Trust

Spain has a lot less crime than most parts of the world. Definitely less than the US. We’ve talked about this in blogs of previous trips, but we are always amazed at how trusting people are here. For example, it’s extremely rare to pay for coffee when you order it, even if the bar is full and busy. They never bring you a bill. When you are done, you walk up to the counter to pay. They, somehow, always seem to remember what you ordered. One time, last year, we forgot to pay for our coffee and a sandwich in a bus station. We remembered it after we were on the bus and many miles away. Oops.

With the pack transfer we are doing, there is a high amount of trust involved:

You pack up our bag and leave it in the hotel lobby in the morning before you set out for the day. (Have to get it there before 8:00, no sleeping in.) Often (usually!) there is no one in the lobby minding the desk. The door to the lobby might be open and certainly not locked. There may or may not be other bags along with yours.

You say a little prayer and head out. You get to your place for the night and the bag is sitting in the lobby of the place where you are staying. Again, unattended.

Obviously, this works because there is very little theft going on in these towns.

If we lost the bag, it would be a huge inconvenience. Possibly enough of a problem to halt a Camino since you need just about every item in that bag or you wouldn’t have brought it on the Camino. Of course, we don’t transfer things that would be a major problem to lose: e.g., medication, passports, phones, etc.

But lots and lots of people do pack transfer and so far, I haven’t heard of anyone not getting their bag eventually. If the bag wasn’t there when they arrived at their place for the night it wasn’t because of theft, it was a screw up of the transfer company or some screw up in communication.