I’ve been to some hairy parts of the world –

The gangland areas of East LA, the projects of New Orleans, the black areas of Baltimore, the drug infested slums of outer Amsterdam, the back streets of Tijuana in Mexico, Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea (a very scary place), the immigrant slums of Lyon in France, the outlying slums of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, the inner slums of Old Delhi, the Burmese jungles of the Golden Triangle, where most of the world’s heroin is produced, and Harlem late at night, where some of it is used –

I’ve walked through all these places safely, thanks to my PGS.

And I walked the Camino de Santiago safely, too.

But there were a couple of times when I was made acutely aware of just how vulnerable you are as a pilgrim walking the Camino, even being a man.

Often you’re walking alone, early in the morning or sometimes in the dark. You’re often on very isolated stretches of track, out in the woods or beside lonely roads where you’re very visible to the odd passing car.

You’re wearing a heavy backpack which makes it hard for you to cut and run, should you need to. And often you’re exhausted. It’s difficult putting up a fight when you’ve just walked 25kms.

I remember walking out of Pamplona early one Sunday morning. It was about 5:30am, it was dark, and there were groups of late night revellers wandering the streets. Some of them looked at me, and a few yelled out, jeering. They were drunk.

If it had been Sydney at the same time of the morning, in the dark, I’d have been worried about my safety. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have been out walking. Sydney can be very dangerous in the city, particularly on a weekend in the wee hours.

But in this instance, in Pamplona, nothing happened.

Two men followed me for a while early one morning as I walked through some deserted inner city streets of Ponferrada. Foolishly, I’d just stopped and pulled some cash out from an ATM. Really dumb, at that time of the morning. I finally stopped and turned and glared at the men, and they disappeared.

That’s the sum total of my uncomfortable incidents during my Camino.

However, I’ve heard of instances of women being harassed by men while walking on lonely stretches of track. And I’ve heard of one or two muggings.

Over the years, I’ve travelled extensively in Spain – not only on the Camino, but in and around Madrid, and through Cataluna. And I have to say that I’ve found it to be one of the safest places I’ve ever been. After all my travelling around the world, my PGS is now very finely tuned to the approach of danger. And I’ve always felt very safe in Spain.

But being a pilgrim and walking the Camino de Santiago doesn’t give you spiritual immunity from the vagaries of man. Remember you’re walking through a country that’s going through very difficult economic times.

Unemployment is very high, particularly amongst young people. And wherever there’s poverty and desperation, there’s the propensity for crime.

I’ve always maintained that you must walk the Camino without fear. That said, it’s best to be careful, just as you have to be careful anywhere.

This might be a provocative blog for some –

I ask the question: Who owns the Camino? 

I ask this question because the Camino de Santiago is often described as a Catholic pilgrimage. Does the Catholic Church lay claim to the Camino?

Certainly Spain is a predominately Catholic country, and the majority of pilgrims who collect their Composetla are Spanish.

But does the Catholic Church have a franchise from God to run the Camino?

I thought the people who walked the Camino owned the Camino. Irrespective of faith or belief.

I will now quickly climb into my bomb shelter and await your response…

This is the story of my steak.

All I wanted was a steak.

I’d just walked into Arzua, and this would be my last night on the Camino, because tomorrow I intended to walk 39km into Santiago.

So I wanted a big fat juicy steak. Not the kind of thin measly slice of meat they gave you in the pilgrim dinners. I wanted it grilled, and thick, and oozing with blood.

I wanted a Fred Flintstone steak.

So I asked at the front desk of the hotel I was staying in. Yes, for my last night on the Camino, I’d got myself a private room in a hotel. The people on the front desk told me of a place out of town – they did steaks. It was an asador. I knew enough Spanish to know that an asador was a restaurant that specialised in grills.

So sending me to an asador was a good start.

They gave me a map, and off I set. It was mid afternoon, and I hoped this place was still open for lunch. I followed the directions that were drawn on the map, and after about 2kms I thought the people in the hotel must have made a mistake.

