The Camino

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We arrived in St. Jean Pied De Port in the evening. I didn't know what to expect. When I told my friend Keith I wanted to do the Camino De Santiago, an 800-or-so klm walk through Spain, and asked for advice, he just said 'go to St. Jean Pied De Port. " That was all the information I'd been given, I was still having trouble remembering the name of this walk. The train ride was gorgeous, crossing through rainforests and rivers. Kellie, my sister, Ezra, her boyfriend and I were very excited in anticipation of what lay ahead. In my mind were images of hiking through forests like these, just the 3 of us, pitching our tents, lighting campfires, laying out under the stars and a full moon...we were making a few blasphemous Monty Python jokes on the train ride over and getting some strange looks from other passengers...it took me a while to realise that they were probably doing this walk as well, a catholic pilgrimage. I wondered how I would cope without being blasphemous for a month, and whether they would try to convert me.

We got off the train and just decided to follow the other people with backpacks on, which is something we would be doing for the next few weeks. The French town of St Jean was gorgeous, set on a hillside with small stone buildings and winding cobblestone paths. We arrived at the pilgrim's office and stood watching the snails on the wall, there were so many snails! Quite a few other pilgrims were standing around outside waiting for it to open at 8pm, some chatting, some waiting, all looking about as excited as we felt. A lot of them were older than I expected.

Inside the pilgrim's office we waited in line to be served. A man asked us where we were going, and I replied 'we don't really know anything about this walk, my friend just told me to come, can you tell us?' Immediately I could see the alarm bells going off in his head. 'How long do you have to walk" "About a month, maybe 6 weeks". "Ok, you can go all the way to Santiago then. " He provided us with peices of cardboard known as our pilgrim's passports, and places a stamp on the first page. We were then given a map and directions for tomorrow's walk. "Do you have anywhere to stay tonight?' "Well actually we were wondering where would be a good spot to camp?" "Camping? You can't camp, it's too cold! Besides, you have to walk 28 klms tomorrow. It's a very difficult walk! Ok hold on a minute..." the man chatted quitely with another lady. The lady insisted on weighing our backpacks. She was shocked to discover that Ezra's bag weighed 19 kilograms. "You can't walk with this pack!" she insisted. "You'll get tendonitis on the first day and the walk will be ruined. You need to find some real beds to sleep in, and empty your pack entirely, throw out any unused cardboard boxes..." Ezra was trying to explain that we didn't have any cardboard boxes...he seemed a little embarassed!

After some commotion we were given a map and told to go to a lady's place, where she would give us beds for 9 euros each. That seemed expensive to me! I wanted to protest but they were so persistent. We really just wanted to camp! But to be polite we went to this lady's place where Kellie and Ezra spent the remainder of the evening re-evaluating what was necessary and unnecessary to pack, and I busied myself waterproofing our sneakers and jackets from a can. Our excitement had turned to an uncomfortable tension...

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