Chelsea, Vauxhall, Camberwell. All left in the dust on a Eurolines coach to Bilbao with a similar penchant for beige as the seats on Etihad. I’m passing the time nostrils-curious thanks to the smells of soy-drenched Asian noodle boxes, McCoy’s salt and vinegar, and a slap-dash club sandwich from Pret around me. But before I know it I’m a full-blown Camino “peregrino” restlessly semi-schlaafing in a municipal albergue en route to Santiago de Compostela. Lights out at 10, top bunked in a room of 25.
Coming into the dorm at 8:30 pm, the night’s orchestra is already in full flow. Above me, there’s a regular nasal snore, right on the beat. Bit of a shame that he’s started up before I’ve even flossed, but I think I can ear-plug my way to hushabye mountain. More troubling is the syncopated rhythm emanating from a fat man three bunks across. For 15 seconds at a time, he seems (hopefully) dead, but then awakens and emits a guttural sound, as if trying to speak Dutch for the first time while producing a bucket of phlegm.
At 4:30 am the obtrusive shuffling and whispering begins. Rucksack zipping and sleeping bag rolling-upping. Snippy conversations, maybe about a lost sock, the treasured camino guidebook, or the prized vaseline tub. Either way, it’s clear what’s happening. The Germans, are up. Just as they put their towels on sunbeds across the med, in classic competitive punctuality they’re leaving earliest to arrive earliest and claim the bottom bunks in albergues across the Camino.
Fetal positioned on an undesirable top bunk right by the (one) toilet, I try and doze off while other groups of Koreans and Australians rise and march on. At 7:11, I roll out of my synthetic sleeping bag liner, leave my Mr Men pillowcase crumpled on the spring single mattress, and head to the communal bathroom to run my fingers over my puffy face. It’s one shower to each pack of pilgrims, but as I’m the last to rise I have the whole one shower/toilet combo to myself. Alas, I fart in peace.
Still in sloth mode, I get back to my bunk with a few minutes to spare to pack up my shit and drop my big bag off at reception with 5 euros tagged on in an envelope, taking it to the next stage. Then, I fuck breakfast and start to traipse as my peeling calves leave a cute little trail of me behind me. Regardless, breakfasts at the albergues is a lighter shade of beige. Sweet sliced bread, individually-packaged croissants that taste like factory, and watered-down orange juice. Far better off walking a bit then grabbing a rocket fuel coffee and tepid tortilla from a makeshift cafe on the way.
Overnight, just by inhaling the albergue aire I’ve managed to contract Camino influenza. Sandpaper throat, lead legs, funky mucus build-up that tastes like a bad potato. Not surprising when we’ve been herded into barns with a mañana mañana approach to soap/paper towels in the bathrooms.
Once on the Camino I sink out of my morning albergue grump and forgive the German nation for their unrivalled punctuality. It all melts away as each day’s walk turns lovely. Verdant vineyards spread over small rolling hills, red poppy-like flowers dotted along the path, broken up by the undulating flight of small yellow-breasted birds. Sometimes I’m even treated to the cathartic mastication of a flock of cow, or the purring of a shit tractor that witnessed the Spanish Civil War.
After a few km I reach the first hamlet (Santo de something de something de Camino) and inhale a coffee and ‘Napoletana’ — a dubious iteration of a pain au chocolat that “claims” to be from Napoli, much to the unawares of the Neapolitans. Either way, thanks to the caffeine and sugar bolt, the next section goes well, filled with chatty chin-wags. I meet a delightful Kiwi human who after minimal small talk graciously offers up her flat in Hanoi for my wife and me to stay in. We part ways at the next cluster of church/tobacconist/albergue, and I march into endless fields of corn. A few German stragglers, chugging beastly backpacks with last night’s drying laundry safety-pinned to the outside, zoom past me determined to roll out their sleeping bags on the last few lower bunks right under my very ginger beard.
After crunching my way through a home-made jamón and mayonnaise baguette while sat in a dystopian playground on the Camino, I pass a few miles chatting to a new-found hero, a coffee farmer from Brazil. He’s perplexed by my cavalier attitude to the breezy planes of Spain, dressed in loose biking shorts and an open fleece, and eventually encourages me to let him amble along slowly and pick up my pace. Righto.
