy to help others in need. That is a good thing, but nobody should count on such generosity as a substitute for proper self-reliance.

I thanked Mark for his much-needed encouragement. It caused me to think of ideas to get myself and my bicycle back in working order and back on the Camino. At the rate I was going, there was no way I would finish by late September, as I had planned. So, I had to consider cutting the trip short. That evening I would attend a piano and flute concert at the church and then a light show, did a self-guided tour of the upper sections of the church and watched part of a light show on the exterior façade of the church. About 11:00 PM, when I got back to the house where I was staying there was apparently nobody else there. Fortunately, the door was unlocked this late at night. I would later learn albergues are known to lock their doors or close their gates around 9:30 PM and if you’re locked out, tough.

With that, I will conclude this chapter, day 4, of my adventure on the Camino.

Camino de Santiago -- Part 3

Part 3 of my Camino adventure begins in an albergue in Le Sauvage, France. The Australian group staying there warned me that a thunderstorm was expected to reach the area between 2:00 and 4:00 that afternoon. It was my plan to get as far as I could before the storm hit. However, another problem was that I was out of clean laundry. The dirty laundry was very foul smelling and rather damp. Since starting the Camino, I had yet to cast a shadow. The algergue in Le Sauvage had no washing machine and with no sun, clothes simply wouldn’t dry outdoors.

The riding in the morning went well. At about noon I came to the city of Aumont-Aubrac. My iPhone indicated there was a laundromat there, which turned out to be four machines in a grocery store parking lot. The location was a bit out of the way. Considering that extra miles and time spent waiting on the machines, it cost me about two extra hours. When I got back on the road, I missed a turn that I mistook for somebody’s driveway. That mistake cost me at least another hour.


Entering the Lozere region of France.

Considering these two delays, I was making poor mileage that day. At about 2:00, a light rain started. This quickly turned into a raging downpour. I will admit I’m one of those annoying people who say, “There is no such thing as bad outdoor weather, but there is such a thing as not having the appropriate clothing.” I did have appropriate clothing for rain, which I put it on. I also put coverings over my backpack and pannier bags. However, it is simply not fun to ride a bicycle in pouring rain for hours.


French laundromat. Yes, you could get a fresh pizza from the machine next to it.

At about 4:00 and covering only about 30 true miles for the day (not counting miles getting off route to do laundry or get lost) I reached the town of Nasbinals. This was a decent size city with a few small hotels. There were a lot of pilgrims wandering around, so I feared they might have already claimed every ben in town. My map didn’t indicate any albergues in town. In fact, the next one was 16.5 kilometers away.

Fortunately, the first hotel I tried, the Hotel La Route d’Argent, which was more like about ten rooms above a restaurant, had a room available, which I happily took to get out of the rain. I spent the rest of the day wandering about Nasbinals in the rain, attending a book reading in French at the church and eating/drinking. It was kind of sad. The only conversation I had was with a woman selling scallop shells, which she painted by hand. I purchased a blue one and tied it to my backpack, where it remained until I returned home.


Before the rain.

All things considered, day 2 on the Camino was a bit sad and lonely, but it could have been worse, as I would soon learn.


The church in Nasbinals.

Camino de Santiago -- Part 2

Just getting to the Camino is a major effort. As I mentioned in part 1 of my story, I decided to start in Le Puy, France and travel by bicycle. One challenge to this plan was getting a bicycle. There are services that loan bicycles for the purpose of doing the Camino. However, the ones I looked at only seemed to deliver bicycles to starting points in Spain only. The expense was also significant at about 500 Euros.

It would prove to maybe not be the best decision I ever made, but I decided to purchase a bicycle in Le Puy. This would turn out to not be so easy when I started looking about one week before my flight. I wanted a mountain bike, but what few bicycle stores there are in Le Puy simply didn’t have any in stock. I then tried Leon, a much larger city, and they didn’t seem to have any either. It seemed there was a bicycle shortage in France. It also seemed bicycle stores didn’t carry much stock, but people tended to order them in advance to be shipped to a bicycle store, which would assemble it.

To make a long story short, the best I could do on a one-week notice seemed to be the Obrea Vector and have a luggage rack added to the back. This is what I would call a touring bike. It wasn’t the mountain bike I wanted, but was the best I could do.

With that problem solved as best I could, I left Las Vegas on August 30 for Lyon, France. This necessitated making connections in Seattle and Frankfurt, Germany. Door to door, the trip took over 24 hours. After finally arriving in Lyon, I spent a full day there to see the city.


Town hall of Lyon, France

After a full day exploring Lyon, I set off on the train to Le Puy the next day by train. This would necessitate switching trains in Saint Etienne. In said small city, there were a lot of scraggly looking young people wearing backpacks waiting for the same train. Although I didn’t know for sure they intended to do the Camino, I was pretty sure most of them were. It was my first indication the Camino would be crowded. I already knew from other sources that September is a popular time to go.




