Signs and Wanders

It is called the Santiago Shuffle.

This is by far the easiest way to determine a pilgrim, just in case you ever happen to be hanging out in one of the many towns, villages or cities along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. The most important thing is that you seem to move only your shins, your knees having completely seized up. And you only carry weight on the inner edge of each foot, as every other spare inch has been converted into raw, fluid-filled blister goodness. Finally, it is important that you swing your arms as if you´re trying to press a button in front of you, while grimacing with each step.

The end result is that you look like one of Michael Jackson´s background dancers.

One of my walking partners, Scott, coined this term. For some reason, I keep calling him John (despite the fact that he´s Scottish, which is the world´s easiest mnemonic). But, let´s face it, I spend more time thinking about his profession rather than his name. You see, Scott is a priest, who midway through his holy career actually threw it all in to become a London detective (he once interviewed a man who´d had his nose bitten off and, presumably, swallowed...insert a pun about a hard-nosed crim here). Years from now I´ll write an award-winning TV series called "Cassock Closed" about a priest-cum-detective. At the end of every episode, when Chief Inspector Father McGinty gets the bad guy, he´ll stare straight into the camera and say "I´ll throw the good book at ye".

Scott is just one example of the posse of amazing folk I´ve gathered (or have gathered me, depending on your perspective) along the road to Santiago. Joining him is Mary, the Irish engineer who loves a good fart joke and a beer (she introduced me to the term "crop dusting", which is when you walk through a crowd of people, silently farting and spreading the smell without any concern of being identified), Abigail, the super organised lawyer from England and Naz, the wise-cracking Iraqi-Canadian photographer (I told him that his company motto should be "Get shot by an Iraqi today").

Occasionally others will join us. There are Ilke and Judith, two German girls who provide us with a lot of fun when their knees are up to our walking pace; Peter, the retired doctor who, at age 60, is able to outrun us all and is now, by all our estimations, currently relaxing in Santiago. There is Andreas, the flatulent Milanese boy who started walking in Converse sneakers and, after a failed attempt to teach him a German card game (that we ourselves couldn´t understand the rules of), became immortalised by his frustrated intonation of my name - "JEEEEEEEMEEEEEEEEE".

Finally there is Carlos. Carlos is the human embodiment of how the Camino should be walked.

Born in Uruguay, raised in Barcelona, Carlos seems to appear within our reach every few days. He is always happy, and greets us with a jubilant, "Mi Amigos, que tal?" Carlos, it seems, has tapped into the important elements of the Camino: take your time, make as many friends as possible and, most important of all, SIESTA.

I have come across Carlos sitting under a tree, smoking a joint and drinking a beer. He has once slept in a town square, only to be woken up by children and their concerned parents. Regardless, he is always smiling and refreshed.

Faced with such a persuasive front, a group of us decided to spend a day walking the "Carlos way". Myself, Naz and Mary hopped off the road at about 10am to drink "grande cervezas". Tres. By the end of it, we were grinning and laughing our way along St James´road, until we finally decided to siesta beneath a tree.

Actually, it was a ditch beside a tree, next to some loud water pump and a polluted stream.

When we finally arrived in Santo Domingo, we were ecstatic, cheering on the spirit of Carlos and his wacky ways. But, unfortunately, we learnt too late that all of the beds had been taken in Santo Domingo. This meant that we were faced with the gruelling seven km trek to the next town, which may have also already have booked out.

We took a taxi.

The albergue (this is camino-speak for the cheaply run hostels that are provided to pilgrims on the path) we stayed in was indicative of the overall absurdity of my current life.

Firstly, before going to bed, Mary, Naz and I, bonded by sitting on the floor puncturing our pregnant blisters. Once they were attended to, I hopped into my bed, drawing my blanket up to my chin.

I promptly pushed it back down. It stunk of dog, wet dog in fact, and while sleeping with a dog´s blanket might be considered a little unpleasant, the thought turned far more sour when it combined with the additional realisation that no dog would have actually come into contact with said blanket. I could only imagine the kind of sick, intestinal activity that some poor pilgrim had to endure to produce such a strong, canine odour.

So, there I was, perched upon a top bunk, with only five centimetres on either side separating me from sleep and a five foot plunge, surrounded by dog, and doing my best to ignore the fact that my knees and ankles were swollen, and that my feet were filled with fluid-releasing thread.

This alone would possibly turn away even the bravest of adventurers. But, let us introduce into the mix an obese Portuguese man who, thanks to the wonders of his respirtory system, managed to produce a symphony of nasal concertos throughout the night. In fact, between 4am and somewhere short of 5:30, I tried my best to catalogue every nuance of his sinus symphony.

At some points I think he died - he literally stopped breathing, and I could hear the flesh equivalent of a cork stopper lodge in somewhere around his epiglottis. For a second or two there´d be silence, until suddenly that spark of stubborn life would kick through and he´d rip in a lungful of air with the most efficient of sail-flapping gusts, sucking phlegm and drying saliva down into his gullet.

He was not alone with his snoring, but he was by far the most interesting specimen.

However, what is most absurd, most laughable about this whole ordeal, is that I´m still laughing about it. I wake up each morning, groaning at my calcified legs, and trot along on ruined feet for another 20 or so kilometres until I get the pleasure of flopping into my next dubious bed.

I think this is the true beauty of the Camino. Stuff Shirley Maclaine, who dreamed that she was a hermaphordite in Atlantis, and Paulo Coelho, who beat a dog up because he thought it was a sorceror - the insanity of the Camino comes from the bloody-mindedness one experiences when walking for the sake of it.

All we do, day in day out, is hobble, keeping our eyes open for those glorious signs. Sometimes they´re a yellow arrow, haphazardly sprayed against a wall, or a beautiful, tax-payer sculpture of a sea scallop, marking the way forward. It makes you feel like a rat in a cage, pushing the button and waiting for the pellet, but gosh is it rewarding in its own, sick way.

I tell you what, if there was any real sense to any of this, I´d have packed up and gone straight to Barcelona, sitting on a beach somewhere with Carlos. But for now, I´m quite happy to do the shuffle again, with my Frankenstein feet, gammy knees and sleep deprivation.