Travels with my Donkey

might be a pilgrimage, had been abolished by the Pope in 1968. A bit of a shame for a blithe heretic like me, but a crushing post-mortem blow for the millions who'd tramped across huge swathes of medieval Europe in good faith. What of the thirteenth-century pilgrim from Toulouse I'd just learnt about, ordered to carry a 24-pound iron weight to Compostela? In particular, what of the tens — probably hundreds — of thousands who'd popped their muddy clogs en route, welcoming death with a frail smile, assured that a backstage pass to paradise, a plenary indulgence, was granted to all whose pilgrimage was thus curtailed?
    That may have seemed an appealing option for one of us. A chorus of deafening nasal honks informed me that it was morning, and that Shinto had had enough. When you're in a tent you don't need to look outside to know that it's raining, but I did anyway and it was. Shinto's tree was about 20 yards away, and there he stood, arse to the wind in traditional equine fashion. He heard the zip and turned towards me; it was rarely easy to gauge how he felt from how he looked, but that was a full-on, globe-hating glower. 'Morning,' I called over, only half my head outside. He blinked the rain off his lashes. 'Did you know that St Anthony was the patron saint of donkeys?' I'd read a lot at that bar, and there was no one else to share it with. Shinto looked away; I raised my voice slightly. 'And 23 per cent of Germans believe in the devil.'
    Everything I owned — everything — was wet, and it would be three days before it wasn't. Getting dressed under canvas is always a challenge, but when your clothes are soaked they envelop and adhere to the wrong bits of flesh like plastic wrap and, if you're maybe slightly hungover, this results in a wild chaos of wits-end, multi-limbed thrashing. I don't think I've ever taken a tent down from the inside before.
    The refugio was already closing its doors — at 8 a.m. — and the last couple were chivvied out as I coaxed a monumentally pissed-off Shinto out of the garden gate. There are few conversational ice-breakers more effective than a wet donkey, and we got talking. They were Dutch, she was squat, he was not. Late forties. Matching bushwhacker hats and khaki shorts. I saw these two a lot over the coming days, and developed a real fondness for them. They were always jolly, and winningly forswore the earnest 'honour amongst pilgrims' code that — in the early days at least — forestalled toothsomely malevolent gossip. (Their duologue 'The Snoring Tart of Paris' will remain with me for some time.) They endearingly fussed over each other's fixtures and fittings as they walked or talked, tightening a pack strap, tying up a bootlace; once, memorably, stopping in the middle of a zebra crossing to tuck each other's vests in.
    Here were two professional amateurs: the perfect antidote to the overbearing relentlessness of the power-walking pilgrimators. You'd see them standing at a street corner squinting ineffectually at an upside-down map, or ambling against the pilgrim flow in blithe oblivion. They were of that rare group of fellow pilgrims who felt comfortable proceeding at donkey pace; and in fact conspicuously unique in often dropping below this. ('My problem is I cannot walk and talk,' said the wife, which was a shame because she couldn't stop talking.) In short they were worse than me, and for that alone I loved them.
    Pamplona would be Shinto's most significant test to date: a narrow-alleyed city of 200,000, with a worldwide reputation for the drunken goading of farmyard quadrupeds. In two months they'd be running with the bulls, and here was an opportunity for a dry run. In the rain.
    It was an ordeal that demanded advance refuelling. Negotiating Shinto up a puddled bus lane through the nascent suburban rush hour I spotted a grocery, and tied him to a drainpipe outside. When I emerged, with a roll of gardening refuse sacks and a 2-kilo bag of muesli, a crowd of kindly-minded strangers had congregated around Shinto: elderly housecoated shoppers, backpacked schoolkids, a postman. I looked from face to gleeful face; I listened to the sing-song cries of 'Burro!' The rain was forgotten — people were happy, and it was down to me. And soon they were even happier, watching this flappy-ponchoed fool unload his donkey on to the pavement, and stuff everything into giant plastic bags, and reload him, and dump a huge sack of breakfast cereal into a washing-up bowl. Shinto