Camino 2013

Wynette: Two things I’ve been trying to work with on the Camino are taking things as they come and letting go.

Taking things as they come:

You haul yourself up a steep hill and finally at the top you see that you are going straight back down again. These hills give lots of practice in accepting things as they come.

Charlie and I have talked some about how stressful it can be to always try to optimize everything: to try to stay in the best possible place for the night, to find the best dinner. As we move so quickly through these towns with so little information, we just have to choose something and hope for the best. Some things turn out great, others ok. Nothing really terrible so far. But there are always opportunities to have regrets or be unhappy. Being on the Camino reminds me to acknowledge how I feel (to myself) but not to hang on to those regrets or bad feelings. And to constantly be grateful for all the good things we experience every day and for the opportunity to see the world this way.

Letting go:

Walking lets you see things closer and in more detail than driving, of course. But then you’re more aware of all the things you are passing by too quickly.  Flowers, little churches,  local people, other pilgrims, tiny villages, little tiendas and bars, farms, animals, houses, vistas. But there isn’t time to stop for much of this. Sometimes, we’ve even been too tired to explore the village we are staying in for the night. I am trying to enjoy what I can of these things and let go of the others and move on.

Wynette: We’ve been surprised how it’s taken us some time to learn a few practical things. We thought we’d list some things here we wish we’d known earlier in case you are planning to do the Camino.

1) If a steep uphill or downhill is slowing you down or causing knee pain and the path is fairly level and smooth, zigzag your way up or down. In other words do little switchbacks right on the path. Even though it’ll take more steps, you’ll probably go faster and with less discomfort. We learned this when we saw another pilgrim doing it. At first you feel a little silly but we didn’t let that stop us, and then we noticed a few others copying us after watching us do it.

2) When ordering a bocadilla (Spanish-style sandwich) feel free to ask for exactly what you want on it, even if your favorite combination is not listed on the menu. For example, cheese, chorizo, tomato, olive oil. Well, I haven’t had the nerve yet to to ask for mayonnaise, but I think the Spanish wouldn’t mind even though they might think I’m strange.

3) If you are burned out on bocadillas (that happened to us) don’t be afraid to ask for things that aren’t on the menu. For example, we started asking for huevos fritos con tostadas (fried eggs with toast) any time of the day. Most places have been happy to oblige. And the eggs are so fresh and delicious and prepared exactly the way we like them: over easy. If you like them some other way you’ll probably need to ask because over  easy seems to be the default.

4) If you are tired of the constant patatas fritas (French fries) that come with every pilgrim’s menu, ask if they’ll substitute ensalada. We just did this today for the first time and they were happy to do it. In general, we have found the salads to be delicious. At least at this season, April/May, the lettuce is so fresh.

5) We recently started ordering one pilgrim’s menu to share between the two of us. We were shy about doing that earlier but no one seems to mind. There’s always so much food, one menu is plenty unless we are really hungry.

6) Last night we stayed in a private room in an albergue. Since some albergues offer washers and dryers, we asked about it there. They said no, but added they’d do a load for us for 3 euros to wash and 3 to dry. This was a bargain because hand washing is so much work, things don’t get as clean, and in this cold, very damp weather, it’s hard to get things to dry, especially thick socks. (Some of our rooms have had no or very little heat.)  What a luxury to have everything squeaky clean and dry. We didn’t realize this service is often available in these places.

7) If you don’t want your whole bottle of wine that comes with your pilgrim’s menu, offer what you have left to the pilgrims sitting at your table who have finished theirs. We did this last night and they eagerly accepted and it opened up conversation at our table of two people from USA, two from Slovenia, one from Argentina, one from Spain.

Note: Since we took some time learning about these things, places earlier on the Camino might not be the same. For example, you’ll notice the food slowly change as you walk from region to region. So everything we’ve said above might not apply everywhere.

We stayed at a few albergues but mostly in hotels, casa rurals, hostals, and such. If we’d stayed in more albergues, we’d probably have talked to more pilgrims and learned these things sooner.

Charlie

Wynette: We haven’t been blogging much recently. Charlie hasn’t been feeling well for a few days but he’s wanted to keep going. Also we’ve increased our daily kilometerage a bit. So we often get into a town very tired. We do whatever hand laundry needs to be done, then if we have any time and energy walk around the town a bit, then get dinner and plan the next day. Then it’s time to sleep. Still, we’re always glad to be out on the road the next day.

We’ve finally got good WiFi tonight, so are able to load videos for the past few days. Will probably get those posted tomorrow.

Wynette: On this trip we have walked through several regions of Spain. (Here is a map of the regions of Spain.) Most regions contain a number of provinces.

