Well, a different experience of the Camino today for sure. We´re now on the final 100km--this is the minimum one has to walk to get the Compostela--the certificate of completion of a holy pilgrimmage. As I said before, Sarria was pretty full of pilgrims who were beginning there, so we ended up really sharing the Camino with these folks today.
Ummmm--it wasn´t fun. It was odd to note how much the atmosphere of just about everything seemed to change. What had before felt so much like an amazing journey being shared by fellow travelers now felt much more like a race and a competition. There are large groups of pilgrims who have come together--scouts and youth groups and what have you. They tend to travel in packs, are mostly young, often have their heavy backpacks ferried to the next night´s stop--and they travel fast. We thought we might miss the large crowds of pilgrims hurrying into Santiago by planning to arrive after the festival day on June 25. Lots of other people evidently had the same idea.
There are fewer calls of "Buen Camino!" and more general loudness. You tend to either feel like you´re stuck behind a pack and can´t get around them, or a pack is about to run over you from behind and you need to hurry up or get out of the way. I know we´re not supposed to feel like this--I´m probably not really supposed to be referring to fellow pilgrims as "packs"--but that´s where we are. It was just a stressful-feeling kind of day, even though it was supposed to be fairly easy--just 21.5 km with only gentle inclines and descents.
When we got into Portomarin and headed to the municipal albergue, there was already a very long line outside, waiting to get in. Marty went to sit in line, while Niles, Emlyn and I headed to a cafe to order sandwiches for all of us. We knew Marty wouldn´t be able to actually get beds for us if we weren´t in line too, but we figured we could probably eat and take a sandwich to Marty before the albergue doors opened.
While we were waiting we ran across Gavin, Claudia and her sister Sarah--Camino friends from the part of our journey around Burgos. I figured we had left them behind--or they us--for good when I came down with shinsplints and had to take days off, then bus/train ahead to meet Marty and get back on track. It was great fun to see them and catch up a bit.
After we ate, we still had to wait in line for over 1/2 hour in the full sun before we got in, and during that time we weren´t at all sure there would be beds left when we got there. But there were--thank goodness!
This albergue had a wonderful large kitchen area. Other pilgrims were cooking and eating, and we thought that would be a good plan for the evening. But by the time dinnertime rolled around, all the kitchen utensils, pots and dishes were gone. Everything got taken out, because someone cooked but didn´t bother to wash their own dishes. (This is the second time we´ve seen pilgrims cook and not wash up after themselves.) There was just a different feeling in the albergue in general. On one of the bulletin boards as we went in, someone had written in permanent marker, "Poser Pilgrims, go the **** home!" There´s definitely a sense of frustration, resentment, etc. that is different.
I did some thinking about that, and realized how much I struggle with it myself. I did, in fact, make an offhanded, highly amusing (!?) comment about "posergrinos" myself. On the one hand, it´s really annoying when someone new to the Camino puts their pack and lots of loose stuff on the only chair in the room--as though there´s no one else there. Or they feel they need to take their full pack in to the very very tiny bathroom with three sinks but hardly any space, while they brush their teeth and put on makeup. Or they can´t understand that, while it still may be light outside, even at 4:00 in the afternoon people in the bunks are sleeping because they´ve carried their full packs 15 or 20 miles through the heat and are exhausted, and will be getting up at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning--so maybe those who are awake should use very indoor voices instead of shouting and laughing loudly in the rooms.
On the other hand, anyone who drops obscenities on people they don´t even know probably qualifies as a poser pilgrim as well.
Fact is, those of us who started this thing 400 km back or so were probably anxious enough before we left to check out the websites and Camino forums, where we learned the etiquette and expectations of the Camino. And when we started out, the albergue hosteleros were careful to explain to us that boots wen´t outside the sleeping rooms, and packs never, never went on the beds (since said packs probably spent a fair amount of time on the Camino sitting on sheep doots during rest breaks). Lately, tho, I haven´t seen many hosteleros actually take the time to explain any of that. So yeah, small wonder people--especially people in their teens--don´t figure it out on their own.
So I tried to remember patience. Unfortunately, patience doesn´t address the issue that there are just a whole lot of people vying for beds now. I spoke with one woman--about my age--who has been walking from Lograño--not quite as far as we´ve come, but close. Virginia is from Colombia and currently living in the UK. She said she had had it--this is no fun anymore, too much like a race, too stressful on her body, and not worth it. She was seriously thinking of bagging it and taking the bus to Santiago (thus forfeiting her compostela), and then heading home.
The Eastmans did a check-in on how we were feeling, and although we don´t love the shift in culture that we´re feeling, we want to keep going. It means earlier starts, which wouldn´t be a bad thing with the heat. And then we heard that Virginia had actually simply reserved a bed at private albergues for the rest of the trip. We decided that was an option that appealed to us very much, and Jorge was gracious enough to offer to call ahead and make the reservations.
In the afternoon, after a bit of a rest, we went to the river with Jorge and Raphaela, and they and Emlyn went swimming. It was lovely, but still very hot, and I ended up sitting out there just too long. Did not feel well at all after that. We went to a cafe/bar for a cold drink, and met up with Gavin and Claudia, so spent some time chatting, and having a drink--which left me feeling much better. It was so delightful to be with them again--just to know that things we assume are lost, aren´t always.
Sigh. Crowds! Yuck.
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