Your backpack
What will you bring with you? Well: the minimun. In almost all guides, you can read that 8-10% of your weight is enough.
Believe it. Forget all these things that "could be nice to have sometimes". Yes, it's true, I missed the warm fleece I leaved in Estella, and the spanish dictionary I leaved somewhere else, and the book with Tranströmers poetry... But it was better to freeze some evenings than to carry the fleece every days. And I didn't suffered because I didn't had it!
First, buy a ligth backpack. 45 liters is enough. I met people who hade backpack in nylon, they were very ligth.
Then fill it with:
- a certicate from your social insurance or similar
- identity card/passport
- anti inflammatory pills
- plaster ("dubbel skin")
- good shoes and sandals (I walked in sandals, nice when it's warm.)
- hat
- water bottle (I needed two)
- sun lotion
- your credential
Then:
- sleeping bag
- two/three pairs of socks (buy good ones, for trekking!)
- two/three sets of underwears
- two/three t-shirts (wash your clothes every evening!)
- one pair trousers/shorts
- rain cape
- minimal toilet articles
- pocket knife
- needles and thread
- torch (your mobile phone is a good one ;-)
- safety pins (works good as clothespin)
- antiseptic ointment
- plastic bags
- notebook and pencil
- toilet paper
- may be a camera?
That's all I had with me. But it felt heavy a lot of times.
Waterproof jacket and trousers are not so good, you get wet from... inside! A guide can be intersting, but it's not necessary. Better not to forget ear plugs!
Then think that you need to carry fructs, water and others things.
