Charlie: That’s what they call us pilgrims in Spanish. People seem happy to see us. Lots of people we pass in the small towns say “Buen Camino” to us and we say it to the pilgrims who pass us. We would say it to the pilgrims we pass also but so far we haven’t passed anyone. We are the slow ones.
Before we started I was a little worried about standing out and people not wanting us around but the Camino is part of the culture here and everyone seems to be into it. The pilgrims help out the economy too so that helps.
We were excited to see other pilgrims at the bus station leaving for Roncesvalles. Then on the trail we see a lot of pilgrims of course. It is still early but there are a fair number but not a mob.
We get passed a lot as I said. We have been starting out pretty late. After a while we start getting passed by the pilgrims who started out early from a town 10km before.
We are not staying in the alburgues, pilgrim hostels, so we don’t hang out with as many pilgrims as we would if we did but there is a comraderie among pilgrims and we are getting to know people as we go.
On the third night we ate dinner at an inn where they had a communal meal for pilgrims. There were about 15 of us and we sat at a long table and heard people’s stories. The dinner was quite good. You had three choices each for a starter, a main dish and a dessert all for 12 euros.
We talked to two 19 year old boys from Grand Rapids who were taking a gap year before college and traveling. Several other young people were taking time off to travel. There was a Brit about our age who had done the Camino before but in November.
About 60 percent are young people and about 20 percent are 60 and over.
We have met an amazing number of Canadians, like 7 or 8, from coast to coast and in between. We met a guy, about 50, in our hotel the second night. He was a bookkeeper for a non profit from Vancouver. He had started in St Jean and had a very hard first day going over the mountains. I’m glad we started in Roncesvalles. We saw him again on the trail and he was at the pilgrims dinner the third night. Wynette saw him again today on the street in Pamplona.
Yesterday we talked to a young woman who was writing a masters thesis in literature about her walk on the Camino.
