When I thought of walking the Camino de Santiago de
Compostela (called in English The Way of St. James), I thought of roughing it
the way Mary O'Hara Wyman does in Grandma's
on the Camino, a book I highly recommend.
I thought I'd be staying in the Albergues, which resemble places in San
Francisco for getting the homeless off the streets or army barracks--bunk beds
with scores of people jammed together in
a room.
But I had a walking
partner who had another vision of the Way of Saint James--the Way of Bill
Shoaf--and I soon realized that the Way of Bill Shoaf suited me just fine! We had private reserved rooms and our luggage
was sent ahead from each hotel, which meant that we weren't carrying the
equivalent of a grand piano on our backs.
We weren't, really, roughing it.
We were just walking, which is my favorite sport and the only one I'm at
all good at, though I wasn't all that good.
I am also grateful to The Way of Bill Shoaf because my
walking partner nixed my idea of arriving in northern Spain just in time for
the Camino. He said that would leave me
with jet lag, so we allowed 10 days to get over jet lag, and in the process we
stayed in Bilbao, San Sebastian, Oviedo,
and Leon (accent over the second syllable)--all beautiful places and ones I'd
never seen before.
Bill rented a car,
which is something he's bravely done in several countries: Switzerland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark,
Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, England, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Costa Rica,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Thailand!
You may know that there is a pilgrim's certificate, sort of
like a passport, and when we soi-disant
pilgrims pass through a tavern in a town, we get it stamped.
I thought there should be a driver's passport, so Bill could get stamped by Avis in Spain, Hertz in Italy, or whatever. Imagine having a passport that looks like this:
Of course you'd have to add the date and town.
(In a later blog post I'll tell you about the passport I created for my own true pilgrimage.)
Bill quipped that his way of traveling was from Michelin-starred
restaurant to Michelin-starred restaurant, so he was really interested in a
comment a former boyfriend made back in the 1970's when he saw my collection of
matchbooks and matchboxes from restaurants:
"Tina, you shouldn't be collecting matches!
You should be collecting waiters."
When I commented that going from Michelin-starred restaurant
to Michelin starred restaurant would keep us from ever meeting the people in
the country (who couldn't afford to eat in such places), Bill said, "We'll
meet the waiters! They're the people of
the country."
We did meet the people--even beyond servers--because we
asked directions a lot, and the people of the country were always very kind
about helping us out. Here are some of
the places their directions helped us get to in Bilbao, San Sebastian, Oviedo, and Leon.
https://www.dropbox.com/sc/v80ajdqzgd00c0w/AADgRdI2exmyrI8MQEWyz3Y4a
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