General advice for first-timers

[Richard Ferguson]

I have not posted this essay in a while.  This is the season when people are
making plans, so this may be of some value to those who have never been on the
Camino.

Richard
--------------------------------------------
A Camino Retrospective

This is my two cents worth, intended for people planning to do the Camino to
Santiago for the first time.  I will be talking about distance per day, planning
your trip, Castillian Spanish, and miscelaneous topics.

Background:  I walked solo 311 km, (200 miles), from Leon to Santiago, in March
and April, 2002.  I am about 50 years old, with extensive experience with
mountain climbing, backpacking, and international travel.  I speak good Spanish,
of the latin-american variety.

Distance per day

When I started reading about the camino, I was amazed to read about people going
30 km or more per day.  Note that 32 km is 20 miles, and very few people that I
know would consider walking 20 miles in a day, let alone day after day after day.
My experiences supported my first impression.  I found that a comfortable pace
for me was 20 to 25 km per day (12 to 15 miles).  When I went further than 25 km
in a day, I paid for it, usually the next day.

Everyone has their own natural pace.  I did talk to some people who were able to
sustain a 30 km per day pace, usually tall and thin men.  I talked to at least
one guy who found 20 km/day to be more than he could really do.  Most people
found that the 30 km/day pace to be grueling and very hard on their body.
Unfortunately, it is easy to get carried along by groupthink, that your friends
are going 30 km/day, so you should also.  Or you don't want to be left behind by
your new friends.

Planning your trip

I would urge people to set moderate goals for themselves, rather than ambitious
ones.  Pushing your body beyond it's natural limits is exhausting and
destructive.  I saw several people whose feet had been destroyed to the point
that a doctor told them to stop walking.  Another guy who liked to walk long
distances per day admitted that on a previous trip he arrived in Santiago by
ambulance, after his knee gave out.  It is just not good to push your body beyond
it's limits, especially day after day.  Adjust your distance to fit the time
available, or allow adequate time if the distance is fixed.

I believe that 20 km/day is a pace that most people can achieve.  The people that
I spoke to who completed the pilgrimage generally walked 20 km/day or more.

Before you plan a trip based on 30 km/day or more, take this simple quiz:  Have
you ever walked more than 30 km (19 miles) in one day?  Have you ever done this
carrying a backpack with more than 7 kg (15 pounds)?  Have you done this with the
pair of boots that you are planning to take on the trip?  Have you ever done this
for more than three days in a row?  If you are going with anyone else, ask them
the same questions.  Unless every person can answer yes to every question, you
are pushing your luck to plan on 30 km or more per day.  In other words, you are
planning to fail.

There are other advantages to planning a trip with shorter distances per day.
You can then consider taking a day off if you need to or want to.  One of my best
days on the camino was the day that I did not walk at all, the day I stayed put
and watched the Palm Sunday processions in Astorga.  If you have an aggressive
trip plan you may miss something worthwhile, that you will feel that you need to
keep walking, no matter what.  You won't really have the opportunity to relax.

If your trip plan is conservative, and you finish early, you can always walk to
Finisterra, spend more days in Santiago, do some other tourism, or go home early.
It is good to have a backup plan in case you travel more slowly or more quickly
than you expected.

Miscelaneous comments

Asking directions:  If you think that you are off route, ask where the camino is.
I always received good directions on the camino, sometimes without asking.

Easter season has it's advantages and disadvantages.  The biggest advantage is
the opportunity to see processions and other special events in the week before
Easter.  One disadvantage is that the hotels and hostals will be full, especially
right before Easter.  Also, there will be many student groups on the camino
during this time, filling the refugios, although I always got a bed in a refugio
when I wanted one.

I carefully considered my options in terms of what boots to take on the trip, and
ended up taking a very heavy pair of leather mountaineering boots.  I selected
them not because they were ideal, but because I had confidence in them, that my
feet never hurt when I wore them.  I walked for a week before I started to get a
blister, and finished the trip with my feet in good shape, so it was a good
decision for me.  I probably had the heaviest pair of boots on the camino, 6
pounds per pair (almost 3 kg).  I also carried a pair of walking shoes for use in
town.

Washing clothes is kind of a problem, you can wash them by hand in the sink and
then hang them out to dry, but they will probably come out looking dirty.  I
probably need to take a lesson in hand washing clothes from the Mexican women who
are able to wash beautiful white clothes without washing machines.  The larger
cities will have laundries, but are only open 5.5 days per week.  What they call
"Autoservicio" is not like self-service laundries in the US.  They actually load
the washer, transfer the load from the washer to the centrifuge to the drier, and
then pull them out of the drier and put them in a cart.  The only thing they do
not do is fold them.  Some of the refugios have washers and driers, especially in
Galicia, but you will need to provide the soap.

Everybody will have a different experience on the camino.  I noticed that many of
the Americans that I met were hungry to speak English when they found another
native English speaker.  Since I speak good Spanish, I never felt that way, never
felt alone on the camino.  Obviously, walking the camino alone is different than
doing it with another person, or with a group.  I spent several days mostly
walking with other folks, and several days basically walking alone, different
experiences.

Note that most Spaniards do not speak English.  They may not even speak Spanish.
In Galicia, when I asked a question in Spanish, the answer sometimes came back in
Gallego!  I saw a study that said that Spaniards have the lowest rate of speaking
multiple languages in Europe.

Spaniards are very attached to their region of Spain.  They do not tend to move
from one part of Spain to another.  I was amazed to hear how consistently
Spaniards spoke ill of their neighbors from other parts of Spain, that Catalans
were stingy and moneygrubbing, Gallegos were backwards, people from the south of
Spain were lazy, etc.

Castillian Spanish

For those of us that learned to speak Latin American Spanish, such as that spoken
in Mexico, you will notice many differences.  One of them is the use of the
vosotros form of the verbs, the plural of tu, which is not used in Latin America.
The words for food are local, as you would expect, so you will need to ask the
waiter to describe the dishes on the menu.  I have listed a few of the
interesting or different words below.

Buff! - Oh my gosh!  (This is really a sound, not a word, but a favorite of
mine).
majo - Good, agreeable, handsome (popular slang)
hola - Hi, the most common greeting
buenas dias - good morning, common creeting, sometimes heard in PM also
Vale - Good, OK, right  (you will hear this word twenty times a day)
Venga - Let's go, OK
Caña - a draft beer (literally a cane, like the tall skinny glasses they serve
beers in).
zumo - fruit juice
bocadillo - sandwich
Adios - usually goodby, but sometimes a more literal "Go with God", (A Dios),