The Camino

by Eddie Rock

Swiss John seems very quiet today, though. I get the impression that the wind has been blown out of his sails, as he’s a shadow of his former self—or maybe the ecstasy has worn off?

  So, well wined and dined, we hobble back up the road and get collared by the barking man at the front of the hostel, waving at us to come inside. It soon becomes apparent that this man, in addition to running the pilgrims’ hostel and barking a lot, is also the major of this town and will stamp our pilgrims’ passports.

  He gestures us into his office with exited little yaps and seems to have taken quite a fancy to Cocker’s gleaming white trainers. As he shows them off to the barking major, we also reestablish that Cocker is indeed doing the Camino de Santiago on a pie, and now the pair of them appear to be doing a drunken cancan.

  “I’m doing it on a pie,” he keeps saying, flicking his legs in the air.

  “Would that be a chicken and mushroom or vegetariano?” I joke.

  Cocker thinks it’s hilarious and wacky like some kind of silly, Pythonesque sketch, but even a thick bastard like me can conclude the other two answers were on horse or on bicycle. “A pie” means doing it on foot and not a salad dodger’s food item. It doesn’t take a degree in social science to work that one out, I can tell you.

  Back in our cold, claustrophobic room we have two new roommates: a jovial Frenchman called Pierre who’s busy bandaging some serious foot wounds, and an American guy in expensive walking gear who calls himself Tucker. There’s one mattress left, and Tucker says the body of a pilgrim has been found back on the trail.

  A chill goes up my twisted spine.

  Back in my damp sleeping bag I count my blessings and eventually drift off into a disturbed slumber . . . with . . . strange . . . dreams.

  An intense light shines out from an alien spacecraft hovering above, blinding me into a state of confusion. I’m frozen solid, unable to move as the strange, inscrutable beings standing above me merge into familiar faces I recognize. I see the smug Dutch man, the ranting ogress, the Japanese tattoo demon, fat safari and the acorn-cock German, all babbling incoherently. Suddenly bolts of thunder and lightning shake the room as the devil major leaps out of a black cloud in a red spandex rock music suit with goat’s horns on his head, cackling like a witch.

  I scream in agony as he stabs me viciously in my knee and ribs with a three-pronged trekking pole while barking orders to his crazed disciples. The smirking Dutch man grabs my arm and the loudmouth German grabs a leg, as do the ogress and the water demon, with the little devil leading the way out through the crowded hostel, barking and shouting while the other pilgrims chant like zombies to the English punk band The Stranglers´ hit song “No more heroes.”

  “No more pilgrim anymore! No more pilgrim anymore!”

  At the entrance, the major gives the order, and I’m cast out into the freezing rain, naked and with no shoes.

  I wake abruptly in a world of pain, soaked in horrible freezing sweat.

  The thought of failure and going back to Scunthorpe is too much to take. I can’t give up on the first day, for fuck’s sakes. In a moment of clarity I find the answer and get to work on my heavy pack.

  The small tent can go, the camping stove and cooking pots too, the wet toilet roll, wet pair of jeans, and three of the wet T-shirts, the fold-up chair (also wet), the self-inflating roll mat (wet), three of the paperback books (also wet), and last but not least, the Frisbee

  Cocker wakes from an equally disturbed sleep and we quickly decide that the best course of action we could take from here is to go down to the bar, get exceedingly pissed, and see how we feel in the morning. So it’s back on with the torture boots and into the rain we go.

  * * * *

  The innkeeper and his family are sitting around a table enjoying their evening meal. He shakes his head and snorts loudly with a mouthful of jamon as he spots Cocker. “¡Vegetariano! ¡Vegetariano!” they all laugh, chewing on bones and fish heads.

  We huddle by the blazing fire, drinking like there’s no tomorrow, not speaking but sighing a lot. So as darkness falls on another day in Larrasoaña, we drink up and wobble back up the road. As we reach the hostel, Cocker stumbles and falls flat on his face in the wet gravel in front of an array of disgusted pilgrims. Luckily I’m carrying the wine. Cocker flaps around on the ground like a drunken haddock and then eventually picks himself up and bows to his aghast audience like a circus performer. With no round of applause, we disappear out of harm’s way to the indoor/outdoor kitchen facility.