When I arrived in Le Puy, I first walked to the bicycle store to pick up and pay for the bicycle I ordered previously. I then went to the cathedral that marks the starting point in Le Puy and purchased a credential. The purpose of a credential is to collect stamps from places along the way, to prove you did it. I should have purchased a shell at this point, which pilgrims attach to their backpacks. However, I wasn’t aware of that custom at the time.

Signage at the cathedral said there would be a pilgrim’s mass at 7:00. I interpreted that to mean 7:00 PM. Europe, I had forgotten, uses military time. Had they meant 7:00 PM, they would have said 19:00. So, I made the second trip for nothing.


Le Puy Cathedral

Bright and early the next morning I was off from my simple hotel by the train station. The actual beginning was through a door at the Cathedral, but I felt I was already there twice and didn’t need to lug my bicycle up the hill on which it was located. So, I made my way through the city until I rejoined the Camino. It didn’t take long for the Camino to take the form of a rocky trail shortly outside of town. It was too steep and rocky to ride the bicycle, so I walked it up a long hill. The terrain kept changing from rocky trails to dirt roads.

That morning, I did my best to stick to the Camino. However, one section that started out doable gradually turned into a thin and steep downhill trail in thick brush. I felt like a fool trying to carry my bicycle down this stretch. Other pilgrims on foot must have thought I was a total idiot. When I finally reached a small road, I gave up on my plan of following the Camino. Instead, I would mostly take paved roads that were in the same general area as the Camino.


The Camino would have many such statues of a pilgrim pointing the correct direction.

I had a very nice lunch in Sauges. Afterward, it was more rolling green hills. The weather was cloudy and the weather pleasantly cool. Due to the hills and carrying a lot of weight, I was not covering as much ground as I had planned back home. Studying my maps at lunch, I planned to get to the small town of St-Alban-sur-Limagnole and hope I could find somewhere to stay. However, at about 3:30 I went through the very small town of Le Sauvage on the way. The only business in the town was a nice looking albergue (known as an auberge in French). It had a big deck with pilgrims containing pilgrims drinking beer and wine. I decided I would crash there if they had room, which they fortunately did.



The cost for a bed, dinner and breakfast was 40 Euros, which is very fair. After the host’s son went over the rules and I made the payment, he gave me my first stamp. In the picture above you can see two stamps, but the credential comes automatically with one.

While waiting for dinner, I met my first fellow pilgrim, a man about my age from the UK traveling alone. He seemed very surprised I was doing the Camino in France on a bicycle. By this point, I had yet to see another bicyclist. Later I would meet a family of four from Australia. They were a friendly bunch. The older woman of that group had been to Woodstock.

At about 7:00, we enjoyed a delicious homemade dinner. The man from the UK was being a bit argumentative with the younger man of the Australian group. When the conversation turned to the authenticity of the Vietnamese food in Melbourne it got quite heated. The Australian man tried to lower the temperature by finding some agreeable closure to the topic, but the man from the UK had to have the last word.

Later that evening, I shared a room with about six beds with just the man from UK. He recited to me a list of everything that man from Australia said that wasn’t true, in his view. Harboring hard feelings over what I felt were minor differences of opinion on matters of little importance was not the friendly conversation I was expecting on the Camino.

Overall, day one was a good beginning. In part 3, I will tell you about my day getting to Nasbinals.

Camino de Santiago -- Part 1

The Camino de Santiago, as it is known in Spanish, is pilgrimage trail that starts at points all over Europe and usually ends in Santiago, Spain. It has been traveled by Catholic pilgrims for over 1,000 years. The cathedral in Santiago is where the remains of the Apostle James are purportedly kept. Pilgrims believed that the spirit of James would keep them safe on the Camino. The government took efforts to keep the Camino safe from the Moors in the south of Spain and the church went to great effort to shelter and give medical care to pilgrims.


Image source: Manfred Zentgraf, Volkach, Germany - Manfred Zentgraf, Volkach, Germany, CC BY-SA 3.0 (link to source)

Since about 1990, doing the Camino has come back into popularity. The growth rate in people completing the Camino grows by about 10% per year. Records show in 446,035 people completed it in 2023. That is an average of 1,222 per day, although daily completions vary quite a bit by time of year.

The Camino has always been open to everybody of all faiths. In the early years, it was one of three main pilgrimages in the Catholic church, the other two ending in Jerusalem and Rome. Today, I would estimate the percentage of pilgrims on the Camino who are Catholic is rather small. Based on people I spoke with, most pilgrims do it for spiritual reasons, a physical challenge, a vacation or some combination.

