Travels with my Donkey

swelled into a prolonged and rousing round of applause. It was the sort of situation that demanded a cry of 'Speech!', and had my French been up to it, how marvellous to have stopped at the apex of that bridge, at the centre of its third great arch, and turned to address the eager crowd gathered at the town-side bank: 'Friends, this journey of ours is a long one, and a hard one. There will be times ahead when you feel pain, or fear, times when you feel hungry and forsaken. But at times like that I want you to remember that this isn't about you, or you, madame, or you. It's about me — me and my boyfr— my donkey!'
    This was almost certainly the best thing that had happened to date, though there was some serious competition up ahead. Borne on a wave of adulation I'd processed across the bridge without plotting my next move. This should have been awful, as Shinto looked as though he might be starting to limp, Puente la Reina had petered out and the next refugio was — oh — 17 kilometres off. But it wasn't, because there was a sign by the bridge pointing up a hill, which as promised led me to a cavernous and conspicuously under-pilgrimmed albergue.
    More accurately an unfinished camping complex, but with tumble-dryers, chips on the menu and football on a great big telly I wasn't about to quibble. Shinto had a nice spot out by the unfilled swimming pool; the two-legged accommodation was in six-bedded dormitories, and scattering belongings on a bottom bunk I noted that four of the remaining five in mine were unclaimed.
    In the echoing sports-hall canteen I asked for a glass of rosé with my meal; the grinning chef returned with a brimming dimple-sided British pint pot. So it was that fate, hospitality, comparative economics and an instant capitulation of the will combined to press my lips once more to the naughty cup. A very nice Dutchman dined with me, but drunk on celebrity and otherwise I'm not sure I was very nice back.
     
    All pilgrimages share certain characteristics, features that define them as holy walks. A vow or promise at the journey's beginning; and at its end a ritual prayer for enlightenment, forgiveness or miracle. The traveller should wear a costume or symbol of his mission (shell for Santiago, cross for Rome, palm frond for Jerusalem), and return as an evangelist to tell of his positive experiences. And crucially, the journey must incorporate an element of denial and privation.
    Medieval pilgrims often travelled penniless, some because they were, some because of the fear of bandits, but most because by depending on charity they were ascetically purifying both themselves and those who offered it. It was good to walk hungry, as 'the prayers of the starving flew quicker to heaven'. By the same token, it was bang out of order to take short cuts, or to lighten one's burden in any fashion (button it, Shinto). Even if, as was invariably the case, the holy way was deliberately routed to maximise that soul-cleansing pain and fatigue. Valley roads were the devil's work: a true Godfearing zealot went against the grain of the landscape, straight over the hilltops. Certain stages of the camino seemed calculatedly, cruelly attritional. And today, to the fearsome disadvantage of many fellow pilgrims, was one of them.
     
    The foot-dragging afternoon before, it was ridiculous to imagine it ever rained here; the morning after, it was ridiculous to imagine it ever stopped. Thunder woke me, and my solitary room-mate, a Swiss chap who'd arrived at Puente la Reina via the more hard-core Somport route. At one point this had required him to cover 45 kilometres in a day, and though he was young, and Swiss, that had been an ordeal from which he had yet to recover. He hadn't eaten for the last forty-eight hours, he whispered wanly from his bunk, and though it was technically against albergue/refugio rules, he'd been given permission to stay for more than one night; in fact until he recovered. If he felt bad, then he looked worse: watching him totter to the loo in his flannel pyjamas I found myself transported to an interwar TB sanatorium.
    Yet how much rosier this young fellow suddenly seemed, almost radiant in fact, when during an exchange of pilgrimage bullet points he croaked that it was funny I had a donkey, as he was a muleteer in the Swiss Army. Yes, he really seemed to perk up before my eyes. A minute ago I'd have wanted him propped up on bolsters with his head over a bronchitis kettle and an enamelled kidney dish