  Tonight at Casa Eduardo:

  We dine from the legendary British army ration pack, awarded five Michelin skid marks by army master chef Paul Bástard.

  For a starter I have the meatballs and Cocker has the boiled sweets, bourbon biscuits, and cream crackers.

  For the main course I have chicken curry, and due to his vegetariano requirements, Cocker has rice with curry sauce, and because of my kind nature, he can have the whole chocolate pudding all to himself.

  “I’ll sleep well tonight,” I say, rubbing my bloated stomach as he eats the pudding, studying the wrapper.

  “Bleugh.” He coughs, spitting it all back into the bowl. “Fucking hell, I thought it tasted funny. ‘Consume within five years, or before 1996,’” he reads. “We’ve been poisoned!” He shrieks with panic in his eyes.

  “Don’t be silly!” I laugh, drinking the rest of the wine as my stomach inflates worryingly.

  “These are OK, though,” says Cocker with another mouthful of boiled sweeties.

  On the way back to the room we spy Swiss John laid out on a mattress, laughing and joking with the gorgeous Belen, with her sweet little face smiling away, tucked up all warm and snug in a lovely red sleeping bag. Cocker interrupts them by announcing that we’ve just poisoned ourselves with out-of-date army rations.

  2:17 a.m.: I wake up with a painful jolt, not knowing which is worse, the alien that is about to burst out of my bloated stomach or the screwdriver twisting in my back, knees, and ribs!

  The alien kicks painfully from within as I double up in agony, rushing down the corridor like a wounded soldier, hoping and praying that the toilet is empty. Once inside I remain cold and motionless for the next two hours, staring out the glassless window at the ancient countryside, peaceful and serene except for the high-decibel snoring coming from every room, sounding like tanks rolling up the street.

  Back in the damp room I feel totally shattered, and yet again I’ve lost an earplug. I search in the darkness but to no avail as French Pierre snores next to me like a donkey with the flu. I kick him some more and he stops as I try to doze off in the small window of opportunity. After several attempts my lights finally go out, and the light in the room comes on.

  I look at my watch—it’s 5:30 a.m.

  LARRASOAÑA TO PAMPLONA

  MOMENTS OF DOUBT AND PAIN

  FOREIGN VOICES FLY up and down the corridors like evil spirits, and I clearly hear Swiss John saying something not very good about the weather—words that I don’t want to hear. My body feels shattered, bloated, and full of poisons as I lie there freezing, imprisoned in my toxic tomb with what feels like a screwdriver jammed in my back and a chainsaw tearing at my knee.

  I desperately need a slash, but the bathroom is occupied, and yet again I wash my face with the wet corner of my towel and brush my teeth, swallowing the contents.

  Cocker opens his eyes. “Fucking hell” are his first words as he emerges from his death knoll. He stands, scratches his head, then his balls, and slopes out to the bathroom with his wash kit, and ten seconds later he’s back in the room trying not to piss himself.

  I open the window for a peek at the weather and a cold wet wind blows back in, bringing with it a feeling of total despair, then more despair and distress as I squeeze back into my wet, cold boots.

  We slowly make our way out through the busy hostel to the al fresco kitchen for the last of the out-of-date coffee and hot chocolate, which we end up mixing together.

  Cocker is complaining of a ha
ngover, but mine has yet to surface as my other problems have taken precedence. We both water the grass and Cocker projectile vomits with his willy still in his hand, much to the distress of the morning misérables.

  On the way out of town we pass the inn, and a group of gloomy-looking pilgrims, including the fat acorn-excuse-for-a-cock German are huddling around the entrance trying to keep dry.

  As the storm steps up a gear, Cocker wants to stop and join them.

  “Sanity before pain! We need to keep moving,” I tell him.

  We cross a bridge and continue downhill along a tree-lined path next to the river. He eventually stops moaning and comes alive, telling me about his trekking adventures in Borneo, the Great Wall of China, Nepal, and the Himalayas—then Croagh Patrick in Ireland, Ayers Rock, and part of the Pennine Way.

  “All in these sandals. I’ve had them over three years,” he says proudly.

