Acknowledgments

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So I'm back in Australia, and you may have noticed that I didn't do any blogging for the last sections of the trip: once the road trip started, I no longer had access to the hostel computers and I quickly got out of the habit. Besides, the type of travel didn't lend itself to the type of blogging that I wanted to do. We were tourists rather than the pilgrims we had been, and that was necessary (as a transition back to the 'real world'😉.

However, I did want to finalise the pilgramage, with a few words. I'm not sure if I've previously written this - and I can't be bothered to check - but I think the camino is not about finding a new you - it's really about unlearning a whole range of things, to get back to the old you. As someone wiser than I said - 'the camino is a good means to dispose of psychic garbage'. I'm not going to explain how or why this was the case for me - I'm not even sure I quite understand how or why it was the case, so an explanation would be partial at best, and an outright lie more likely. Instead, I want to acknowledge the one thing I can definitely say was helpful to me on the journey: the people I met. This will be in no particular order, and may exclude people, so if I apologise in advance for my terrible memory.

Firstly, a big thanks to Sue - we met on the walk up from the train at St Jean-Pied-de-Port and is therefore the first person I met on the camino (so much for no particular order). One of my very few camino regrets is that I didn't see you after Pamplona. I know that you finished a few days ahead of me, so that at least was good to hear.

Tatiana and Kristin: thanks for helping me to get my phone organised, a great night out in Santiago (apart from the Orujo) and for never saying 'lager' in my presence.

Helmut: the world's only Irish looking German - seven o'clock in the plaza every day without fail...

Henrik: thanks for knowing where to stay in cities, where and when to stop, and eat, for coming to the bullfight, for putting up with my gabbiness and for your stories told a sentence at a time over the course of four hours. For the discovery that your father spent time 10 Kms from my home town on our last day together and reminding me that the world is not small, it's miniscule... Thanks for being the most economic speaker I've ever met and providing me with some of the most quotable quotes EVER. Most of all I'm grateful for a good friendship started...

Marcus: Really hard to know where to start... Umm, thanks for coming on the road trip... for unfailing positivity and good humour... for restoring my faith in A-Merkins... for your rigorous analysis of politics, people, culture... for the development of 'Pants on Fire' - the radio show... for silliness and seriousness and laughter and tears and all...

Lizzie: For making us go to the beach in Barcelona on your last day... for enthusiasm and wonder and making me laugh unto the point of snorting... for putting up with three guys on a roadtrip... for saying I could dance (really?)...

Andrew: Thanks Andrew for being so generous with your experience and knowing when not to proselytise. Thanks for organising times for 'lights on' in the mornings - it saved a lot of fumbling around in the dark (and meant fumbling around with the lights on...)... and for knowing (ALWAYS) which was the best bar/cafe/restaurant/wine etc...

Mike: For the photo at the Fuente del Vino...

Linde: I think I passed you on the road at 8:15 every morning for what seemed like weeks... How happy I felt at the moment I ran into you in the hostel in Arzua... For saying unexpectedly kind things... for lending me your half-a-towel and crocs at the beach in Finisterre and then putting up with me on a three hour bus trip back to Santiago... for organising dinners and catch ups with people... For general wonderfulness... I wish you could have come on the road trip with us (although you may have regretted it...)

Lise: turning the night into day into night into day into night into...

Joseph: I heard you finished the camino - after I saw that blister on your foot in Astorga, I wondered if you would. i'm so glad that you did.

Patrick and Kate: Go you good things... I've never seen anyone walk as quickly as Patrick that day through Santo Domingo de Calzada...

Alessandro: For being the capo of the table - I've never seen so much wine delivered so efficiently...

The hospitaleros of all nationalities, personalities, creeds, codes and kinks - from the Germans in Pamplona who interviewed each pilgrim on arrival and then provided a wonderful stay, to the magic moment in the 'Spaghetti Western' town of Boadilla, when you walked through the gates of the hostel to see a garden and a pool (A POOL!!!) and immediately felt the aches in your muscles begin to fade. To those who put up with my abominable (or abdominal - it must have given them a pain in the stomach) Spanish with good grace... the eye-rolling champion of Spain (in Larrasoana) who got loads of practice as we ordered Tinto La Caseras all afternoon - hope you did well at the Olympics... a thank you as big as your welcomes...

Spain and its people: for treating us all as pilgrims and not tourists - thank you - it really did make a difference to the experience every time one of you wished us 'Buen Camino'... And the bars and cafes and restaurants and supermercados that provided sustenance and comfort and all that...

And heaps of others: Isabelle and Bedic (my camino hero) and the Italian guy who talked to himself, to Joel, Annette and the Spanish guy who looked like Jesus (according to the barman) at Cizur Menor, and the Twitcher and the Kiwi couple who I had dinner with (among others) in Sarria, and the Kiwi ladies who witnessed the 'miracle of the hat' the following day, and the Polish guy who I met on the way out of Leon, who's name I should know - it was great to meet someone who I could walk with at the pace I liked...and the Valencian men in orange who couldn't dance, and Chip (who I swear must have finished in 15 days and is now somewhere out past the Canary Islands and still walking) and the Asturian guy ('We are the true Spanish - the rest are just a conquered people'😉, and Rita and the Greek South African lady ('Why are Europeans so quiet? Heinrik: We are very conservative people'😉 and Min and her Korean cohorts - thanks for allowing me to sit and take my boots off while we had coffees, and there are others but I'm terrible with names and I don't want to just describe them...

But I will - the Brazilian guy studying in Perth and his Chilean mate who I had dinner with in Mansilla de las Mulas - last seen at the monastery in Rabanal... the Slovenian girl who was trying to finish the camino before her mother made good on her threat to come and get her... and the Italian family I walked by every day for the first week... and the American family... I walked by every day in the third - I finally worked out the connections between you (SHE'S THE MOTHER?????)... and to ALL those people who said 'Oh so you're David - I've heard about you...' and meant it in a GOOD way...

Finally and really unsurprisingly, I want to thank Kel and the kids. Your generosity in letting me (actually, making me) go was wonderful. Love you so much...

And all of you...

Cheers

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Photos

Henrik and the economy of words
I do not drink often... but when I drink, I drink a lot...

Helmut and the French guy
Who said that the Europeans couldn't get along?

Marcus and Linde...
One of hundreds of coffees and chats with good folk

A Typical Dinner
Except for the fact that it's a Pizza Restaurant...

Comments

[Tatiana]

Although I intended to blog while walking the Camino and felt no drive whatsoever to do so once I commenced, I did relish with great enthusiasm, reading your blog David.... every time you posted! You made the short time Kristin and I spent with you hilarious and equally effortless.... minus the alcohol. :) Time shared with you is some of our best memories and eventually we will be conscience free to release photos of our final celebrations and libations in Santiago. Eventually. Cheers my far away friend!