one more thing

[Kerrie Littlejohn]

just one more thing. i have always heard the camino as being one of the
safest places in the world to travel. it really is like a vacation for nice
people as we have been joking about. that and for teachers because everyone
is a teacher, or at least one out of every 2 people. anyways, i met one man
in puente la reina he had his backpack and all of his possessions stolen
from inside an albergue. he put his bag down and when he came back to it
everything was gone. the only thing he had left was the sandals on his feet
and the clothes on his back. he bought a few things and was traveling with a
plastic bad. fortunately he was spanish so passport and money were not as
big of an issue as being a foreigner. then i ran into a danish man i had met
the first day. he and another girl had their wallets stolen from their
backpacks in an albergue. he had great difficulty getting money transfered
from home without any i.d., but was finally able to and continued. the point
is, it isn´t even safe to leave your possession in the albergue, people  can
and do just walk right in and they can take your stuff. there are so many
people and so many backpacks you just don´t notice these things. one day we
went into another albergue to look for a friend and we were just able to
walk right in and go up to the rooms with the beds. that meant anyone could
have done that. keep your belonings with you at all time, at least the
expensive ones. you can always buy a new pack and clothes, but you need your
wallet to do that. or find a trusty travel companion to hold on to them for
you like if you are in the shower. even in burgos, they have bars on the
windows because people had been coming in through the windows to steal
things. so take care and watch your things. there have also been some cases
of people being pickpocketed in the big cities and there was a rumor, i
don´t know if there is any validity behind it, but i heard through the grape
vine that a girl was robbed and raped on the camino outside of carrion de
los condes. don´t take my word on this, it was told to me by another pilgrim
who had been told this by the hospitalera in carrion de los condes because
myself and another peregrina were going to be walking alone at night. so it
could have been some kind of scare tactic. anyways, be careful. kerrie

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