The Camino For American Long Distance Hikers, Part 3: ¡Cada día es un día en la ciudad!

Approaching town!  Again!

American Long Distance Hikers are probably familiar with the excitement of “Town Day.”  You’ve
probably been talking for at least the previous 24 hours about what you’re going to eat first, how long a shower you’re going to take, and how little walking you’re planning on doing once you get there (I once actually hitched to a place I could point at in Gorham, NH).  Sure, there are always chores to attend to, but town is also a place to enjoy things you’ve been missing, like flush toilets, chairs with backs, and large pizzas you have absolutely no intention of sharing with anyone.

On the Camino Frances, however, you won’t have very long to miss those things, because you’ll most likely start and end every day in town -- and many days you’ll hit a few along the way as well.
  

Leaving Pamplona at 6am.  Breakfast is at a cafe 11km away.

Our day usually started with packing up and getting out of town early, as we tried to get in our miles for the day before it got so hot that the whole Siesta thing started to make sense.  Some albergues offer breakfast, but we were rarely around for it.  Instead we were on the Camino by 6am, looking for yellow arrows in the dark, anticipating yet another beautiful sunrise, and listening for the first rooster of the day, whose crowing is the signal to all other roosters that it’s time to start annoying everyone and, despite what you might think, keep doing so for the rest of the day.  Also despite what you might think: somehow this is true whether you’re in the middle of nowhere or the middle of downtown Burgos.

Just in case I haven't made it clear: I'm not a big fan of roosters.

After a couple of hours of walking we’d stop in the first town of the day for breakfast. Towards the end of the Camino we discovered that orange juice in cafes in Spain is fresh squeezed to order and one of the best things in the world ever, but usually we’d just have some coffee and a pastry and move on.


Breakfast, lunch, and dinner in town.
In this case breakfast involved the smallest muffin in the world.

Sometimes the fuente is
disguised as an elaborate
statue.

More walking, and then another town (and sometimes two) before ending up at our end point for the day, which, by now it should go without saying, was also a town.  And while each town definitely had its own character, there seemed to be a pattern to the towns we passed through during the day:

“There's the edge of town!

There's the fuente.

There's the pelota court.

There's the albergue that has a cafe and a store.

There's the bar.

There's the Church.

There's the plaza next to the Church with another fuente and the cafe.

There's another albergue.

There's the tienda.

There's the edge of town.

(Ten minutes later)

There's the cemetery.”

Eventually you’ll reach your destination for the day and the first thing you’ll notice is that everything is in Spanish, because it turns out that you are in Spain.  Unless you’re at the very beginning of the hike in France, or just a few days on trail (in which case there might be some Basque), or at the end (where you’ll also see Galician).  The one guarantee I can offer you about the language is that by the time you figure out what word to use for “bathroom,” you will have walked to where the word for that is completely different.  In any case, it’s good to know some Spanish before you get on the Camino.  You don’t have to be able to tell your life story -- my Mom knew enough to order red wine and decaffeinated coffee.  And I knew enough to make hotel reservations over the phone (but not quite enough to guarantee that the person on the other end of the phone agreed that’s what I was doing).  At the very least, learn enough to avoid accidentally ordering cheese-flavored ice cream.

I wasn't kidding about the cheese-flavored ice cream.  I think.

The second thing you’ll notice upon arriving is that it’s getting unbearably hot, which will either make you want to have an ice cold beer (me) or lapse into something like a coma (my Mom).  But first you need to get some chores out of the way.

The Municipal: big, cheap, and loud.

 First you need a place to stay, and the obvious and sometimes only choice is an Albergue, which is essentially a hostel.  But the larger the town the more options there are -- everything from an Albergue Municipal, which is cheap and large and jam packed with snorers, farters, and way more Canadians than you were expecting, to an actual hotel -- which is more expensive but does have one English-language TV channel that only ever seems to be running an Alaskan Bush People marathon.  The main downside to hotels, aside from the fact that the only English-language TV channel is running an Alaskan Bush People marathon, is that you don’t get to hang out much with other peregrinos.  We stayed in hotels about once a week, but mainly chose the middle path of smaller Private or Association Albergues.  Eventually we figured out that many have non-bunkhouse private rooms (with their own bathroom!), which I highly recommend if you are a fan of sleeping.

One of my favorite and least pronounceable Albergues.
Maralotx?  Really?

Once you’ve secured a bunk or room: unpacking whatever bedding you have, journal & guidebook, first aid kit, clothes bag.  Next: shower & change clothes.  Then: rinse out hiking clothes and hang to dry.  And finally (for now): relax, because it’s Siesta and if you try to accomplish anything else you’re just going to end up all hot and bothered.  And not in a good way.
 

