Camino de Santiago

Tosantos - a one room comedy.

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Cast of characters

Jose - caretaker of this "austere yet full of emotion" donation based, religious hostel for 27 years. If anyone's seen What We Do in the Shadows, I'm fairly sure the idea of energy vampires came from him. He's apparently 80 which is truly shocking as he looks about 65 - our yawns are clearly keeping him young.

Rusty - had a rest day in Logrono so we've synched back up. His knee is dodgy. He's worried about his house in the Sydney floods. He hasn't picked up any more Spanish in the last 10 days. I'm coming to understand he's a lovely man and an absolutely terrible listener.

A Dutch woman - naturally speaks pretty perfect English and has a resting 'disgust' face that puts me constantly on the edge of a laugh.

A Brazillian woman - despite speaking Portugese has drawn the extremely short straw of translating the constant, repetitive, monotonous stream of consciousness dribbling out of Jose.

A Spanish man - suspected of actually having an extended nap, punctuated by some cycling. Every time I've seen him (most recently on the bunk under me in Pamplona) he's been asleep, and he sticks to form here, waking up at 8pm for dinner. I don't think he can read.

Jesus (hay-zeus to everyone except Rusty, who commits to gee-zus despite every opportunity not to) - Jose's more charismatic offsider with one completely bloodshot eye, who will later ruin things by making suggestive comments about the Brazillian.

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Scene One - Pre Dinner - 8.16pm

Our hero slumps on the stairs of a two hundred year old house, layered with everything she has, half mad, and trying desperately to find this experience charming.

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I've sat at the kitchen table with three fellow pilgrims and participated in the meticulous chopping of overboiled vegetables. These were then mixed with boiled eggs, olives, and tuna, drowned in three - count them, three - giant jars of mayonnaise, decanted, and adorned with even more mayo.

I've watched the same man responsible for this coordinated massacre, Jose, then spend 20 minutes crafting an ornate arrow topping out of roasted capsicum, delicately applying each sliver to the mayo bath to create the effect like it's brain surgery.

I've widened my eyes and bit my tongue as Rusty failed to navigate the translation app, consistently, for nearly an hour, pressing anything but the microphone button and asking something that isn't listening 'will this dish be baked?' then getting frustrated with it. Of course it won't be baked Rusty, it's glorified potato salad.

I've stared at the empty and off oven, wondering if this 'russian salad' is going to be it or if it's a mostly mayo based evening. In between that I've stolen glances at the clock as it moves towards, and then past eight, remembering fondly the sausages I'd long made a start on digesting this time yesterday.

After dinner we have group prayer, and then group washing up, and then perhaps if I ask nicely the group can suffocate me with my sleeping bag. If not, in the morning there's group breakfast. I've made a point of not wishing away any time on this trip in excitement over the next thing but JESUS CHRIST.

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Scene Two - After Dinner - 10.45pm

Lying on a vinyl mat, trying to process the evening, our hero recounts the experience.

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Well it was Ensalada Ruso, bulked out with a soup made with garlic, tomato, and stale bread. At this stage I was so hungry and cold it was brilliant. Knowing the night wasn't finished with dinner I was keen to get on with the proceedings but Jose went on and on and on. I basically learned Spanish. As long as someone's talking about the history of the Camino with a lisp, I'm fluent.

He's got rose tinted glasses on for pilgrims doing this before he was even born, convinced that modern ones aren't spiritual enough. He urged us, multiple times and not very concisely, to be minimalist and abstain from contact with civilisation (by which I assume he means technology and our regular lives), noting the reason things are so basic around here is to keep the 'tourist' pilgrims away and attract only the IDIOTS like me.

Too often, Jose would be rabbiting on, the Brazillian would be listening so she could translate, and Rusty, bored, would just blurt out a random question like WHO'S SAINT GERONIMO when it absolutely wasn't his turn to talk.

When we'd finally managed to extract ourselves from the table we climbed up to an odd little room accessed through a window, for group prayer. I wasn't too sure what this was going to look like, and was open to it as long as it was quick. Would you believe that it wasn't?

We mucked around with the candles then we mucked around finding everyone a version of the pamphlet in their language. We then all had to read a prayer in our language and then, after some more mucking around, we were all given a small folder labelled with our language.

Not everyone makes it to Santiago, right? People have to cut it short, their bodies fail them, all kinds of reasons. Jose told us that if we wanted to, we could write our reason for walking and leave it with them. For the next 20 days, pilgrims would do to our stories what we were about to do with these folders - read them, and pray for their authors when we get to the end. 20 days because that's when we'll have got there.

So that's nice, but then we were instructed, again, to read one out. I assume the person writing it knew how this all worked but it still felt horrifically invasive to be sharing such a searingly personal matter aloud. I dialled up the accent and spoke quickly. Rusty had gotten out of this bit by going to the bar for wifi to check on his house so I'm confident the person's secret stayed safe with me.

The whole 'group' experience kind of fell over at the (predictable) point only the women did the washing up, but I was dead on my feet by then and just happy for the day to be over.

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