I was walking out of town, and it looked like I was on the very outskirts. There were hardly any buildings around. Plus I was sore from the day’s walk. I didn’t want to add any more to my day’s mileage count.

But I kept walking, and in the far distance I saw a cluster of buildings. As I got closer, I saw that one was the asador. It didn’t look much though from the outside. You could have walked right past it and not known it was a restaurant.

By this stage it was nearly 4pm – and I didn’t want to have to come all the way back for dinner if they were closed for lunch. But they were still open. There were a couple of locals inside, at the bar.

The restaurant looked promising. It was dark, for a start, and there was a huge wood fireplace up against the wall, where they did all their cooking. There were hams hanging above the bar, and pictures of cows and bulls on the walls.

This was a good sign too.

The restaurateur came up and said they were closed, but I said all I wanted was a steak. Just a quick steak. He hesitated, and saw that I was a pilgrim, and he nodded. Okay, he said, what sort of steak do you want?

The only Spanish I knew for steak was Chuleton de Buey. Which I found out later means big fat enormous bloody steak. or thereabouts.

The restaurateur nodded, then he went away and came back with a raw chunk of meat that looked like it had just been carved off the side of a monster cow. It almost required two men to carry it. Or a wheelbarrow. He produced a set of scales and on the table in front of me, he weighed it. 2.8kgs.

I was hungry, but not that hungry. I couldn’t eat a chunk of meat that size.

So I shook my head and said smaller. He took it away, straining under the effort, and I heard some sharpening of knives out the back, then he came back a short time later with the chunk of meat cut down to a more edible size. Again he weighed it, and the weight was now 1.6kgs.

It was still huge, but by this stage I was starving, so I nodded and said Sure, that’ll do, thanks. 

So I watched as he slung this big piece of Chuleton de Buey onto the open grill over the wood fireplace. I could smell the meat cooking, and it made my mouth water.

The men at the bar looked over at me, said something amongst themselves to cause them all to laugh, and then they left. I was the only person in the restaurant.

I ordered a bottle of wine and began to quench my thirst while I waited for the meat to cook. It didn’t take long though because the restauranteur soon took the meat off the grill and brought it over to my table on a plate.

It was so large it spilled over the sides of the plate. It really was a Fred Flintstone steak.

He then produced a gas fired cooker which he placed on the table in front of me, and a cooking pan, and told me I had to cook it myself according to how I liked it. He cut the meat into thick slices, and left me to it.

So, I sat in this huge dark empty restaurant, and I cooked myself the biggest most delicious steak I have ever had in my entire existence.

I’ve had some great steaks in my life – in Chicago, in New Orleans, In Tokyo, and in Finland. Although that steak in Finland was reindeer. The Chicago steak had been the all-time champeen of the world, but this Chuleton de Buey knocked it out of the park.

It took me about an hour and a half to finish it off. And at the end of it, the restauranteur brought over a bottle of home-made grappa, poured me a glass which he said was “on the house,” and walked off to prepare the restaurant for the evening dinner arrivals.

He made the mistake of leaving the home-made grappa bottle on the table.

I don’t remember finishing it. I just remember marvelling at how quickly high alcoholic liquor evaporates.

The bill finally came, and it was €68.

Why did I think it might have been €18 – €20 tops? It wasn’t. It was €68. That’s why those guys at the bar had been laughing.

Luckily he didn’t charge for the grappa. That was on the house.

I stumbled back to the hotel, the bottle of home-made grappa warming my blood, and making it very difficult to cross roads safely.

And the following morning, thanks to the grappa I didn’t need any Ibuprofen for my knee. And thanks to the steak, I didn’t need to eat for a week.

There were things I discovered on the Camino that came as a complete surprise to me –

For starters – Cuckoo birds.

I had no idea there were so many Cuckoo birds along the Camino.

When I first heard a Cuckoo bird, I couldn’t believe it. (I think it was when I was climbing up the Pyrenees, and it’s a wonder I heard anything above my thumping heart!)  But I thought you only heard Cuckoo birds in Bavaria, or Switzerland.

