A HORNY JENNET, A HEART ATTACK AND THE NOKIA RING TONE

The real news this past week is that a diabetic pilgrim crashed his bike and was taken to hospital, and that a 60 year-old English guy died of a heart attack crossing from St Jean to Roncesvalles. This was posted on most of the forums this week. Also, the weather has been bloody awful with cold and sleet and a prospect of hail in the Pamplona area.

http://www.caminosantiago.com/way_of_saint_james/pilgrims_forum.htm

Caminosantiago.com offers information on art, history, tips, a pilgrims’ forum, webcams, wineries, museums, natural landscapes, ecosystems, transportation, the route on horseback, bicycle route, restaurants, pilgrims illustrious ...etc.

It can now add pornography to the list! Someone, obviously pissed off with all the porno-posts asked: “I am just curious if there is anyone who can remove or block those annoying "posts" with links to all kind of por.nographic sites?....”
Nobody replied so sickos with usernames like Superman, Clerk Kent and Van Derm continue to post links to porno sites.

http://groups.msn.com/ElCaminoSantiago/messages.msnw

"Good, informative and balanced TV program on the Camino de Santiago."

Was the post with a link to this video. Yippeee!! I love videos on the camino.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3lsFaKsfHQ

The program is hosted by César Vidal, with guests Francisco García, a member of the Asociación de Amigos del Camino de Santiago, and Ana Echevarría, a professor of Medieval History at UNED.

Yeah, well, maybe…. but dude, its all in Español. How many peregrinos on the English forums can understand rapid Spanish? Daahhh!!

And something for peregrin trivial pursuit.

Spanish Classical Guitar and the Nokia standard ringtone ...

The Nokia Tune is probably the most recognizable ringtone in the world. It was also the first musical ringtone for cell phones. But the Nokia Tune wasn’t an original. It’s a short clip lifted from the classical guitar piece Gran Vals. It was written by Francisco Tárrega in the late 19th century. Tárrega is often considered the father of classical guitar playing.
Listen for it at 15 seconds, and again at 2:56.

The Gocamino and Saint James Forums are just ticking over with an occasional post by Professor Rosina Wachtel but not many others.

Santiagobis has been very quiet. This little gem was posted last week - or is it just another Hemingway urban legend??

At the Hostal Burguete you can order Ernest Hemingway Soup and have a look at the piano with 'E. Heminway,' and ‘1923’ carved into it. The novelist stopped here to fish for trout as part of his trip to the Feast of San Fermin in Pamplona in 1924. "The girl brought in a big bowl of hot vegetable soup and the wine,' Hemingway wrote. "We had fried trout afterward and some sort of stew and a big bowl full of wild strawberries."

God bless him!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/via-francigena/

The current discussions have focussed on the numbers of pilgrims who have received the testimoniam certificate in Rome. Seems that 850 have been handed out since 2001 - 235 since January 2007.
So bro, how do you earn one of these certificates? Well, one website says that you have to walk 100kms to Rome to receive it but another says 150 kms. 4COL can’t they make up their minds? That’s another two days walking at least. If I walked 100km and someone told me to go back and walk another50km for a piece of paper I would be really peeved.

Forum Flavor of the Month again this month is pilgrimage-to-santiago forum with a flurry of posts on all matters peregrinations including a couple of long posts on the hormonal high-jinks of a horny jennet called Dalie.

We have learned that when the jennets are amorous they indicate they are in heat by mouthing as though they are chewing, laying back the ears, posturing and urinating frequently. This is love language to the jack, letting him know that the lady is interested.

What has this got to do with pilgrims to Santiago? Well, Dalie's owner walked to Santiago with her femenino burro and had her shipped back to the south of France in her deluxe horse trailer where she lives in a pasture with another donkey. Altogether now................aaaaahh sweet!!

In the past few months some topics have had huge number of views.

9580 Topic: Is it safe for a female to travel alone
9063 Topic: Pack sizes
7969 Topic: Class of 2008
6985 Topic: To iPod or not to iPod (WTF?)
And, over 3500 views for a Raincoat/Poncho post. (Its obviously been a very wet season!)

There was a longish thread about a guy who was running the camino but most were not impressed. “We saw this guy go blasting through town and wondered what the heck he was about! What a nut!” said one poster.

