Early AM refugios, rising, noise: a paradox

[Frank Metcalf and Mary Doherty]

Claudia's vivacious reply to Deanna (Re: Oh, how I love packing lists!)
reminds me of a paradox of the refugios which I've struggled to resolve.

I fully sympathize with those who want silence in the early morning, and I
have a cultural bias (might be Canadian, but not necessarily) of placing
the group before the individual. In plain English, I bloody well hate
selfish, thoughtless noise wherever it appears. Mary and I have worked out
a system (using net bags) for decamping silently from sleeping quarters and
then packing beside the outside door.

However . . . speaking as one myself, I hope that early rising, as a
genetic mutation, might be regarded more highly than pond scum. Here's the
problem. In refugios, we are effectively locked in around 10 PM. Like the
majority, I'm fully armed for sleep, so to speak, by 10 or 10:30, 11 at the
latest. I drop right off, sleep my normal amout or a bit longer, and awake
spontaneously at . . . 5AM. Now what?  My CO2 and methane receptors are
blinking red danger. Wagner is booming from a host of soft palates. I lie
in marmorial quietude, except to peer glumly at my luminous watchdial,
which cleverly mimicks the hue of the atmosphere.

I want to burst out like a raging bull through the wall of the refuge, and
stalk away toward the Apostle in the pure cool silent air of the beautiful
dawn. There is bad karma mixed up here with the good, so instead I remain
interred. At 5:30 I tap Mary, and we steal away like benevolent thieves in
the redolent night.

Honest, the dog ate my breakfast. So I'm left with the half bar of that
thick Spanish chocolate which appears in my pocket every morning, vanishing
square by delicious square in the lightening mist. To lighten that mist,
there's a full water bottle to wash down an ibuprophen and that shameful
pink pill which only a convicted caffein addict would recognize were he to
go ultralight and grimly suspect that the first open bar might cross his
path some 20 Km closer to the Sacred Tomb.

Aside from all that, the question is: If you need 6 or 7 hours of sleep--a
fairly normal amount--and more or less have to go to bed at 10, and
considering the atmosphere and ambiance, should you just lie there
impersonating Westminster Abbey, or can you reasonably and honourably be on
your way in the beauty of the rosy-fingered Dawn?  Surely Mary and I
couldn't be the only pilgrims who want to hit the road quickly after a
decent sleep in our well-packed precincts?

Frank


Date:    Fri, 19 Mar 2004 11:12:15 +0000
From:    claudia castellani <claudietta67aHOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Oh, how I love packing lists!

Great letter!! For a while, I felt back on the Camino!!!
I used both earplugs and ibuprofen in order to try to sleep.
The earplugs because the hostels at night are quite noisy. Moreover there
are flocks of pilgrims (especially German ones) who wake up at 4 o'clock and
noisily pack their backpacks (oh, those horrible noisy plastic bags in which
they wrapped everythiing......) while you try to sleep......
The ibuprofen was essential to try and reduce my leg-pain, which at night
was unsustainable (even if I stretched!). I think the reason for such a pain
at night is that laying in a bed in silence (more or less!!!) makes your
senses more attentive to whatever happens in your body.

Claudia