Chapter 18: A Marvelous, White-Water Blur

The evening life of Camino de Santiago pilgrims in the Spanish hostels: the curious vending machines, Danish Google News, disputes over the clotheslines, and the feeling of a Michael Jackson moonwalk.

The pilgrims that haven’t been stricken with pilgrim fever, the vast majority, checked into the next auberge hours earlier and twenty-eight kilometers ahead. They sit in the common room chairs and lazily watch the latecomers arrive. They’ve already started drinking their café con leches because it is the only coffee they know how to order in Spanish, or