This is what you do during Siesta.  If you're smart.

I know some Americans get frustrated with Siesta.  You want to get things done so you can relax.  But Spaniards seem to have a different approach: relax all of the time.  And relax even more during Siesta.  All I’m saying is that no one is on your schedule.  Stores will be open later than you’re used to.  Dinner will be much later than you’re used to.  And if you’re worried about not getting something done in town today you have missed the entire point of this article: you’re in town again tomorrow.  So relax.

Don't worry.  It'll be open later.

You will know Siesta is over because the guy who runs the outfitter will unlock his shop and go back to the bar next door, at which point you can complete the rest of your tasks.  There will be a tienda where you can get tomorrow’s snacks.  If you need to replenish your med kit there will be a pharmacy (marked by a green arrow).  There will be a pharmacy on the next block over too.  And a pharmacy on the block after that, assuming there is a block after that.  Spanish towns have more pharmacies than Gatlinburg has ice cream shops.  And if the town is too small for a pharmacy, fret not: there will be a pharmacy vending machine.

 

The Pharmacy Vending Machine, on the
other hand, is never closed.

And that’s pretty much it for shopping, although I should add that from personal experience I can tell you a Ferretería is a hardware store and not a place to buy ferrets.  Apparently.

No ferrets.  But feel free to ask.  That should be hilarious.

Back at the Albergue, your clothes are most likely dry and possibly scattered all over the place because someone took the clothespins you were using.  Clothesline space is highly valued real estate, and becomes more so later in the walk -- unlike American trails that are more crowded at the beginning, the Camino is more crowded towards the end.  People with less time to walk hop on at places like Sarria, because everyone wants to end their walk in Santiago (and from Sarria to Santiago is the shortest distance that qualifies a person to get the Compostela -- the certificate of completion).

This beautiful Albergue has room for thirty, a full restaurant
and bar, and one tiny drying rack in the lower left.

Once a week, when we hit a large city, I wouldn’t have to worry about rinsing and drying clothes because I’d go to a laundromat.  The best thing about laundromats in Spain?  The machine puts the detergent in ALL. BY. ITSELF.  The second best thing?  They’re all across the street from a bar AND open during Siesta.  That’s really two things.  But I couldn’t choose and anyway they’re kind of related.

Sometimes the laundry facilities in smaller towns are, um, subpar.
But every Albergue has, at the least, a place to rinse your clothes.

 Housing secured and tasks completed, there’s not much to do until dinner, which at the earliest happens at 7:30pm and often much later.  But it’s worth the wait.  Some Albergues have communal dinners, but even in restaurants the meals are cheap, the portions are enormous, the food is often local, and dinner usually includes a bottle of wine.  Town food every night is the reason why the Camino is the only walk I’ve done where I think I actually gained weight.

I know a lot of long distance hikers who don’t eat meat.  I do, so I didn’t really pay much attention to how good the dining options are for vegetarians.  All I’ll say is that it wouldn’t surprise me if the Spanish word for “vegetarian option” also translates as “slightly less ham.”

I'm not going to tell you what this is.  But if you're offered
it after dinner, drink it.

One thing I should add about restaurants and cafes is that you have to ask for your check.  Nobody is going to bring it to you unasked, because that’s considered rude.  The restaurant and cafe culture doesn’t revolve around tipping and turnover, so when you sit at a table you have basically rented it out all night or until you feel like leaving.  Some Americans have somehow been convinced that it’s bad service if your server isn’t essentially asking you to get out.  It’s not.  Good service is letting you sit at your table in the Plaza Mayor after dinner, maybe with a bit more wine, chatting with your friends, enjoying the night air,  and wondering what all of these toddlers are doing running around the Plaza at 10pm.  Where are their parents?  How the hell are they still awake? I mean, geez.  I can barely keep my eyes open over here.

We finished dinner about an hour ago.  If we never ask for the
check they might let us sleep here.

Anyway.  When you want your check you just raise your hand in your server’s general direction and say, “La Cuenta?”  And then he or she brings you your check, you pay it, go back to the Albergue, possibly fall asleep, and do it all again tomorrow.

Because every day is Town Day.

If you missed the rest of the series so far, what's wrong with you?  Part 1 is HERE and Part 2 is HERE.  Don't let it happen again.

On a practical note, I highly recommend "A Pilgrim's Guide To The Camino De Santiago," which has all of the information you need for planning and walking the Camino, including info on different housing options, facilities and services in towns, and handy maps.  You can find more info on it HERE.

In the next (and final) part of the Camino Series, entitled "La Mezcolanza," NHTM will cover all of the things I forgot to include in the previous parts, including flora & fauna and other odds & ends.

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