Camino Ingles Report

The only reason we did the Camino de Santiago was because Tony got it into his head. He does that sometimes, just gets something into his head, and won’t let it go. He’d be ringing me from Kerry telling me he was going to get his compostela credentials or whatever and he had to do over 100km to qualify as a “peregrino”. I figured this was just the usual hare-brained Tony idea but he kept bringing it up and it was veering dangerously close to “I would’ve done the Camino but nobody was up for it” territory, so that was that.

Tony is not an outdoorsy person. He works outside a lot though. In Ireland, this means getting wet. The outdoors doesn’t have the same pull for him as the rest of us who are stuck on the internet with multiple tabs open of epic nature views to remind us of what we are missing. He is a couch person, not lazy, just unimpressed by the thought of climbing a mountain when he could just as easily drive around it. I think he liked the idea of the Camino as a travelling stamp collection hobby. After some quick googling, the English Way was chosen because it was a guaranteed over-100km route and a plan was put together with flights and accommodation so he wouldn’t back out.

Our last family holiday together was probably a caravan park in Tramore, circa 1984, and we had all been busy trying to grow up in the years since. Everyone except the youngest who was in full-on child-rearing mode was up for it. Her place was taken by Gemma the outlaw. What followed was 9 months of Camino preparation involving military and medical research, dawn marches and testing of different boots, raingear and emergency supplies. As a family we believe in full immersion combined with psychotic sibling rivalry which, I have to say, works very well as a motivation tool.

CAMINO FAMILY
L to R, Ruth, Tina, Gemma the outlaw, Me, Tony, James

We are a pretty active family (apart from Tony) and the Camino seemed like a good way of catching up, slowing down and figuring out what to do without kids who no longer wanted minding. I liked walking but I had never done a multi-day hike which is how those in the know refer to the Camino. This was probably the main motivation for the rest of us – to use it as a test for future excursions. The pilgrimage thing sounded highly suspect. No offence Spain but everyone knows St James never set foot in Europe. Don’t worry, we don’t even know where our patron saint really came from (there is even a rumour that Patrick was British) and we know the score with making our medieval saints a global tourism phenomenon. We’ll say nothin’.

I don’t think any of us are particularly spiritual although I like a good mass once in a while. I’m just as happy standing outside a church looking at the architecture or the trees. Crowds give me the heebie-jeebies and I have feck all interest in meeting people. I have brothers and sisters, a wife, kids, friends and colleagues that I can listen to for hours. Everyone else, meh. I’ve had 50 years of people trying to persuade me that the stuff in their heads might rock my world. It doesn’t. I’m not interested. I like the idea of pilgrims, once they keep on moving. In other words I was a prime candidate for a conversion on the road to Santiago but let me just rid of you that idea, dear reader, the nearest I got to conversion was figuring out how many miles were left to go each day.

Arrival

It’s not often we get off a plane from sunny Ireland to set foot in rainy Spain but that’s how it was in Galicia. It was bucketing down. We were ready for this and were eager to try out all our different rain walking strategies. First we had to catch the bus to Ferrol to start the Camino. The Santiago bus station looks like a haybarn from the outside. Inside, it is dark and cavernous. I never thought I would ever say this but it made Busarus in Dublin look like a cosmopolitan Art Deco palace of light. Unlike Dublin, however, the buses arrive on time.

bus station
Estacion de Autobuses, Santiago de Compostela

We hop on and arriving in Ferrol we meet a German guy enquiring about accommodation. We are shocked that someone would come all this way without arranging a roof over their head. How irresponsible! To give a hint of the way the Camino will strip you of what you think you need, James remembers his jacket and wallet on the bus before it drives off. Ten minutes later we discover that our Airbnb exists on the internet but not in reality.

So we are stuck in the birthplace of Franco without a real bed and in need of sustenance. James and Ruth need a bar to get their bearings and Tina’s food schedule has stretched into the danger area. I’ve hit a low point already as I am the organiser and chief digital honcho and to get scammed by one of the oldest scams in the book is making me look fierce bad. For some reason the GPS signal jumps around whenever we move, so even making a plan is proving difficult. Tony’s theory is that as Ferrol is a naval base this is done to deter international espionage. In fairness, he comes up with this stuff without even blinking.

Once we find a bar that serves food we encounter our next problem, the language. With all our research, none of us have a word of Spanish and we assumed that the locals would know English on the English Way. Turns out this is a rather arrogant mistake and no amount of slipping in pidgin French works. Ordering food and drink is comical, apart from the universal coca cola, so we use hand gestures instead and we manage beers and what will become the lifesaver dish for the fussy eaters in the group – the house pasta salad. While we fill our bellies, Tony has arranged another place to stay after a few phone calls to his backup team in Kerry. At first we are annoyed that he has not consulted us, but when it turns out that it is a 4 star hotel for less than we paid for the Airbnb we grudgingly acknowledge that the eldest brother has indeed saved the day. Good lad Tony.

Meanwhile, my night gets worse as my phone appears to fry while I am online reporting the Airbnb swindle. I remember reading something about voltages being different in Spain with some chargers and I presume this is what happened. Turns out the charger did fry but the phone just needed a recharge and I do not discover this until I get back to Ireland. So I’m offline for a week apart from using Tina’s spare phone.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better

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