Behind the Albergue Door: Inspiration Agony Adventure on the Camino de Santiago

Saskatchewan in summer, swarming innocent hikers and campers in huge mindless clusters for two to three months before succumbing to the dropping temperatures of late August with about as much fight as one of those infamously gutless wet paper bags. No, these Spanish mosquitoes do not fade into winter quietly or easily. The only reasonable explanation is a steady diet of chemically enhanced blood from all the massive cattle combined with a burning desire to find out who is going to win the World Series.
    What is your favourite part of backtracking?
    Oh, my, it is so hard to narrow it down to just one. I mean, there is the dawning realization that even though your ultimate destination for the day is 28 kilometres from where you started this little detour is going to take the total hiking distance for the day well over the 30 kilometre mark, which makes for a nice milestone. Then there is the knowledge that most of your new blisters tend to take hold around the 20 to 22 kilometre mark, which means you will get to enjoy them for even longer now. Or the fact that your left pinkie toe has been making a disturbing squeaking noise since about eight hills back and that maybe walking all this extra distance will help it fix itself. And, of course, every additional minute you spend hiking is another minute you don’t spend eating vast quantities of chocolate. In fact, studies have shown that nothing does a better job of getting you back down to your high school weight than getting lost and venturing off-track several times per day, with the possible exception of pork-based tapeworms.
    Mind you, you may occasionally meet some pilgrims who, believe it or not, are not intent on pushing the limits of their pain threshold or hoping for some illogically magical cure or losing their pastry weight. Those peculiar individuals tend to only be focused on accomplishing their daily goals of reaching a particular town, finding a suitable bed for the night and making it one more day without contracting mononucleosis. They generally disdain and avoid backtracking in all forms with an admirable passion, whether it be a several kilometre detour to visit the vaguely recognizable ruins of the 14 th Century tree fort of St. James’ third cousin’s family cobbler, or turning around to return to what was apparently the only bar in town serving food three blocks back, or simply going an extra few feet off-trail behind a bush so the local children don’t catch a glimpse of your wiener while you pee.
    Do people start hiking in the dark because they are shy?
    That, of course, varies on a case by case basis depending on whether you have access to somewhere private to apply your makeup and tighten up your hair extensions, and how long after getting out of bed your morning hard-on lasts. But in most cases we found ourselves starting out in the dark simply because the days were getting progressively shorter. By late October the sun wasn’t fully up until after 8:30 am and considering that most albergues had a policy of kicking everyone out by around 8 am we usually weren’t left with much choice. Plus, it only takes one or two people waking up, coughing, blowing their noses and rustling plastics bags to and fro at 6:30 am to ensure that everyone is up and at ‘em soon after. Once the Daylight Savings Time change took place at the end of the month it got light out an hour earlier and we were able to spend much less time trying to avoid shining our headlamps in each other’s eyes and periodically stumbling over protruding rocks and stepping in cow shit.
    Even though sunrise is several hours earlier in the summer, overwhelming fears about the heat of the afternoon, the possibility of albergues running out of beds and a greater number of Frenchmen who specialize in being infuriatingly perky at 5 am usually lead to the same daylight issues as we faced in the fall. Except with far more sleep-deprivation and back alley stabbings.
    Hey, the stain on that guy’s thigh looks familiar. Have we seen him somewhere before?
    Probably. Probably a lot. One of the few things you could count on every day on the Camino, besides back sweat and large quantities of white bread, was that not long after starting out you would encounter a number of other pilgrims who you would, without fail, see no less than half a dozen more times throughout the day. Particularly further along the trail it began to feel as though most people hiked at more or less the same pace, or at least