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| Route profile of the Camino Primitivo |
Take into account that and plan for a light weight backpack, It should not be more than 10 percent of your body weight.
Backpack must have:
- 2 hiking pants, better if you can make them shorter
- 3 hiking shirts, those that dry very quickly
- 1 hiking long arms under shirt, 1 hiking short sleeve under shirt (nice to have)
- 3 hiking underwear
- 2 hiking socks, pay good attention to them, better if they are compression socks
- 1 soft shirt and shorts (you can sleep with them)
- 1 fleece jacket or vest (depending on the time of the year)
- 1 rain poncho
- 1 rain jacket (must have)/ if you have rain pants then it is nice to have them. Don't make the mistake of having a very cheap one, I made that mistake and it made me sweat so much that I was always wet from the inside. I ended up using the rain poncho and no rain jacket.
- 2 ziplock bags, for dirty clothes, to protect the guide from the rain, etc
- 2 climbing ropes, 2 meters and 1.5 meters long
- 1 climbing hook
- 4 clothespins, or big black paper clips, I use the latter ones, they work perfect to hang things from your backpack to dry
- 1 large travel towel (fast-drying)
- 1 pair of sandals, hiking sandals are nice to have. I took flip flops but I had no blisters problem, the hiking sandals could be useful if you need a plan B for your shoes
- 1 hat
- 1 folded shopping bag
- 1 light sleeping bag (depending on the season, and the type of accomodation, I didn't take one)
- 1 spork + knife
- 1 headlamp
- Camera + enough memory cards + charger
- Phone + charger
- Notebook and pen
- Drinkbottle or camelback
Personal care:
- 1 shampoo / soap / deodorant
- 1 comb / hairbands / hairclips
- 1 small sunblock cream
- 1 toothbrush / toothpaste
- Travel detergent
My recommendation is that you have everything you need for your personal care in a separate bag. When you get to an albergue and want to get a shower, don't get desperate. Take your personal care bag, the towel and the clothes you need, put them in the top of your bag and take the whole bag with you, you never know what you will need.
First Aid Kit must have:
- Anti blisters bar / vaseline works also
- Compeed or similar of all sizes
- Termometer
- Fever / headache medicine
- Cream for wounds
- 5 Gauze pads / pack of bandaids / micropore
- Sewing kit
- Tick remover
- Rehydration powder (one per day / take initially 3 or 4 with you, in every stop you can buy more). I would recommend to drink that every night to keep the level of minerals in your muscles.
Stroller specifics:
- Oil for the stroller
- 2 Spare bike tubes
- Air pump
- 2 bike tube repair kits
- Rain cover
- 2 Mommy hooks - or big climbing hooks (carabiners) to be able to pull it. Make sure you secure the hooks in a non-mobile part, somwhere in the structure of the frame of the stroller.
- Duct Tape - you never know when will you need it.
- Tools
General helpful tips:
- If you already own equipment, make sure everything is working and that you have all the batteries you need.
- Take good care of your feet, take the necessary time every morning to moisture them and protect them. Make sure to rub some lotion at night.
- Have always apples, for us it worked perfectly to have an apple early morning and after some hours of walking we had the official breakfast.
- Be aware of and get used to the Spanish eating schedule. Restaurants usually open for lunch from about 13:30 to 16:00 and for dinner at 20:00. We missed a couple of warm lunches because we didn't arrive on time, and in small towns there are few to none other options. Starting your dinner at 20:00 could be too late if you have small children who need to go to bed early, specially if you get up at 05:00 to start walking.
Help and backpack transfer services:
- It is very useful to have the information provided in www.taxicamino.com, you never know when you need help, they have a taxi service from every phase and a backpack service. They serve until O Cadavo. Their service is great, they charge 5 euros per backpack minimum 20 euros. O Cadavo - Lugo - Ponteferreira - Melide, can be very expensive, there is only one that serves that route and is jacotransleon. If you hire them make sure about the price, starting in Melide you have so much offer that all you need to pay is 3 euros. We hired jacotransleon because my mom and aunt could not carry their backpacks due to back problems, and they charged us 30 euros per phase including the ones in the french path. The part we didn't like is that our backpacks arrived with the tags of the company which charges 3 euros. You feel ripped off if you pay 30 and things arrive with a 3 euros tag.
Guide:
- Since our mother language is Spanish we bought from "Editorial Buen Camino". It is a great guide, with great service.
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