Camino Characters

Bruce´s post mentioning Tristan put me in mind of that fine young man. Tristan, I got your playlist from Bruce one day and on the horrid cold 9km extra stretch to Logrono I switched my phone on to walkman and got in your groove - did wonders for my mood!

And it reminded me of your extreme camping idea (though had no clue it could include bacon and eggs, thought it was more road kill and berries :)

Anyway, on this camino there are some people cycling it. And some are what could be called extreme cyclists. They have the smart cycle gear and a camel back but after that it would seem, nothing. The strategy being to chat up cougars having their back packs carried and staying in pensions, at various watering holes along the way, and asking to come stay with them. It would appear the strike rate is quite good!

Some women seem unable to travel without about 5kgs of toiletries and other bulky accessories. One woman I saw, to her credit at least carrying everything herself, was fully made up, wearing pure white designer clothing and ultra chic sneakers, not only carrying an enormous backpack but also pulling a trolley with other bags behind her. Bulging form the side pockets of the back pack were a large hairbrush, a large hair dryer and a long can of hairspray. One can only imagine what the rest of the luggage contained. (speculation always welcome).

Another character I have walked with a bit is a German called Hans. We won´t walk after tomorrow because he speaks no English and I speak no german and our tri-lingual go-between is leaving to go back to work. But this guy is 61 (looks 75) and began the camino the day after he got out of the wheelchair he had been in for the previous 6 months. His pack weighed 17kgs but he was ruthless and posted 2kgs back to himself. He can´t get rid of anyting else because it would offend people - his wife for example packed him his after shave, his daughter gave him a souvenir cigarette lighter (he doesn´t smoke but it was very pretty she thought) and so it goes. He is lumbering along and pretty much falls asleep from the moment he gets to the albergue until it is time to leave in the morning.

And then we have the tenor. Perhaps this story should go back under the earlier post about the different meanings for camino. ´´Tenor´´ was one of them. Tenor was a much in vogue word in the Peka Peka house beacuase 4 of us were singing in the Wellington City Choir. I expressed that when I had gone to the singing camp with 600 others at Labour weekend, I had shared a ride with basses. Over the course of the weekend I decided that basses were a nice breed- generally on the big side with deep voices, laid back and fun. The tenors on the other hand looked like small high maintenance men to me (nothing to go on at that point but speculation you understand) The Peka Peka men all joined the basses and though there was some debate about whether they could sing with either group, there was now a reluctance to be classified as a tenor.

Occasionally we would see someone when we were out and one of us would say ´tenor´ and we would all nod knowingly.  At Los Arcos there was a guy constantly fussing with his things, then after showering came back and primped in front of the mirror for way too long before applying all kinds of smelly dabs here and there. I thought (but had no-one to remark to) ´tenor´ and lo and behold as we were all settling down for the night, this diminutive fussy Spainiard finally gave himself up. He sang for 15minutes while he was arranging his bed!