The Camino For American Long Distance Hikers, Part 4: La Mezcolanza

Previous articles in the Night Hiking To Mars Camino Series have covered general information, the
things Peregrinos carry (and don’t carry), and what one might experience in Camino towns.  So they’ve been focused on specific subjects.  In this final article, NHTM will cover a whole range of topics and bits of advice, so I anticipate it being a somewhat of a mess.  But I think we should concentrate not on how much of a train wreck this article will probably be, but rather celebrate that it was written at all.

Because it seems to me that previous “Series” on the Night Hiking To Mars blog have either been inarguably mythical (“Ask A Thru-Hiker”), abandoned in mid-series when the author was distracted by Bear Selfies and Apple Cake (“Wild” Debates About PCT Overcrowding), or the sort of thing you think would happen annually, but doesn’t (Night Hiking To Mars Best Of 2015).

Even this intro is all over the place, isn’t it?  But there’s still a ton of hopefully interesting Camino-related stuff to talk about, so I’ll skip trying to come up with a transition that makes sense and just get right to it.

Flora & Fauna
. . . are not two locals I met on the Camino.  Unfortunately.

The plants and animals you’ll see on the Camino are not very much like what you see on an American Long Distance Trail.  Every once in a while, when you’re in a more mountainous region surrounded by fog and heather and cats, you might say, “this feels like the Grayson Highlands, except for all of these cats.”  But for much of the time you’re walking through agricultural areas, and the lack of natural forests shouldn’t be all that surprising when you think of how many trees it takes to build entire Armadas of wooden ships for the English to sink.

But this isn’t to say that the flora and fauna aren’t interesting, or that it doesn’t change throughout the trip.  For example, below is my description, written in Burgos, of the trip up to that point.



“The Walk Thus Far:
Cows.

Cows and sheep.

(Pigs)

Cows and horses.

Horses and donkeys.

Olives and grapes.

Grapes

Grapes

Grapes

Grapes

Sunflowers.
Pine cones,
 Burgos.”

It’s like poetry, but without any of the qualities inherent in good poetry.  Honestly, though, I’ve never seen anything that’s quite like a sunrise over fields of sunflowers as far as the eye can see.  It’s beautiful.

As for animals, larger native Spanish animals like Cantabrian brown bears, Iberian wolves and Iberian lynxes exist.  But you’re unlikely to see any, not only because they’re all endangered, but also because they tend not to be welcome in vineyards.  Hell, you’re barely welcome in vineyards.  But that doesn’t mean there aren’t animals, and if you’ve hiked the Continental Divide Trail the volume of cow poop you’ll encounter should be comfortingly familiar.

You will most likely encounter:

Seriously.  There are a lot of cats.  If you’re a cat person, you will love the Camino. 

Some Other Things (Besides Cats) That, If You Like Them, Will Probably Mean You’ll Like Walking In Spain

Speaking of statues, there’s also this:

But even if you love cats, crosses, bridges, statues, wine, bacon, and depictions of horses stomping the shit out of people, there are things that might make you not like the Camino.

All in all, though, you take the good with the bad.  If I said hiking the Appalachian Trail was horrible because of all of the chafing, I’d be both correct and in a considerable amount of pain.  But if I said that meant the AT wasn’t worth doing, I’d be wrong.  And in a considerable amount of pain.  Basically I’m saying I hate chafing.  Also: my Mom hates blisters.

But blisters apparently love her.

I’m not sure exactly how this happened, but if there was ever a situation where a cutesy “Solvitur Ambulando: It Is Solved By Walking” Meme was inappropriate, this was it.  I suspect the blistering was mainly a function of heat and roadwalks, and was eventually solved with wine, epsom salts, and some timely shoe re-lacing advice from my friend Felicity.  But mainly wine.

Three Bottles Deep Into Foot Therapy

I guess the point here is that yes, the Camino is “easy” in some ways compared to American Long Distance Trails.  But that doesn’t mean it’s not hard.  There’s a reason this used to be done as a form of Penance.

I Promise I'm Almost Finished.  Just a Couple More Things.

The People In Front Of You
The people walking in front of you at 7am chatting away to one another are most likely NOT paying attention to the Flechas, and if you follow them you are just as likely to end up in Salamanca as Santiago.  So don't trust people walking side by side.  On the other hand, even in big cities all of the locals know where the Camino is, know what you’re doing, and will happily correct your missteps, unlike in America where we would probably enjoy watching you wander around aimlessly before intentionally pointing you in the wrong direction.

Not paying attention.

Eat Everything
I’ve previously mentioned eating octopus, but I highly recommend eating every regional dish you can wrap your mouth around.  Whether it’s Garlic Soup, La Morcilla de Burgos, Caldo gallego, or Percebes (barnacles), go ahead and give everything a try.  I think enjoying all of the foods as you literally walk across a country is an amazing way to experience the cultures of different regions, and there’s nothing like paying what seems like way too much money for something that someone recently scraped off a boat.

Pausing on the Caldo Gallego to eat what
is either a barnacle or a baby Velociraptor toe.

The Botafumeiro

No article or series of articles about the Camino is complete without mentioning the Botafumeiro, the gigantic censer in the Santiago de Compostela cathedral.  I think it's some sort of contractual obligation.  So here we go.

For non-Catholics: a censer (or thurible) is a container in which incense is burned, suspended by a rope or chain, and typically swung to blow smoke in your face during some masses by a priest intent on punishing you for showing up to Mass with a hangover.

When you complete your walk at the Cathedral in Santiago, you may decide to go to Mass -- there’s a Pilgrim’s Mass every day at Noon.  But if you time things right and arrive on a Friday, you can go to the 7:30pm mass and see them swing the Botafumeiro, a massive 5-foot tall censer that weighs over a hundred pounds.  It takes eight guys (called tiraboleiros) to swing it from a pulley system attached to the ceiling.  It arcs through the air in the Cathedral right above the heads of Pilgrims at 40 miles per hour, and as you watch it you are either filled with a deep sense of spiritual purification, or alternately you are desperately hoping the rope doesn’t break and send a 100+ pound flaming hunk of precious metals into the congregation.

Objects above and behind my Mom are much
larger than they appear.

The current Botafumeiro dates to 1851, but this incense ritual was going on for hundreds of years before that.  So even if you’re not religious, in seeing the Botafumeiro swing you feel a a rich connection to the past, a past where the people arriving in Santiago smelled at least as bad as you do, and probably worse.  Looking back through time, I imagine the censer starting out normal and getting larger and larger and larger:



“Nope.  We can still smell ‘em.  Make a bigger one.”

Summing Up
The Camino de Santiago is not a wilderness trail.  In that sense it probably has more in common with, say, the Appalachian Trail than the Continental Divide Trail.

But on all of my long hikes the people I’ve met along the way and the sharing of experiences with them has always been one of the most valuable rewards I’ve walked away with.  And if that’s something you value about Long Distance Hiking, you will LOVE the Camino de Santiago almost all of the time, except when that French woman clocks a snoring woman below her with a fanny pack from an upper bunk while you’re trying to sleep, or when that guy who’s walked the Camino 14 times won’t get the hell out of your photo at the Cruz de Ferro.

Hopefully this series of articles has given you an idea of what life on the Camino de Santiago is like, and, expectations properly set, you’ll enjoy an incredibly fulfilling once-in-a-lifetime journey -- right up until, like my Mom, you decide you really, really want to walk the Camino again.

Until next time . . .

For those who have not read previous entries in the NHTM Camino For American Long Distance Hikers Series, you can start HERE!

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