When I lived in Baltimore from 1992 to 2001, I section hiked about 200 miles of the Appalachian Trail (AT). I liked it. It is on my bucket list to return and finish it in the short period of my life between retirement and being too old to do it. In my circle of hiking friends, I’ve had conversations about the AT, the Pacific Crest Trail and other long-distance trails lots of times. In these conversations, the Camino de Santiago sometime would come up, but until several years ago I didn’t know much about it.

In 2015, I was visiting Germany. My cousin, who lives in Marburg, took me to visit Mainz. There his wife showed pointed out metallic shells laid out on the main street through the city. She explained how the Camino de Santiago went through Mainz with the shells marking the path all the way to Santiago, 2000 kilometers away.


Example of shell marking the Camino. This one is in Leon, Spain. Photo taken by me.

The shell, as a fun fact, is the symbol of the Camino because it used to end in Fisterra, Spain, which is on the west coast and known as the “end of the earth,” because it was believed that was as far west as land extended. As proof one made it, they would collect a scallop shell, which were easily found on the beach. They also made for a handy spool/bowl on the way back.

A few years after that, I don’t remember exactly when, I befriended a world-traveler and adventurous friend named Susan. She mentioned she did a 500-mile section of the Camino and knowing our similar interests, highly recommend I do the same. Then earlier this year a friend of mine from my local hiking circle of friends posted about her Camino on Facebook, which significantly moved it up on my bucket list.
Fast forward to August of this year. I decided to skip Burning Man. If you’ll pardon the pun, I was a bit burned out from it after 2022 and 2023. However, I traditionally do some kind of adventure this time of year. Up to this point, my biggest adventure in 2024 was a mountain climbing trip to Mexico in January. By August, I was ready for another one. Something big.

It was at first my intention to do a big road trip to road trip to Alaska with two friends. However, that fell through for reasons beyond my control. I then planned to do an Alaska trip by myself, bouncing around from place to place on the Alaska ferry. That turned out to be logistically hard to plan because the Alaska ferry was running on a limited schedule, due to a staffing shortage. In particular, there was no way to get between Juneau and points north like Homer.

It was dealing with the frustration planning an Alaska trip that I realized that it would be the perfect time to do the Camino. Unlike most pilgrims, I planned to do it on bicycle. It was agreed I would leave on August 30 for Le Puy, France and return whenever I finished, which I estimated to be in three to four weeks. Mrs. Wizard pleasantly and surprisingly agreed to this plan.

In part 2 of my story, I’ll get into the adventure, beginning in Le Puy.


Cathedral in Le Puy, an official starting point for the Camino de Santiago.

Vegas re-opening

Las Vegas casinos were allowed to re-open at 12:01 AM yesterday, June 4, 2020. Later that afternoon, I paid a visit to every open casino between the Bellagio and Wynn. Those still closed in that range were Harrah's, Linq, Cromwell, Ballys, and the Mirage. Let me start with some pictures from the trip. Click on any image for a larger version.


Rules seen by the Treasure Island elevator. The down-escalator from the parking garage was broken.


Las Vegas Blvd looking south from the Wynn/Fashion Show bridge


Most high-end stores in the Wynn were still closed. What few were open seemed to not have much merchandise to see. I think this because recent looting of high end stores elsewhere after the death of George Floyd.


Who can resist taking a picture of the Wynn floral merry-go-round?


Every other slot machine in a bank was strictly closed, everywhere. The type of slot machines in an island seemed to be allowed to be all open.


Every other sink and urinal were closed off in the Wynn bathroom.


The Bellagio rules


This is one of several hand washing stations in the Belllagio, which can found in the middle of the casino floor. I applaud this idea!


To ensure social distancing, the table game rules seem to be as follows, everywhere:
Blackjack and similar size tables: 3 players
Roulette, poker: 4 players
Craps: 6 players (three per side)
Some casinos have Plexiglass barriers, some don't, and some have them on some tables. The Bellagio seems to have them on every table. Here is how they do it in craps.


Hello Kitty is ready to welcome visitors back to Las Vegas at the Bellagio conservatory.

My main observation was that the staff everywhere was very friendly and eager to welcome guests back. That Thursday afternoon, crowds were very thin. Despite only about half of restaurants being open and those limited to half capacity, it seemed most had plenty of empty tables. A friend and I walked right into Vanderpump at Caesars Palace, which I was told usually had a long line in pre-Corona times. I've been coming to Las Vegas since I turned 21 in 1986 and have lived here since 2001 and never have I had such good and friendly service.

Putting aside the risk of Corona Virus infection, I think right now is a great time to visit Las Vegas. Prices are low, crowds are thin, and your business will be very appreciated. I am not a doctor, so make no claims whether it is worth the risk. As for me, I accept the risk, in the name of good mental health.