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

Another 20% didn’t care much one way or the other, they just needed it to survive. Another 8% were getting up there in years and could only drink coffee before 9:30 am or risk not being able to sleep until the following Wednesday. The final 2% were non-coffee drinkers, a group that included just us, a handful of child hikers and Phil the morning alcoholic. I’m not going to lie, it was a lonely, yawn-filled island at times. But coffee is just one of those acquired habits that somehow neither of us have ever managed to pick up, sort of like showering before going in a public pool or closing my mouth when I chew. Or maybe I’m just too cheap to pay four bucks to burn my tongue. Laynni, for her part, does fancy her liquids hot now and then, but in a possibly coincidental homage to our Commonwealth overlords tends to prefer tea, something typically much more difficult to track down in Northern Spain. She also usually goes in for a type and method of preparation that would be wholly unfamiliar to some elderly literature teacher with a passion for knitting while enjoying her afternoon special in a Piccadilly teahouse. Green tea with no milk and four tablespoons of sugar, anyone?
    The John Brierley guidebook maps use a symbol of a cup to denote places where hungry, parched pilgrims can expect to find comfort, sustenance and loads of artificial verve. It was only after about three weeks of having Laynni regularly refer to them, plan days around them and, in many ways, worship them, that a friend of ours, an intensely dedicated coffee drinker, finally pointed out to her that while it may make perfect sense to her to refer to these symbols as somewhat magical “tea cups”, almost everyone else agreed they looked much more like coffee cups, not to mention denoted locations that always offered coffee and only sporadically were even familiar with tea, or the type of damaged soul that might prefer it to a good ol’ cup o’ joe.
    A good example of the way coffee had gradually become a non-negotiable staple of our days occurred on one of the last days of the Camino when two friends arrived in a small village, desperately in need of some food and a hefty caffeine fix. However, in the short time it took them to explore the seemingly deserted town it appeared as though luck was not going to be on their side that morning. But just then they heard voices down a narrow side street and quickly followed the sound to a tiny café where they found two people standing talking to a third comfortably seated at a nearby table sipping his steaming cup of something at least resembling coffee. They swept in, thrilled and relieved, only to be stopped short by three startled looks and a woman uncomfortably, yet precisely, assuring them the café was closed. With their caffeine-starved brains unable to immediately fathom the full ramifications of this statement they remained standing as though rooted to the spot, uncertainly glancing back and forth from the woman to the cup of coffee beckoning them from the man’s hand, confused, and clearly unable to process the prospect of leaving empty handed. After a suitably awkward amount of time passed like this, finally one of the forlorn pair decided to press the issue.
    “That guy has coffee.”
    “He is just a friend who is visiting.”
    Unable to come up with any logical response that would increase their chances, the two simply continued to stare back , hungrily despondent.
    More time passed.
    “Ok, fine. Sit down.”
    Another dietary obsession that rapidly took on a life of its own was that of candy. Candy, like coffee and dirty denim, is disproportionately popular in the towns the Camino Frances passes through. Even the tiniest villages along the way, lacking a school, grocery store or even a surly barber shop, would inevitably still have two things – candy stores and a pharmacy. So no matter how much candy you stuffed down your insatiable gullet there was still never an excuse to run out of floss. There were times along the trail, more frequent as time went on, when even the briefest of breaks quickly morphed into an impromptu session of group candy therapy. It would start like a less structured, and far less healthy, game of Go Fish – “Ok, now, hmmm, any chance you have some jujubes in there?” – or something bordering more on desperation - “Does anyone, anyone, have any chocolate left?”– although in certain instances of abundance, stashes were voluntarily disclosed in a