So, I'll leave you this week with a picture of a bubble-gum chewing, pheremone enhanced peregrino of a different sort!

Chimneys, Xenophobia, the Angel of Chivalry and an English conundrum

The GoCamino Forum, generated by the American Pilgrims on the Camino (membership numbers unknown), has been in a deep slumber these past few weeks with nothing much to report on here.

The Saint James forum, going since 1999, has 281 members. Of these, only a dozen or so ever post – usually in reply to a query or comment. This group is based in the Caminho de Santiago de Compostela - O Portal Peregrino . The last few months show total posts of 47 March, 52 April and 10 in May.

Ultreya with 312 members, also in the Christianity category, has low volume posts with 42, 32, and 30 for the past three months: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ultreya/ -

The Way of St James Forum in Jacobeo.net has 182 members with no new messages since ‘The Santiago Enigma’ super-sleuth posted 4 convoluted posts in April - which seem to have stopped all the other posters in their tracks. Perhaps they are still trying to decode the Dan-Brownesque clues in the 4 posts?

(Did you know that there is a Camino Refugio Support Group? No? Neither did anyone else – outside the 8 members who have joined since 2005 but haven’t posted since 2006.)

This week the Caminosantiago-Way of St James Forum has been plagued by SPAM posts with links to Lesbian Sex Videos - Mature Naked females and Gang banging adulteresses. Repugnante!!

Grant Spangler’s forum at http://groups.msn.com/ElCaminoSantiago was quiet for a month or so but is up and running again – mostly with queries on transport. Grant is the supremo-go-guru and knows all there is about planes, trains and automobiles on the caminos.

An interesting question was about symbols on the maps:

“Can sombody have a mind to my what's difference at they symbols for herberg at these maps. Colors at symbols am different , has it a few importance?

(I think the maps have been copied from the Mundicamino website but you can see them here)

http://groups.msn.com/ElCaminoSantiago/CaminoMaps3.msnw

And the reply:
“The only difference is the building WITH the chimney has Pilgrim-specific lodging, the building WITHOUT the chimney may have a hostal, hotel, or nothing, but without Pilgrim-specific lodging. The colors of the buildings are of no particular significance.”

So, if you plan on using these maps for your walk and want a pilgrim bed for the night, remember to look out for the chimneys on the buildings.

Santiagobis (owned by Dutchman Michel) grew out of the ashes of a previous Santiago forum that closed about eight years ago – hence the ‘bis’ in Santiago-bis meaning 'twice or double.
Conundrum: My high school Latin taught me that 'bis' is a prefix, so the 'bis' should come at the beginning of the word not at the end. I wonder what others think about this? (Quite frankly my dears, I don't think anyone gives a damn!)
Boasting 1742 members and based in the Religion category of the Yahoo.Groups it appears to have relaxed its moderator stronghold with – shock and horror!! - discussions on religion being allowed to take their course and now Xenophobia has reared its ugly head. This week some peregrinos slated the inamical French pellerins, others berated the boorish Germans and a few Americanos have been whining about being singled out as polecat, war-mongering George Bush supporters!

This guy posted his opinion :

"The French and Germans are just people and should not be judged as a whole. Groups of both nationalities have made my stays in a few albergues a trial. Both groups hog the kitchen and get the whole barn up at 0530 by talking quite loudly and making an ungodly racket. As individuals and in very small groups they are as anyone else. It just seems they turn up in large groups more frequently."

And was promptly smote down with a hefty smite of the pen (er... keyboard) by one of the moderators in the form of fire and brimstone from the Archangel Michael, who Wiki describes as the Angel of God and the patron saint of chivalry!

"McGurk's remarks, which I have printed below, are insulting, demeaning and a disgrace. McGurk should be ashamed of himself. How patronising to say that individual Germans and French can be house-trained! Especially after saying that they "should not be judged as a whole. I think it's about time that anybody who wants to 'bash the French' or 'kick the German' or 'malign the Pom' should be honest enough to state their own nationality first. Then all the rest of us, who are (or should be) getting rather tired of this whole nonsense, can trot out our diatribe about the writer's nationals, their failings, foibles and irritations. So, I'm an Australian. One of those convict-descended, loud, noisy, beer-swilling, folk with no cultural background. The next time I read a post that begins with: "As an American....." I will rise up and smite the writer with a great and mighty smite.
It should not matter (nor does it make the slightest difference) to the strength of any pilgrim's argument, suggestion or advice as to what nationality they happen to be."