In fact, if someone were to ask me what sounds did I associate with the Camino, then I’d have to say Cuckoo birds, and cowbells. The sound of cowbells was everywhere too, which again surprised me.

And storks nesting in church belltowers. I’d seen that in Alsace, and in parts of Germany too – but it came as a surprise to see it in Spain.

What else was unexpected? The generosity of spirit.

I’d read that the Camino engendered this kind of thing, but I saw it regularly first hand, and was a recipient of “random acts of kindness,” and generosity, several times. People gave me things which I never asked for, but needed. People helped me when I needed help – and sometimes when I didn’t even realise I needed help.

The level of generosity was unexpected.

But perhaps the biggest thing that surprised me, that was unexpected, was the injury toll I witnessed daily. I didn’t expect to see so many people with bad injuries.

I’d researched the Camino thoroughly before I left – and so I knew about blisters and tendonitis etc… but I was astonished to see just how many people were suffering each day with physical problems. And early on in the walk, too.

It’s understandable, I guess. It’s a long way over rough terrain, and many pilgrims come unprepared – with footwear that hasn’t been properly worn in, or is ill-fitting. Or, their backpacks are too heavy, or they haven’t prepared their bodies for the ardor of the walk.

But it was unexpected, because it seemed like there was a conspiracy of silence. Pilgrims didn’t want to post on blogs or forums that they were doing it tough, because it might appear like they were pussies.

I was a pussy. I didn’t mind whining. I still whine.

Last thing that was unexpected – I didn’t expect everything to be so cheap.

Coming from Australia, which is a very expensive country, I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that you could have a great three course meal for €10, including wine. You could get a coffee for €1, or sometimes less. A coffee in Australia is $4.50. That’s nearly €3.

An equivalent three course meal in Australia, in a pub say, with a carafe of wine would set you back $50, easy. That’s €34. So in other words, food in Spain was a third of the cost in my home country.

That was nicely unexpected.

What did you find on the Camino that was unexpected?

Do some people walk the Camino to “hook up?”

Kathy Foote in her most recent blog wrote about a couple who were forced to share a double room one night – she titled her post Sleeping with Strangers. The couple had a great night together (the walls were very thin, Kathy wrote), and they ended up walking the rest of the Camino together.

Consequences of Sharing a Room with a Stranger – Day 22 – Carrion de los Condes to Terradillos

I wrote a blog titled Sex on the Camino where I argued that the energy of the Camino worked to create a strangely chaste environment.

Day 30+ Sex on the Camino

The two blog posts are not contradictory. I was aware of several hook-ups during my pilgrimage, and I wasn’t even really plugged in to the social interactions around me, because I was walking my own walk. So there could well have been many more.

Certainly the Camino throws people together, as in the case that Kathy cited, and often the shared experience of hardship and exhilaration quickly forges bonds. Relationships form, and sometimes they last well beyond the Camino.

As well, many people walking the Camino are single, they’re unattached or between relationships, some are emotionally vulnerable and are seeking companionship.

Some too are quite deliberately on the hunt for a partner, or a short term relationship. You can see them at work. It ain’t pretty.

But do people decide to walk the Camino to look for a hook-up? (A hook-up implies a quick transitory relationship.) And do some so-called pilgrims regard the Camino like a Mediterranean cruise ship, or a holiday to Cancun?

Cheap beer, and hey, we’re all in this together. Why not have some fun? 

You are at your least attractive on the Camino, let’s face it. But that’s not necessarily a disincentive to hooking-up. Ship-wreck survivors on a desert island are unattractive too. But ship-wreck survivors have been known to co-mingle.

I believe that the spiritual energy on the Camino is conducive to bringing people together who are meant to be together.

But as it becomes more popular, as more and more people walk the Camino, is it fast becoming an 800km pickup joint?

I thought I might post another little teaser for the upcoming book.

This describes an incident in a coffee shop in Leon – where I bumped into a bloke named Mike whom I’d met previously on the Meseta.

