Public Enemy of the Camino

How to become public enemy number one of the Camino:

Step one: never carry cash.
Step two: don’t know a single word of Spanish.
Step three: wet the bed.
Step four: profit.

Haven't mastered that whole plan yet, but clearly I had done enough to tickle the moustache of my Spanish waiter this morning (who looked suspiciously like Manuel from Fawlty Towers btw). He hurls me a plate in disgust (it's a breakfast called sadillas, because he's already stolen the 'Qué¿'). I'm just kidding, it's cake. So I have my cake and eat it too before slipping away into the dark.

I teeter along for half a mile when I realise that I'm not even wearing my watch, and I've left my credencial back at the albergue, an unholy trinity of stupid.

The world is still a bruise-coloured blue when I start over. Lichen encrusts tree trunks like an old man's bogies, and leaves pile beneath pine needles like hay in a needle stack. Sweet chestnut casings kick along the ground like inanimate hedgehogs and mist fuzzes the edge of the landscape's hazy features. Bagpipes wail like a distant call to prayer as I cross into Galicia and then O Cebreiro, which at 1300 m is the high point of my trek.

Up until now I’ve actively been choosing to walk alone, but today I decide that my sociability probably ought to extend beyond giving pilgrims the side eye while playing subway surfers.

First, I meet a man so Scottish I think he might bleed Irn-Bru and have a clan name like 'McTartan'. He started the pilgrimage as a sober vegetarian; one month in, he’s a raging caffeine addicted alcoholic who craves Marlboro Reds like holy communion. I suggested he should end his anti-pilgrimage by doing a line of cocaine off the steps of Santiago Cathedral. He either laughs or curses the English again (I can't tell through the accent.)

Later, I find myself walking with the most insufferable American in history (or at least since the last American I met). He claims to be homeless, yet describes his lifestyle in Dubai like a millionaire who forgot where he parked the yacht. (But hey, what do I know about entitledness, I'm just a humble travel blogging legend.) Next, I ragebait an Italian by telling him how much I love kiwi on pizza, something I’ve never even tried by the way. It works. He flails his hands about in an undeniable rage. 🤌

As the sun finally breaks the overcast and with Michael Palin and Louis Theroux yapping through my headphones, I descend into Triacastela. In my albergue, I meet American, Jane. We chat away for a little while and she tells me she’s been walking the Camino at the same time as her parents (but refuses to walk near them because they 'like Donald Trump too much.') Can't argue with that.

We head out for dinner, and in an ironic twist of fate, her parents walk into the same restaurant and sit directly next to us. Jane spends the entire evening mocking me with an exaggerated British accent while I pick away at a gelatinous plate of Octopus (that's the last time I give Spanish culture a go.) Her dad eyes me like I’ve just voted for higher taxes (or anything moral at all for that matter, given that he's a Trump supporter.)

Fyi, my phone has become diabolically glitchy. 🤧 Writing this has been a motherfucker. I fear it could be the last post. :(( Remember me as the man as the man I always aspired to be (a bastard). Bye.もっと詳しく