Dispatches from El Camino

6:28 a.m.—Madrid. Our train leaves in an hour and we have to hustle. We cram clothing into backpacks, leave the hostel, and haul our ashes across Madrid to the train station.

7:12 a.m.—We are late arriving to the station. Late by two minutes. We miss our train.

We know it’s a lost cause, but we still try to get a refund on the tickets because tickets are roughly the same price as a four bedroom beach condo. The guy at the information desk is very matter-of-fact and says, “No refundos, señor, this is Spain, not Walmart.”

7:34 a.m.—We purchase new, more expensive tickets for a later train. It’s pricey. But it’s all right, we can always just get a second mortgage.

To kill time before our departure, we hang out in the station café, drinking coffee. The eatery is full. People are staring at us. This could be because we are the only ones carrying hiking backpacks and a fiddle. Or it might be that I am wearing a cowboy hat, and you don’t see many Roy Rogers wannabes in Spain.

One little boy asks me in broken English whether I am a real “vaquero.” I tell him that, yes, Kemosabe, I am most definitely a real vaquero, and I have a Lone Ranger lunchbox at home to prove it.

9:36–Our train is on time. We rush through security, placing our bags in the scanners. Train security is high today. Locals have told me there is civil unrest in Spain, and terrorist organizations usually target transportation hubs. Especially around holidays. It is nearing Easter, which is a MAJOR holiday in Spain.

Still, even with heightened security, Spanish transportation security agents are polite, quick, and efficient. This is a stark contrast to American TSA agents, many of whom seem to be suffering clinical depression.

10:29 a.m.—After an hour on a train, we have a layover in Zaragoza, and nobody speaks English. Thankfully, my Spanish is improving, it’s all coming back to me.

I am speaking fluently, feeling pretty good about myself, asking for information from a railway employee on where exactly to stand in line.

The employee begins to chuckle and tells me that I have just asked him, in perfect Español, how to remove a bone from the butt of a fire hydrant.

11:48 a.m.—My seat is not located near my wife’s seat. I am sitting in the back of the train, next to a teenage girl who is doing schoolwork on an iPad. Jet lag is catching up with me. I drift in and out of sleep as our train whirls past miles of farmland and impossibly green mountain pastures.

When I awake, I see that I’ve been drooling on myself. The teenage girl finds this amusing and points to my shirt collar, which is wet. I am humiliated, so I apologize and explain “jet lag” to her in Spanish, but I don’t know how to say this term.

So, I attempt to drive my point home by using hand gestures and mouth noises which illustrate a tiny jet flying through the air. The girl looks frightened now. You can see her mind racing, wondering (a) why is this man using the international hand signs for “airplane”? and (b) is this man a terrorist targeting a major transportation hub?

1:28 p.m.—Our train arrives in Pamplona. We find a cab driver willing to carry us to El Camino’s Frances trailhead where we will begin our 500-mile walk. The driver speaks no English, but I assure him this is okay because I am very skilled at removing bones from the butts of fire hydrants.

Before we enter the cab, my wife and I are both drinking coffee from paper cups, but the driver sternly informs us that no coffee is allowed in his cab. We must throw the coffees away.

1:47 p.m.—Driving. Our cab drives along a series of winding roads so intense and curvy that I feel as though I am at Six Flags Over Hell. The twisty roads get worse. The cab driver tells me I am white as a ghost. I feel like I am going to ralph.

2:01 p.m.—I am ralphing.

Well, at least I am doubled over on the shoulder, dry heaving. My wife rubs my back as our cab driver is saying in Spanish, “Now you understand why we don’t allow coffee in the cab.”

2:45 p.m.— I am sick as a dog, riding in the backseat. Moaning. My wife is up front, teaching our driver to pronounce American cuss words.

3:08 p.m.—Saint-Jean-Pie-de-Port is a cute historic French village whose name means, literally, “four hyphens.” The village is entirely overrun with pilgrims of all nations, all clad in outdoor activewear. It feels as though we have crawled into an REI advertisement.

The inn where we are staying is manned (womanned?) by two French women who speak no English and almost no Spanish.

Attached to the inn is a little café, which is quaint, smells like bread, and is about the size of a water heater closet. The two women are furiously buzzing to and fro, preparing orders, trying their best to serve pilgrims, none of whom seem to speak their native tongue.

Some pilgrims are impatient. Most of these impatient pilgrims are American.

One such American, an older woman, walks into the café and is frustrated because she is unable to find “ranch dressing” on the menu. The American woman gets angry and slams her menu down and finally says, “You REALLY need to learn to speak English in this place.” And she leaves.

The French women are cheerfully unbothered by the woman’s display.

“Is okay,” the happy French woman says to me. “Americans are sometimes—how you say?—jerks.”

My wife teaches the French women a new and more anatomical word for “jerk.”

5:38 p.m.—Church bells are ringing across the mountainside. There are sheep grazing in distant pastures. We eat an early supper on a bench overlooking a verdant alpine river gorge.

There is an electricity in the air I can’t describe. The whole town is humming with a unique energy. All the pilgrims are ready for the Camino. People are jacked. Everyone is seeking something. Everyone has their Reason for walking. I have mine.

We begin our walk in one day.