  “Yes, but they are not waterproof, are they?” I remind him as his woolly, wet feet slosh along. “I reckon you’re gonna get trench foot.”

  “No, I won’t, they dry out quickly,” he says.

  “Yes, but they get wet quickly too, you erbert!”

  Eventually he stops babbling about his beloved sandals as the going becomes treacherous yet again. In a heavily wooded area we completely lose sight of the arrows and follow a dark forest track to a total and utter dead end. As we turn back, the wind blows my poncho backward over my head, twisting it around my neck, strangling and suffocating me at the same time. I try in vain to free myself before ripping it off in a fit of rage and watch angrily as the wind whistles it out of my wet hands high into the pines. Despairingly, we trudge back the way we came, coming at last to a tarmac road. In the distance we see a pilgrim smoking a cigarette, and as we get closer the guy looks a lot like Benny Anderson from ABBA, decked out in a spotless raincoat, khaki trousers with an ironed crease down the middle, and white trainers. His accent is Italian and he kindly directs us back on track with a big happy smile. Soon we’re picking up the arrows again and getting covered in more and more mud as I start to wonder about Benny and his aura of cleanliness. I look back, but he’s vanished.

  “How come that guy was so clean?” I ask.

  “Maybe he came a different way,” says Cocker.

  “What different way? We’ve mostly followed those yellow arrows since the off, apart from when they disappear, so if he came the same way as us then it’s a bloody miracle!”

  “Maybe he was some kind of angel sent to guide us,” says Cocker.

  “What, looking like Benny from ABBA? Don’t be stupid.” I laugh. “I met an angel once,” I tell him.

  “Yeah, a Hells Angel, I bet!” he yells.

  “No, a real angel, from God!”

  “Where?” He laughs.

  “Jerusalem, 1991,” I tell him, and begin my story.

  In the lounge of an old hostel in the Arab quarter I noticed a strange-looking man staring into space. His appearance intrigued me, as it was the middle of summer and he sat there in sweltering heat wearing a red mohair jumper with thick leather biker trousers, and beside him was a battered guitar. I thought it rather strange and lit up a smoke.

  “May I have a cigarette?” asked the stranger in a foreign accent.

  I threw him the pack and watched him carefully take one out, study it for a moment, and light it, almost setting fire to his curly blond locks.

  “Sank you,” he said, sounding like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  I watched as he smoked like a child, coughing and spluttering, and holding the cigarette like a pen.

  “Where are you from?” I asked him, noticing a German accent.

  “Heaven,” he said. “I’m an angel from God!”

  “What, like Gabriel?” I laughed.

  “Yes,” he replied innocently.

  “Are you on medication?” I asked him.

  “No!”

  “Should you be?”

  “No,” he replied, shaking his head.

  “OK. So how long have you been an angel from God exactly?”

  “Four thousand years, more or less,” he replied as quick as a flash.

  “OK. What did you do before you were an angel then?”

  “I lived in Atlantis.”

  “You lived in Atlantis. Can you swim?”

  “Yes, and I can fly,” he said.

  “So, when’s Jesus coming back then?”

  “He’s already here,” said the angel.

  “Where?”

  “Our Lord is everywhere!” he said, looking all around.

  “So, how did you end up here in Israel then?”

  “I flew,” he said.

  “El Al? Tel Aviv?” I asked him.

  “No. I flew here on my invisible golden wings,” he said, unfazed.

  On that note, I was actually inclined to believe him! Because how the fuck had he gotten through the Israeli border control with answers like that?

  “What’s your name?” I asked him, expecting something comically biblical.

  “Terry,” he said.

  “Terry?”

  “Yes, my name is Terry,” he said.

  I couldn’t believe it. Terry, the angel? Maybe he was an angel or maybe he was full of shit. But there he was living, breathing, and talking utter bollocks, so take your pick. By day two everybody in the hostel was bored with his constant lunacy, so angel Terry went back to staring into space and bumming cigarettes from unwary backpackers. No one saw him eat anything, drink anything, go anywhere, or wear anything different, and on the third day he announced that he was leaving for Africa and would anybody like to buy his guitar?

