Dispatches Del Camino

We all stand outside the small market in Villamayor. There are about twenty-five, maybe thirty of us hapless, fatigued pilgrims. Sweaty and covered in grit. All wearing the same clothes we were wearing two weeks ago.

Same pants. Same shirt. Same boots. Same outfits, washed in the same communal showers and sinks, each evening, over and again, then hung to dry on the same far flung hostel balconies, spreading our deadly b.o. fumes across the breadth of Spain.

The pilgrims form a haphazard line outside Villamayor’s one and only market as we wait for the shop owner to arrive so we can all buy our individual suppers.

Pilgrims are getting fussy.

Namely, because the market’s sign SAYS the store opens at 5:00 p.m. and yet it is already 5:32. This is Spain, however, we have already learned. There are no “set hours” for siesta. Despite what Spanish signs advertise regarding daily hours of operation, siesta officially ends whenever the hell it feels like ending.

So we are all a little concerned. Because no market equals no supper. No supper equals crappy sleep. No sleep equals a tired walk tomorrow. And we have 350 miles left to walk.

Then. A car.

Everyone holds their breath as a car swings into a nearby parking place. It is a minicar, the kind common to Europe, about the size of a toddler’s roller skate.

The car idles for a bit.

We are all staring at the car like we are trying to unlock the doors using only our eyeballs.

A woman and her son crawl from the vehicle. The woman carries jangling keys in hand. She smiles.

“We are now open!” the woman says with a thick Spanish accent.

All pilgrims applaud. Some pilgrims are hugging each other and jumping like we have all just witnessed a Red Sox victory. Spanish locals in nearby balconies even put down their wine glasses long enough to clap and cheer for us.

Then, thirty-odd hungry pilgrims charge into a tiny mercado like Beanie Baby collectors on Black Friday. Soon, there are dozens of pilgrims in each aisle, all wearing looks of rapture on their faces. We are clearing the shelves. The shop owner hasn’t even turned on the lights yet.

You get to know other pilgrims out here. You walk beside them every day. You say “Buen Camino!” when you pass them, uttering this phrase hundreds of times per day. You exchange contact info. You’re always texting each other about important stuff, such as: which local stores are open, which hostels are full, and most importantly, where one can procure beer.

So we are all friends in this store. Which is why we all rejoice together.

I see Hūn (South Korea) with a bottle of hard cider and an armful of white rice. “They have rice!” Hūn says in the same tone of voice one might use to shout, “We’re having a boy!”

I see Stafanie (Netherlands) who says, “They have vegetables! I’m finally going to eat vegetables!”

The hottest item in this store is definitely the fresh veggies—which are limited. Everyone wants salad because we’ve all been forced to eat packaged food for so long our teeth have forgotten the refreshing crunch of organic matter.

One pilgrim, Tadgh (Ireland) buys a head of iceberg lettuce, which turns out to be the last head of lettuce in the whole store. The bruised and wilted lettuce looks like it’s been sitting there since Reagan was in office. But it's lettuce.

Everyone sort of gathers around Tadgh with beautiful excitement, gazing at his leafy green treasure. And although this young man has no obligation, he splits his head of lettuce on the sidewalk, using his pocketknife, and shares lettuce with any pilgrim who wants some. In the end, Tadgh has almost no lettuce remaining for himself.

“That’s okay,” he tells me with a big smile. “I can have lettuce some other time.”

Meantime, I am buying cold beer. At the beer fridge, I run into Shū yi, a young woman from Taiwan who is walking the Camino by herself. Shū yi is maybe three feet tall and about as big as a grade schooler. “Yay!” she says. “We found beer!”

We hug each other and laugh. And I’m trying to think of another instance in my life when I would embrace a complete stranger and laugh about something so trivial.

“Isn’t this so great?” she says.

“Isn’t what great?” I ask.

She shrugs. “This,” she says, gesturing to the rundown little market. “Buen Camino,” she says with a farewell wave.

“BUEN CAMINO!” replies almost every pilgrim in the store.