Power-to-the-pilgrims!! Great, tolerant, pilgrim terminology: insulting, demeaning, patronising, disgrace, bash, kick, malign, failings, foibles, irritations, smite.... all in one post!!

The Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela forum – started in October 2004 - seems to have taken up the slack of all the other forums. The forum lists a total posts 22 172 which equates to 6 335 posts per month. Total topics 3 782 and total members 2 723

This week the posts were varied and there was no long thread on any one subject. A new(?) member asked about self-guided tour groups that carry your baggage and make reservations for accommodation and got a big fat slap on the wrist:

My wife and I are hoping to use one of three different self guided tour companies (they carry your bags from town to town and book your rooms). We will be walking from Leon to Santiago in September. Any suggestions? Horror stories? Recommendations? We aren't getting much help from their websites.

A reasonable enough query one might think? Not when it comes to our pellerins.
The first reply was a somewhat snotty comment about ‘these groups’ hogging all the accommodation, from some poor bugger who is obviously still smarting about not being able to get a bed in Mansilla!

To a large extent I believe that it is these groups that are causing so much of the crowding being experienced at this time. When you have a dozen or two of these folks that are pre-booked far ahead into the hotel(s) in a small town it becomes very difficult to find a place. Three days ago I called three places in Sahagun before I found a room. From Sahagun I called everyplace in Mansilla and found nothing so I ended up coming to Leon. (Sniff, sniff..)

A veteran poster responded:

I think its a bit simplistic to assume that one couple who prefer to stay in hotels and have their luggage carried are to blame for the overcrowding. The overcrowding starts in the albergues and spills over into other accommodation along the route. The camino has taken on such a life of its own that I don't think anyone could have foretold how big it would grow.

And another:

Older pilgrims, particularly, often enough have bone or muscle problems which make it impossible to carry a full load on their backpacks-- it is difficult for the outsider to distinguish between these pilgrims and those who are practising a decaff pilgrimage. Mind you, the only time I ever had accommodation trouble was on the National Day weekend, when all of Spain travels and visits.

And from a local...

I agree, (that groups are overcrowding the camino) but only when these groups begin walking three km. before the albergue and are the first pilgrims to take bed. If they sleep in a hostal there's no problem in my opinion.

On the Via Francigena site things are going at a steady canter. They now have 200 members who posted 35 new messages in a week - a sign that more and more camino-peregrinos are searching for less crowded pastures on the other side of the Pyrenees.

The majority of posts were about backpacks and guide books:

Interesting post on the new Lightfoot Guide books by Babette Gallard and Paul Chinn. I googled the books and found that there are 11 used and new from Amazon.co.uk for £22.46 or – hey Tesco!! from Tesco for £22.79 each (both cheaper than from Pilgrimage Publications)

The LightFoot Guide to the via Francigena consists of two books that together cover the entire length of the via Francigena from Canterbury to Rome. The route given is as historically accurate as possible (passing through each of Sigeric's listed towns), but the Via Francigena as we know it today is the cohesion of many routes chosen by pilgrims over the centuries and in this the LightFoot guide is no different. The recommended route is fundamentally true to the general direction - historical and geographical - but where it led the guide writers into undue danger (as with the SS22 in Italy) or unnecessary discomfort (disused tracks requiring a machete) alternatives are offered. The entire distance is divided into manageable sections of approximately 25 km. In most cases this distance amounts to a comfortable walk for the majority of people, though of course it will also depend on the terrain. For the cyclist, 2, 3 or maybe even 4 stages will represent a day's travel and for the horse rider a great deal will depend on fitness and the route itself, but accommodation is listed along the length of the route and it is entirely up to you and your body where you decide to stop.