On April 3 we started walking in the Basque region of Navarra. After crossing Navarra, we passed through small La Rioja. Then huge Castilla-Leon. And today (Friday, May 10) we entered Galicia, the region that contains Santiago.

The Galician people have Irish/Celtic roots. Galicia is beautiful, hilly, lush green like Ireland. The high mountain town we are sleeping in tonight (May 10) is called O’Cebreiro. The primary language spoken here is Galician.  But most speak Spanish as well. Many here, as in the Basque region and Catalonia, want to be an independent country, not a part of Spain.

Charlie: We are slowly getting used to using kilometers but usually convert things to miles. Even the British and the Aussies know about kilometers so we are really alone with the miles. And talking to some Germans it took me a while to tell them the altitude of Albuquerque in millikilometers.

Kilometers are nice because they are smaller and it seems like you are walking farther. Celsius degrees are a little too big and the temperature signs have to have a decimal place.

But I have realized on the trip that the elephant in the room is time. How did the whole world get bamboozled into the wacky way we make time? Quick, how many days between April 28 and June 7? If it is 9:40 (or 21:40 it is no easier) and you set your alarm for 7:15 how long do you get to sleep? Not higher math but significant mental effort. Harder than the time between star date 45812.6 and 45814.3 but, of course, you need to figure out what the heck the star date units were. Did Star Trek ever address that?

Charlie: This is not Camino related but I had to mention another road movie showing how it is all about the music.

In Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous there is a touching scene where everyone is tired and they are on the bus and Tiny Dancer by Elton John and Bernie Taupin comes on the radio. One by one they all start singing along with the song.

Charlie: One of the great things about the Camino is all the services set up for pilgrims. One of these is the albergues. These are the places with lots of bunk beds in large rooms. You get a mattress, the lower bunks go first, and usually a pillow and a blanket if you need one. Like summer camp except a lot more snoring, which increases with age it seems.

We planned from the beginning to stay mostly in hotels and pensions and only in a few albergues. That is what we have done. We have stayed in albergues two times out of 35 nights.

That decision is problematical though. The albergues are part of the culture of the Camino. They are where you meet lots of other pilgrims. Also everyone gets up and gets going early, you have to be out by 8, so it gets you more into the rhythm of the Camino.

You also gain a lot of flexibility since they have albergues in every little place, places where there is no hotel.

The cost is a lack of personal space and a place to relax. They can also be pretty cold. They don’t seem to have heat.

I can see the tradeoffs and I am glad we are doing it the way we are. Everyone walks their own Camino and meeting a lot of other pilgrims was not my reason for walking. I have talked elsewhere about things I was looking for. We still talk to a lot of people but we don’t have the (not so) late night bull sessions with people like you do, say, in a college dorm. But for me, been there, done that. And I am mostly an introvert and like my alone time. Other people would make other decisions.

Another consideration is cost. The albergues are really cheap, €5-10 each. We have been averaging about €40 a night in hotels (20 each). Also most albergues have kitchen facilities so you can go to the store with some other pilgrims and cook up a communal meal pretty cheaply. You could easily walk the Camino for €25 a day and €15 a day of you were really careful. (Food from the grocery store is very inexpensive.)

Overall I would say anyone young or extroverted should definitely stay in albergues. Other people should weigh the factors and decide what is best for them. If you enjoy camping you should also stay in albergues because it is a lot the same but easier since you get a mattress and a roof. I would say that you should also stay in albergues if you enjoy flying coach on long international overnight flights but that might reveal my prejudices so I won’t say that.

One thing we have noticed is that almost everyone we meet is staying in albergues. This includes the people we meet in the hotels and people our age. Usually they just stay in hotels once in a while, like once a week. And others are staying there because the albergues are full or they arrived too late.

Charlie: some of the books talked about threatening dogs on the Camino. This one didn’t seem like too much of a threat but we were cautious anyway 😉

Wynette, posted July 29, 2013: When we were reading about the camino before we left, several people mentioned “the wild dogs of Foncebadon”. Luckily, I’d forgotten all about this when we were walking through Foncebadon and so went through there without fear. Charlie posted this photo of a sleeping dog (with joke about being cautious) while we were on the camino and later, after we returned home, we looked up the location of this photo. It was Foncebadon!

We never had problems with dogs anywhere. They were so used to us pilgrims passing through they mostly seemed to ignore us. We met some very nice dogs. We did learn early on not to try to pet them. Charlie did this early on and the dog growled at him. We learned to give them their space and they let us pass through with no problem.

Charlie: We see signs like this a lot. Not sure what all the languages are. We are close to Galicia and they have their own language.