Sleeping Arrangements in Refugios

[Rebekah Scott]

Bring on the flamethrowers!!  Ive been reading a copy of a new book on pilgrimages, reviewed this week in NYT. The author did several trips in different parts of the world, including the Camino.  She singled it out for the fatuous bourgeouis trendy flavor it's taken, the Yuppies with their cell phones and New Agers with their mystical crystal ley-line dogmas. It seems, to her, the scruffy old pilgrimage has been sold out to high-maintenance people worried about availability of sanitary pillows and co-ed, hot-water bathrooms and vegan menus.  I believe if it's a pilgrimage to you, a spiritual trip, you should go simply, and don't rely on the refugios to meet your needs. Often, when you arrive, the refugios are already filled with Polar-fleece-clad suburbanites with great haircuts, chatting away on their satellite phones, "roughing it" in the charming, low-cost wilds of Spain. (My parents called it "slumming.")  These are nice, friendly people. Just don't get in their way.  If!
  it's just a charming, cultural hike to you, take enough money to stay in pensions or hotels; there are lots of those. You can meet your refugio-dwelling Pilgrim buds for dinner in town. Or if you're the Rough and Ready type and can't/won't stay in pensions, bring a sleeping bag heavy enough to withstand a few nights in hay barns or church porches or the floor of the medical clinic.  It's easy to over-plan before you go. I did it myself. But over time, you find your pace, how much weight you want to carry, and just how easy it becomes to just trust there will be a warm, dry place to sleep once you arrive. The first thing you have to lose is your expectations.  Stepping down from the pulpit --Rebekah

Rebekah Scott, journalista
'The more I learn, the less I know.'

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.oakapple.net/pipermail/gocamino/attachments/20030507/f9c65013/attachment.htm