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

well, that means you can probably expect to see them often in the future as well. In such instances you may want to sow the seeds of even further friendship in hopes of reaping the benefits in one of the three forms of Camino companionship – drinking together, eating together, or lying on your respective bunks and sharing surly grievances together.
    How long do you have?
    This is a subtle but telling variation on a couple of the earlier questions. This tells you if their pace is going to be affected by time constraints (i.e. an early flight home) and gives you an idea of the pace they are likely to follow going forward and what that says about them. For example, if they vastly overestimated the time needed then, by extrapolation, they don’t think much of their own physical capabilities. Are they probably going to have a week to kill in Santiago after they finish and, therefore, be a likely candidate to join you in a celebratory bender? Or will they be long gone by the time you arrive, already unhappily ensconced back at work posting wistful comments on Facebook about how they already miss everyone, how hard it is to adjust back to real life, and how they were surprised to find themselves breaking down in tears after removing a band-aid and realizing even their last blister was gone?
    Camino Gossip
    Not surprisingly, throughout the course of an undertaking as convivial and full of brief friendships and constantly changing social groupings as this, the network of Camino gossip typically flowed as fast and furious as a high school dropout in a pimped-out Dodge Challenger. With people coming and going all the time and relationships often as fleeting and unpredictable as the female libido it seemed a good portion of every evening was spent catching up on the trials and tribulations of various mutual friends, acquaintances and nemeses. Of course, as our network of friends and acquaintances grew over time so did the size and breadth of the Camino grapevine, as it came to be known among those of us embarrassed to admit we were gossiping like a morning talk show. Early on, before we had gotten to the stage of trading names, or had and had simply forgotten already, these discussions could come off as borderline offensive. When all you have to describe someone is a rudimentary description it can be difficult to avoid sounding racist (Did you see how fast that French woman smoked?), or rude (Eric told me that Alicia missed curfew last night because she was out with the fat German guy, the one with the mole on his cheek shaped like a Toyota Camry), or unnecessarily horny (I heard that the hot Turkish girl always sleeps in a really thin Running of the Bulls t-shirt). Luckily, as time passed we got to know people better and were soon able to describe them in a much more polite and complimentary manner – the French woman became Anne-Marie, the fat German became fat Wilhelm, and the hot Turkish girl became that bitch who accuses people of spying on her in the shower.
    Types of pilgrims
    Hundreds of pilgrims of all ages, nationalities and walks of life meeting, greeting, conversing, sizing each other up and doing their earnest best to describe sausage in all sorts of languages. The variety of the pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago is well-documented, and glaringly evident every time you glance around the dorm room to see who is surreptitiously watching you change your pants this time. And just because all these wonderful pilgrims we met had their own particular situation, story and typical blister pattern is in no way going to stop me from taking all these fascinating and unique individuals and trivializing them through the use of some loose generalizations and offensive categorization. Because, let’s be honest here, these groups are all very real.
    The Mid-Life Crisis
    Recognizable traits
    A minor change in appearance that seems unrealistically major to them , such as a haircut or a fledgling beard. Repetitive use of phrases such as “still got it”, “back in my day I could…” and “no, really, don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine”. An inability to have a conversation that does not somehow circle back to their job at home.
    Reasons they are great to have around
    Fiercely determined to make this the single greatest experience of their entire life. Having grossly over packed, by day 5 they will be giving away all sorts of expensive gear. They will spring for dinner any time they get three glasses of wine in