Buen Camino!
Traveling alone is both good and bad. My first day on the Camino de Santiago illustrates both.
After an entire day of traveling, including both a flight to Madrid from Atlanta, and then a long bus ride from Madrid to a small town somewhere near my final destination of Sarria, I was tired. But there I was in a small town trying to figure out where I needed to be to catch a local bus to Sarria, my starting point. A flaw in my plan was coming in to focus.
When I booked the bus ticket I knew about the transfer in this small town. But I was expecting something a little more formal with a labeled bus stop or something. Instead I looked at a gravel parking lot. The main problem here is that I really don’t speak Spanish. I know English. That’s it. So you can see that having a formal bus station was kindof a key thing.
I started to get nervous. And this is something that does happen a good bit when I travel alone, especially to other countries. Try as hard as I do to plan for the unexpected, there is always something that I have not considered. The more I’ve travelled alone, though, the more relaxed I am about it. And I guess I was pretty chill here.
Anyway, a while later a couple strolled by. For some reason, I thought they looked American. I approached them and did the typically American thang: Excuse me, is this where I…… They were not American. BUT they did speak great English.
Turns out they both worked for the EU parliament and were just in the area hop scotching about on the Camino. And so they asked me to join them, since they knew where the bus was to meet up. So I did. And then when we got to Sarria, they said they knew of a good albergue and asked if I would like to join them. What started out with me being a little panicked earlier in the day ended up with me having one of the best travel evenings ever.
The albergue we crashed in (Blasones, see pic below) had a kitchen, and just up the street was a decent little shop to buy dinner provisions. So we first checked in and got our pilgrim passports stamped*, went to a church for the pilgrims mass, then stopped in the shop, and then made a nice big dinner back at the albergue. It was a great evening.
The next morning we all set off together. But then at some point we got separated, and I actually did not see them again. I totally wish I could remember their names, or that I had gotten a picture with them.
At any rate, don’t be afraid to chat people up when you’re traveling alone. Sometimes you might end up having one of the best travel memories ever.
I’ll post more about this trip later. But for now, let me just say I learned an extremely important lesson on this trip – If your feet aren’t happy, you wont be happy!
#Camino #CaminodeSantiago #Albergue #Spain #GenX #GenerationX #Retirement #Adventure
*For those unfamiliar, carrying a pilgrims passport allows you to stay in a vast number of albergues (hostels) for €10 per night. Also, for those who believe, getting a certain number of stamps will entitle the passport holder to get absolution for something or another once you get to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. I did the passport thang so I could get cheap lodgings and to experience the historicity of being on a pilgrimage route people have travelled for more than 1,000 years.
Will's GenX Adventure 