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

silent, or oddly setting your pace to always remain exactly three paces ahead or behind. Of course, if all else fails there is always the wonderfully versatile and ambiguous “Buen Camino” – followed by just walking off.
    Another oddity about Camino friendships was the way every time you left someone, or were left, you knew there was always a chance it would be the last time you saw them. Paces, schedules, rest days, injuries, illness - any or all of these things could quite easily contrive to make that very moment the last time you ever set eyes on each other. Which meant that it was always tempting to make something more of it than would normally be required, sometimes leading to awkward exchanges. It always felt a bit foolish spending the night in the same room with someone you had just traded all your contact information and a heartfelt goodbye with, or passing someone on the trail you had just made plans to meet up with in London in a month. And, let’s face it, no one wants a big hug right before heading off to take a dump in the bushes.
    “The Conversation”
    Any time you travel you end up developing a standard first conversation that you have with almost everyone you meet. Part of it is just habit (why reinvent the wheel?), but there is usually an element of logic behind it as well. They tend to be the questions that are relevant to what you are doing, where you are going, and how this new person might possibly fit into that beyond those first five minutes. Are they headed the same direction as you? If so, this might be a relationship that could evolve. If not, is it worth trying to talk them into a quick bout of Indian Leg Wrestling that will later fade into memory like a strange dream?
    Well, outside of a mere handful of certifiable souls who were hiking back the way they’d come, like they just couldn’t get enough, or were confused about the rules or something, basically everyone we met was heading the same way. So, for once, that wasn’t all that relevant. And Indian Leg Wrestling was obviously out, concerned as we all were with conserving our leg strength. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t still a tried and true conversation standard most pilgrims stuck to almost religiously (if someone varied from the script you immediately knew they’d either had too much wine with lunch or were having a reaction to all the antibiotic creams in their system).
    Are you going all the way to Santiago?
    As much as we try to be better people, it was hard not to feel just the slightest bit superior to people who were only hiking a short stretch. Even though they were almost always doing so out of necessity rather than choice, and those thoughts always seemed to be immediately followed by us suffering some type of humbling physical problem or another, or having a loud accidental fart escape, which I figured mostly evened it out, karma-wise.
    Where did you start?
    This one runs along the same vein as the first, a subtle and friendly way to gauge their relative hardiness compared to yours. Did they only start in Burgos and therefore warrant the kindly - but with just a hint of patronizing condescension - smile? Or had they started months ago in that place in France that you still can’t quite pronounce, and therefore deserve your admiration and submissiveness, like a former alpha dog who just had his favourite bone snatched by a tiny but fearless Yorkshire Terrier?
    How far are you planning to go today?
    You can learn a lot about a pilgrim from the answer to this question. How much distance they cover in a single day tells you if they are the casual, take their time types, or if they are averse to making decisions and prefer to simply follow the stages in their guidebook, or if they are mainly concerned with impressing people with their speed and utter disdain for enjoyment. And if they are planning to go further than you today it means you won’t see them again tonight, and quite probably never again, so there is no point wasting your time or your limited store of cheerfulness on them. Better to save the few smiles you have left in your arsenal for people who may end up in the shower ahead of you in the hope that this most tenuous of friendships is enough to keep them from spending fifteen minutes using up all the hot water and clogging the drain with what will appear to be the remains of a scruffy gopher. And if they are not only staying the same place as you tonight, but seem to hike at a similar pace as