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 grande glasses of beer that turn out to be so grande there is embarrassment when the obscenity of it is set down on the table.

These pilgrims have already done their chores. They’ve wrapped the anti-bedbug disposable paper sheets over their mattresses and their pillows. They’ve claimed the strategic bottom bunks near the exits. They’ve grabbed up all the electrical outlets. They’ve showered out the last of the hot water. They’ve done their hand laundry with somebody’s forgotten shampoo from the day before or small bits of hand soap they gouged out of the sink porcelain. They’ve checked their email accounts and their Danish Google News. …