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

all it takes is one late sleeper to throw a wrench into the works and force the rest of you to stumble around in the dark futilely attempting to minimize your coughing, bag -crinkling, zipper-zipping and clip-snapping while resigning yourself to the fact that it is basically certain that you will accidentally leave something behind, and just hope it won’t be something important like sunscreen, or that half a chocolate bar you’d been saving.
    14. Learn to sleep through people packing in the dark
    Some mornings your dorm mates will not emerge from their smelly cocoons early enough for your liking, and the rest of the time it will seem as though they are all absurdly early risers suffering from genetic birth defects that cause them to savour the darkness and perform entire orchestras with their loudly cr eaking joints. Developing a skill for ignoring the sounds, smells and constant clumsy shuffling of people trying to discern the colour of a pair of socks in the dark can help you steal an extra half an hour of sleep here and there after nights when one glass of wine turned into seven, or you’ve simply lost the will to live. You know, mornings like that.
    15. Practice washing clothes in sinks and showers
    You know you’ve got it when you’ve mastered scrubbing the two sides of your underwear against each other, instead of just picking away at stuff with your fingernails, or using a small rock and your teeth like the Belgians.
    16. Picking up girls in unisex bathrooms is an art form
    As hot as that recently divorced Portuguese school teacher wearing men’s boxer shorts and a toque may look while trimming her ample nose hairs, that is not the time to make your move. Even if you were already passing by on the way to drop the kids off at the pool and thought you might be able to kill two birds with one stone. Instead, savvy playboys steal all the toilet paper then wait patiently for their moment of chivalry to arrive, usually plaintively and highly vulnerable.
    17. Night farts are to be expected, but don’t flaunt them
    We all know they ’re coming, it’s just a fact of life. And fact of drinking wine. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be respectful and courteous. Hold them in as much as you can, no boisterous blasts followed by much guffawing and bumbling high-fives. Spicy food is okay once in a while but there’s no need to make spicy tamales your evening comfort food. And no passing the buck with suspicious looks at the heaviest person in the room, the way we do at home. Remember, you’re all a family now. Of course, if this kind of full disclosure is still a bit advanced for you, just try to quietly contain them in your sleeping bag, allowed to seep out quietly and anonymously throughout the night. But I would suggest showing off your confidence at least once by vigorously turning your bag into a makeshift fireplace bellows, expelling the warm pungency and chuckling…confidently.
    18. Show up last
    One trick that took us far too long to recognize was that the last people to arrive at the albergue always ended up with the best beds. Since the hospitaleros had no idea how many guests to expect they normally filled rooms up in an orderly fashion, never leaving any empty spots just in case they were to eventually reach capacity. Plus, there was always the possibility of a large group showing up together looking to all stay in the same room. However, this rarely happened, and because it was October the albergues almost never filled up, so the last few stragglers, a mix of exhausted but determined injury cases, fat people, the dejected and despondent, or loud glassy-eyed Spaniards who had really been enjoying some wine over lunch, often ended up with entire eight bed dorm rooms to share between two or three of them. Personally, we were far too anal about even the slightest possibility of albergues running out of space to jump on this loophole very often, but when we finally did, at the end of a really long day to Palas de Rei on Day 32, it worked like a charm. Pro: our choice of beds in the largest, roomiest dorms in the whole place. Con: all the hot water for the shower had long ago been used up.
    Of course, during busier times of the year this won’t work nearly as well, as you’re likely to find yourself replacing “best bed” with “no bed”, a significant downside unless you are desperately searching for an acceptable excuse to get a hotel room. And already used “genital wart flare-up”, I