9/14 My wake-up time is dependent upon when coffee becomes available. (I checked the night before.) I dress and gather all my belongings. The cafe up the street is lit orange in the dark before sunrise. I’m not the first one there, but still one of only a few first on the scene. One standard Camino breakfast is fresh-baked bread toasted and spread with butter and marmalade, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and coffee with cream. I wait for mine at an outside table.

Nothing embarrasses me more than being overseas and running into an obnoxious American. I have a complex about any unbecoming behavior, as though I need to apologize for all the “ugly” Americans who have ever walked outside the United States. So, I’m sitting there, and I hear this booming voice, with a twangiest of Texas twangs talking about his El Camino this and his El Camino that. I’m full of judgy thoughts until I finish breakfast and gather my things to leave. Then as I try to slip by unnoticed, “Texas” stops me by asking if this is my first Camino. Of course, this is an invitation for me to ask the same of him (of which I do because I’m polite) and hear all about his El Caminos. Turns out, he’s actually quite friendly and interesting, and I feel bad for my judgyness. He hands me his business card and uses my phone to snap a picture of me in front of the road sign that reads 790 miles to Santiago de Compostela.

The downside of drinking coffee is needing to time bathroom stops. I haven’t gotten the hang of things yet, so my first mistake is taking coffee to go, which doesn’t go with walking sticks so I have to down it quickly. My next mistake is thinking I can find a private tree to squat behind when the urge hits. The Camino is not in the remote wilderness. There are quite of few of us out here walking. At the first village, I managed to overlook any open cafes, but I did find a hidden thicket near a river while pretending it was a photo op.

Later that morning I meet a group of people from the area where I live. One of the women is in a career transition as I am, and we have a nice chat. I enjoy this group but lose them somewhere en route. I struggle with wanting to belong and wanting my own experience away from what and who is familiar. By the afternoon time drags with each solitary step. The physical tiredness from the previous day’s hike weighs heavy on me. I catch up to a woman who is out of water. She is trying to call a cab to take her to the next village. I share my water and give her moral support until she’s struggled through the difficult translation on the phone. Helping her gives me the energy to hike on for the next few miles.

When I get to the village where I’ll be staying, I find the last available bed in an albergue, (and hear the next day that all the alberues in town are at capacity. Mattresses are brought out for the overflow.) The group I met earlier that day is staying at the same albergue as me. That evening some of us are standing around visiting and the woman I spoke with that morning walks in and says hello. One of the guys nudges me and says that’s so-and-so. I’m surprised and say, “Oh it’s you, I didn’t recognize you all cleaned up.” All the guys in the room gasp at my remark. I’m completely and obviously embarrassed. It’s just that the women on my running team say this to each other all the time, so I have no clue this kind of remark can be taken as a slight. But apparently so, because everyone of all cultures in that room had a great big laugh at my expense. At least the woman was forgiving.

So far the Camino is a comedy of errors, feels crowded, with lots of North Americans, and it’s hot. Tonight, instead of sleeping in a room with 100 coed beds, I’m in a room with 20 coed beds. This time the bathroom and shower stalls (with doors) are also coed. Thus my second Camino epiphany hits me, but I don’t say it out loud, “Men smell worse than women”.