small dress points and biggish question

[Donald Schell]

> Questions: How safe it is to carry money if one is alone on the camino? Do
> the little towns take traveler's checks? What happens to you if someone
> should happen to take your passport? Are credit cards accepted in the little
> towns?
>
> Deanna Bowling...a lot of hiking/backpacking experience, but none in Spain
> yet

Dear Deanna,

I certainly agree with Jim Damico that the camino seems safer than home if
home is any American city.

Cities are the places to be cautious and particularly cities at odd hours or
cities in really dense crowds.  Someone cut a small medal medallion off my
back pack (when I had it on my back) in a Paris subway on my way to the
camino.  Walking through Pamplona at 6 a.m. during San Fermin (just before
the city was closed for the running of the bulls and pilgrims after us had
to walk around), our backpacks and pilgrims' attire made us a target in the
rowdy crowd, and someone tried to get into my backpack, unzipped a
compartment, and was thwarted by my first-aid kit that was jammed in tight.
Both of these events happened as I was walking through densely packed crowds
of people.  Cities are cities, the same joys and the same necessity of
caution wherever you go.  Outside of cities, the camino feels like a realm
of continually emerging community and startling local hospitality.

Pilgrims I have seen and talked to who were traveling alone seemed at ease,
and to a useful extent pilgrims do look out for one another.  My 26 year old
daughter Maria, my first pilgrim companion, wants to return to have the
experience of walking the camino alone.  She knows she would be safe doing
that and is interested to see how a solitary pilgrim interacts with other
pilgrims and interested to explore the solitude of stretches walking by
herself.

I imagine someone must have tried using traveler's checks, but in three
times on the camino, I never saw anyone trying to pay with one.  I do
remember on my first trip to Spain (not on the Camino) carrying traveler's
checks and discovering that I had to change them in banks and that the
exchange was poor.  Some of the towns and villages you pass through are
really tiny and in those small places cash is most helpful.  What's
different from wilderness backpacking is that ATM's are relatively easy to
find, so you don't have to carry a lot of cash, if you pay attention to your
cash in hand.  I would withdraw a hundred or so euros at a time and then
watch the map, town size, and plan to use an ATM when I found one so I
didn't get lower than twenty or thirty euros.

Credit cards?  Most restaurants seem to take credit cards.  Outdoor and
equipment suppliers (when you can find one) do.  Ditto on clothing stores
and pharamacies (drugstores).  Also most hostals (if you choose sometimes
not to stay in a refugio).  Not the little grocers or bakers where you buy
picnic/carrying food.  Sometimes not the smaller bars in towns where the bar
is the only public place to eat.

And this last June when I walked with my son, I remember at least three
times when the phone lines were down so the credit card authorizations
weren't working - twice with dinner and once with a hostal.  Those were
times we were glad to have cash!

Keep your passport with you.  I didn't see anyone have a passport problem,
but it would be a nuisance.  If you lose your passport what you want to have
(I'm told) is access to a xeroxed copy of the facing photo and information
pages.  My first time on the camino, my daughter and I carried those copies
separately from our passports.  On return trips, I have made those copies
and left them with my other daughter who lives in England, figuring that if
we needed to get a passport replaced we could call her and get something
xeroxed to a hotel.  The same would work with a contact at home in the U.S.

Buen Camino!

Donald Schell
donaldschellasaintgregorys.org
www.saintgregorys.org