  I wouldn’t have minded it for myself because according to the angel Terry, the guitar could play itself.

  * * * *

  Back on the road the grand citadel of Pamplona comes into view and it’s happy days walking along the tarmac path beside the banks of the river. I feel better than James Brown, but Cocker is lagging behind like a total gaylord, moaning about his feet and totally getting on my nerves. I’ve got ten times more injuries than him, and if he’d chosen proper footwear for this journey, he wouldn’t be in such a state.

  “Stop a minute, please, stop. I’ve got a stone in my sandal,” he cries like a baby. I want to slap his face and shake him. I feel embarrassed for him and embarrassed that I’m with him, and as we go over a bridge with an ancient cross, he puts his head in his arms, sobbing tearfully while removing another sharp stone from his idiotic footwear. As we set off again, he starts whining that I’m walking too fast for him.

  “You and those stupid fucking sandals! Pull yourself together for Christ’s sake, man, we’re almost there—warm showers, wine, and women,” I tell him.

  But two minutes later he’s at it again, with tears rolling down his face as he sobs into the wall of the citadel in yet another hissy fit.

  “HI, BELEN! How’s it going?” I shout out in bedevilment.

  Cocker leaps to attention, looking in all directions for the pretty girl and wiping his gaylord tears from his glasses and face.

  “You. Total. Bastard!” he moans as a couple of red-faced ladies pass by.

  “Well, imagine if she saw you acting all silly like this,” I reason.

  As we set off, he huffs and puffs, but my form of persuasion has done the trick, give or take a few angry reminders. On the steep hill into the city the yellow arrows finally give way to golden scallop shells illuminating our path to salvation.

  We eventually find the hostel opposite a shoe shop, and I’m seventh and Cocker’s eighth in line. So we kill time by eating some very old, very sticky boiled sweets, and a stern-looking graybeard tells us to watch out, as there are thieves around! So with Cocker on guard, I take the opportunity, at last, to buy a pair of sandals.

  On my return a small lady with a large key arrives and all hell breaks loose as we push and shove our way up the creaky spiral staircase into the old building with our pilgrims’ credentials at the ready.

  This ti
me I’m top bunk in another Meccano bed and Cocker has a bottom bunk on a different bed. The place quickly descends into bedlam as more and more people arrive, with every available space filled with drying clothes and drying bodies all getting in each other’s way.

  My stress level is on the rise as I wait my turn for the showers, and as one of the rude Frenchmen exits, I dive in quickly, coming face-to-face with his heavily-skid-marked undercrackers hung from a peg at eye level. Luckily, a French hand comes around the door and whisks them away before more psychological damage can be done to my raging mind. I angrily bolt the door and step knee deep into a stone-cold shower tray, with pubic hair and Band-Aids blocking the plug hole.

  I curse like mad, twiddling the taps until one comes off in my hand and a jet of icy water hits me in the chest like a water cannon.

  * * * *

  The time is 1:30 p.m., and we’re still in one piece, so we celebrate another success with pilgrims’ blood in the bar opposite the hostel.

  “Well, we made it again,” I say, shaking Cocker’s wet flannel of a hand, and he takes one of my cigarettes, saying yet again that he normally only smokes Silk Cut.

  “I doubt they even sell Silk Cut in this region.” I laugh, pointing to the cigarette machine.

  “Why’s that then?” he says, spluttering.

  “Vegetariano type of cigarette,” I tell him.

  We drink and smoke our way to the bottom of the bottle, and the rain finally stops as we get our first glimpse of Spanish sunshine.

  “Hurrah,” beams my posh pal, rolling up his jeans and exposing his translucent legs.

  “Whoa! Put them away, man. You’ll get us arrested,” I joke, but the sight of his knobbly knees is sending me over the edge. So I tell him I’m going to find the internet café and we make promises to meet later for an evening meal.

  I’m feeling a little iron deficient, so I head straight to the Irish pub for a few pints of the black stuff, because what’s good enough for racehorses and pregnant women is good enough for me too!

  In the bar I order my pint and sit quietly reading my pilgrims’ guide as a sexy little waitress brings me a very fine-looking pint of Guinness and a plate of free tapas.