Mike was intending to go to Poland after he’d finished the Camino, because over dinner one night I’d happened to mention to him that my wife and I had recently visited Poland. He asked if the girls there were pretty and I told him that yes, in fact they were very beautiful.

Mike was interested in girls, you see.

So on hearing this, he immediately ditched his plans to walk to Muxia and decided to go to Poland instead. This excerpt below describes my walking into the Leon coffee shop and seeing Mike –

I looked around, and there was Mike sitting at a table with a bunch of his buddies. He got up and walked over. Shook my hand.

Dude, the chicks in Leon are unreal, he said. Jeeez.. Wish I was staying here longer. But Poland calls, man. Poland totally calls.

He punched me on the shoulder, playfully, then returned to his table. I wasn’t sure where Santiago fitted into his plans. It must have been merely a stop along the way between the chicks in Leon and the chicks in Poland.

I then heard him say to the table – See that guy over there? He makes movies. And guess what the name of his company is? BJ Films!

The table erupted into laughter, and the rest of the coffee shop turned and stared at me.

Previously, I’d told Mike that my production company was called BJ Films. B for Bill, J for Jennifer. Jennifer is my partner in the company. This reduced Mike to fits of near hysterical laughter. For you see, Mike lives in the porn capital of the world – the San Fernando Valley in California – and around his parts, BJ doesn’t stand for Bill andJennifer. It stands for something else.

When Mike told me this, it all made sense.

When I first established the name of the company, I tried to secure the domain name of bjfilms.com, but it wasn’t available. It turned out that bjfilms.com was registered to a film company in… of all places… the San Fernando Valley.

At the time, I thought that was a very odd coincidence – that there’d be a Bill and Jennifer making movies over there. I mused that perhaps it was Brad and Janet, or maybe Bobby and Jules – surely it couldn’t be Bill and Jennifer. But thanks to Mike, I now knew differently…

During the time that Mike and I walked together, he tried to convince me that I should make porn on the side. When I expressed my reluctance, telling him that it might not be consistent with my previous body of work, he told me that even Steven Spielberg was doing it. His porn was with aliens.

After I finished the Camino, I returned home and on opening some credit card statements, I did for a moment wonder if I should take Mike’s career advice and move into producing films more befitting the name of our company. I’d make a lot more money – but I finally discounted it, thinking that it wasn’t really consistent with being a pilgrim. 

I’m posting this as a separate blog. Some of you might have already seen it as a posted comment, but I give it separate prominence because it’s worth considering what’s underneath this story.

The poster is Libby Pashley. She and her husband Wayne are very dear friends. What prompted Libby to write this post was my stating that if I found €1,000, I would give it randomly to someone in the street, someone I intuited needed the money.

For me, where I find Libby’s story powerful is in the transference of energy –  the energy that stems from a random and spontaneous act of generosity. As Libby explains, that energy has been handed on like a torch in a relay.

Of course, the negative aspects of this happen all too frequently too – like the damaging energy associated with physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. That energy can repeatedly manifest generation to generation.

But in the story that Libby so beautifully tells, it’s the energy of kindness and generosity that’s handed on. Some people say violence begets violence. I say kindness begets kindness.

Dear Bill,

I love your idea of arbitrarily giving the money to someone you felt needed it.

I was on the receiving end of a similar bout of generosity once, many years ago, and have never forgotten that random act of kindness, and think often of it all this time later.

When I was a young thing, around 25 years ago now, I was in London doing that thing that many young Australians do, spending 18 months or so back packing my way around the world. I spent a lot of time with London as my base, and I used to love to see as many west end shows as I could afford – which being a backpacker wasn’t many.

One time, a friend and I were waiting in the line at the returns ticket counter in the hopes of scoring a discounted ticket for a performance of the musical Carousel, which was due to begin in the next hour or so.

There were maybe a dozen or so people waiting patiently in the hopes that some last minute tickets would become available, when we were approached by a man in his fifties asking us if we were interested in two tickets to that nights performance.