I soon realize that the range of people on the Camino makes it so memorable — the delightful Danish brother-sister combo following in their father’s footsteps; the chap from Merseyside looking to start his own transformative Christian community; the charming lady from Bergamo becoming an artist in her retirement; the Hungarian who shuffled along the whole route and shared my eagerness for a Burger King the minute we got to Santiago; the man from Sark (fuckin’ Sark!); or the aspiring Hemingway-cum-former-government-attorney from Vancouver. And then there are the locals, like the old boy I chatted to breaking his back in his veggie patch bordering the Camino. Together we weigh the merits of last year’s vs this year’s harvest of spring onions. Last year’s were tougher and more bitter, he did have a point, but why he was so despondent about them I wasn’t so sure. Either way, he knew onions, and I had much to learn.
When not chatting with fellow pilgrims or gazing peacefully at the cow flocks, I got in a good amount of aimless thinking. For example, how the Camino was great publicity for Quechua, The North Face, Patagonia, all the bastions of outdoor retail. I was also bloody chuffed that the local peeps in the pueblos we passed through weren’t wringing out us pilgrims for more €€€, and began to think about what a US-inspired Camino might look like:
Each stage sponsored by a Rockefeller, a Vanderbilt, a Carnegie (“the lads”)
A McDonald’s and a sprinkling of Popeyes/Waffle House/IHOP/Chick-Fil-A in each pueblo with “pilgrim menus”
All local restaurants offering up (meh) iterations of a hearty “chilli”
Hostels touting quantity above all — buffet breakfasts, bottomless Happy Hours, and all-you-can-eat pork competitions
Bars serving a “Pilgrim IPA”, and “Camino Nitro Stout”
All the while distracting you from simply living, and living simply.
Once I reach the final Camino pueblo of the day, I check into my albergue with a hippy/veggie vibe that, unlike the municipal albergues, doesn’t have a night curfew/morning kick-out time. Then, the faff begins — booking tomorrow’s albergue (how far shall I walk? where’s that guy staying with the syncopated snoring? Where can I get a bottom bunk?), getting my bag picked up, and calling mum back. After I’ve overdone it on the admin, it’s time to stroll the village during peak siesta time. I limp about like a zombie from House of the Dead with a few Camino buddies, taking in the peaceful streets lined with closed barbers and a bafflingly high ratio of butchers to humans. Back in time for the “menú peregrino” at the albergue, but not before they’ve sung “Let It Be” to us and a little bit of me turns necrotic. Still, not quite as cringe as a more traditional pilgrim experience when, attending the “pilgrim’s mass” in a little chapel near another albergue, the congregation sang (flatly and in thick German-English accents), “he’s got the whole wide world in his “hens”…
The dinner itself isn’t bad at all (veggie paella, salad, quiche), and in fact, I fare much better with when they’re veggie than the usual suspects. They typically start off with a large plate of spaghetti doused in a tasteless tomato-inspired sauce. Not a pinch of oregano in sight but, still, filling and nostalgic of my university days. Then comes the sad, white, skinny pork chop swimming in its own filth and sidled up against chips leaking their own grease. Once forked, they ooze like a good Camino blister. And to finish? A kitschy slice of Vienetta or, rather oddly, a small tub of plain yoghurt…Veggie or not, it’s inhaled by the table, who numb taste buds with the generous jugs of vino included with the meal.
Sometimes the dinners come with a side of tedious, forced conversation: “Where did you start your Camino? Oh really? And where are you headed? No, of course, you look like you could get to Santiago, I just wondered if you were going even further, ha! How are your feet and blisters, are they, draining, nicely? Yes, more wine please”. I unwind post-munch with a beer and the Eurovision semi-finals. Thanks to some great Camino peops who rallied behind this year’s contest, I’m fucking hooked on it and get sucked into the catchiness of Malta’s and Norway’s songs, which I play on a loop while walking each day. After that, it’s time to tiptoe to my (top, grrr!) bunk at 10 pm, and take in the cacophony of tonight’s sounds while scrambling for my toothbrush. Only to wake up the next morning and crack on with meeting people, drinking rocket fuel coffee, oh, and walking across Iberia.