We immediately assumed that he was wishing to circumvent the trouble of returning the tickets to the box office and was wanting to do a direct, covert deal with us. We replied that, yes, that would be great, as we were not at the front of the queue, and time was ticking away. When we pulled out our wallets to pay for the tickets, he waived the money away, and said no, the tickets were a gift.

Upon seeing our suddenly suspicious glances at each other, he beckoned his wife over to join us, and explained that the friends they had been expecting to join them had at the last minute pulled out of the evening, and now they had these two tickets available and would be pleased if we would take them.

Despite our repeated protestations that we were more than willing to pay for the tickets (bearing in mind that the cost for us would have been several days worth of food), he refused, handed over the tickets, and wished us a happy evening.

Of course being numbered theatre tickets meant we were soon reunited with him and his wife as we were seated right to next to them for the performance. At interval, the four of us exited into the foyer together where he and his wife not only returned from the bar with a glass of wine for each of us, but also with a copy of both the programme and soundtrack album – an unheard of extravagance for us.

Overcome with gratitude, I asked him why he was being so kind to a couple of young girls, complete strangers to him.

He told us that when he was young and traveling around Europe many years before, he had been hitchhiking in the cold and rain, when he had been picked up by a man who turned out to be a retired Navy admiral, who not only offered him a lift to his next destination, but insisted on taking him back to his extravagant home, making him a home cooked dinner, giving him a warm and comfortable bed, before driving him to the station the next morning and giving him the train fare to his next destination.

He had never forgotten this mans kindness and generosity at a time when he really needed it, and had been waiting 25 years to “pay it forward” to someone else. He said that when he saw my friend and I in the line that night, obviously travelers of some sort, he saw the opportunity to pass that kindness on, and make a difference in someone’s life.

Well, as I say, 25 odd years later, I think of that man often, and how his kindness and generosity to a couple of strangers impacted me in such a simple way. I probably think more often of that man than I do of the girl I was traveling with at the time.

I’m awaiting my own opportunity to pay it forward, and I’m hoping my own PGS will guide me when the time is right.

You really never know the impact your actions have on others – in a very real way I owe a debt of gratitude to that retired Navy admiral who was once kind to stranger on the other side of the world, 50 years ago.

Libby.

I have just posted this on the forum – I’ll discuss it with you over there…

Please join up and join me…

http://www.pgsthewayforum.com/forum

A foolish man and a pretty young girl…

I met this beautiful young girl on my walk –

She was Italian, and she was dressed all in white. Flowing diaphanous white scarfs and robes. She had dark skin and dark hair and flashing eyes. When she smiled, you reached for your shades. It was dazzling. She was dazzling.

Thing about this girl – she wasn’t wearing a backpack. She didn’t even have a daypack.

I got talking to her, as you do, and she told me she was having a problem with one of her legs. It was sore. And a man had come along and offered to carry her backpack for her. He had his own backpack, but he carried hers as well for about 10kms along a tough and difficult section of the track.

I thought this was a very chivalrous thing for this man to do. Later I met up with him. He was mid 40s I guessed, and had gone ahead of her and was sitting by the side of the road, the two backpacks on the ground beside him. Both were large, and both looked heavy.

He looked exhausted from carrying the two packs. He asked me if I’d seen the girl. I had seen her. She’d gone ahead of me, her leg apparently not that sore, then met up with a very handsome young Canadian boy. The last I saw of them, they were canoodling in a field by a creek.

I didn’t wish to tell this man what I’d seen. I got the feeling his offering to carry her backpack had not only been an act of chivalry, but also an expression of romantic intent. Certainly the girl was in no hurry to leave her Canadian beau and reclaim her backpack.

I walked on, wondering how long he would wait for her. Or whether he’d carry those two backpacks back along the trail, and discover the Italian white vision in a clutch with her new Camino buddy… if so, how would the man react?

Was he an old fool? Had the girl artfully manipulated him?

I’ll never know – one of the great mysteries of the Camino.

What do you think?

Bill