BIG BUCKS ON THE ROADS TO ROME

ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME
One day this week there were more posts on the Via Francigena Yahoo Group than on Santiagobis - 38 messages in 7 days - that must be a first! Most of the queries were about budgets, hotels and different ways of getting into Rome.
Budgets: An early post was from a member of the Famous Five who said that the average cost of their accommodation was 21.50 euro per night sharing: and that they budgeted 10 euro a night for meals which involved little alleys, tratorias with beaded curtains and Mamas in the kitchen.
Not too shabby, I'm thinking, only about half as expensive as walking el camino and staying in albergues for 8 or 9 euro a night.
But wait - another VF pilgrim posted and hey mon!! I'm learning that these are not all your average pellerinies.
He said, "The average cost of the hotels we stayed in was 71.4 euros per night. The most expensive was 95 euros and the cheapest 50 Euros." Woa!! This is big bucks!
"In relation to the more expensive hotels, if we had the time, weren't exhausted, and other hotels were available we looked for a cheaper alternative. But at other times when we were tired or it was difficult to find a hotel we just checked in regardless of the cost."
Nice! Very nice to be able to disregard the cost - not your run of the mill, backpacking, youth hosteling pilgrem. And what do these poor pilgrims pay for food? Menu del Peregrinos?? Mamas' 10 euro specials? Nah!!
"In relation to the cost of meals its difficult to give you an answer, as it depends on what's available. We sometimes had pizza and wine for under 10 Euros for the two of us; on other occasions we spent up to 85 Euros for a 3/4 course meal + wine in a really nice restaurant." EIGHTY-FIVE EURO FOR A MEAL!!! Nice? Michelin starred, I'm sure!

Q: So what does a walk along ye olde via Francigene cost?
A: Two-and-a-half times that of walking the camino.
"As was posted here a week or two ago whereas the Camino can be budgeted at about 1 euro per km the costs on the Via Francigena currently run at about 2.5 euro per km. This makes your 125 euro for two per day practically on the nail for two people for 900 km in 35 days. As ever this can be undercut or overspent depending on your circumstances and a look at an accommodation list such as the one by the Confraternity of Pilgrims to Rome will be useful to find the places that others have enjoyed and where there is cheap or expensive accommodation. I know people who have spent much more and also others who have spent much less."
Is it fair to say that at this time, the VF is for higher income 'pilgrims' rather than the younger, budget conscious pilgrim that you see on the caminos?
Do the math.
1€ per km on the camino X 900km = 900€ ($1388.97 or £712.843)

2.5€ per km on the VF X 900km = 2 250€ ($3472,44 or £1782,11)

MAY MADNESS and DEATH ON THE CAMINO

OVERCROWDING!! 350 - 400 PEOPLE IN RONCESVALLES!!

These are the most talked about posts on the forums this week.

From http://www.pilgrimage-to-santiago.com/

On April 30th nearly 300 pilgrims crossed the Pyrenees into Roncesvalles. . .so you can imagine what it was like on May 1st. too, they were overwhelmed.

3rd May:
Don't start your walk on a long weekend! Three days ago there was a post on another forum that Roncesvalles was totally overbooked with between 350 and 400 pilgrims. I read this post an a peregrina's blog: This weekend was a holiday weekend for Spain so there were a ton of Spaniards who had taken four days or so to do a chunk of the trail, which is what lots of people do. I continue to be impressed and amazed by the amount of older people and the distances they do each day. Got to an albergue a couple days ago and it was full, which I couldn´t believe, as it was only 3 in the afternoon. Got the last beds in a private one, and others who came later had to sleep on the floor or walk on to the next town.

But it got worse:

My daughter started from Pamplona on Tuesday 29th and by Thursday 1st May everywhere was absolutely packed - they had to work 14 km further than they intended before finding an overflow sports hall with mats on the floor and they have been wrecked ever since . . .

I seem to be in the middle of some kind of bubble of pilgrams and it has been very difficult to find room in the refugios. I had to rent a house in Los Arcos with some other pilgrams and a hotel in Logroño. I know of four people that have left the camino due to the stress of trying to find a bed.

I´m now in Astorga, a long way ahead of where I would have been if Id stuck tó the vague schedule i´d planned. this is partly because i have the flu, had very sore feet but a large part due to not wanting to rush for beds each day. its a bit like an episode of the Amazing Race - if you are not at your destination by about midday-1pm and have you pack in the line outside the albergue you will likely find trouble getting a bed, well at least an inexpensive one, or you may have to walk a lot further.I´ve decided to cut my camino short, laugh about it all and walk only 10-15km a day till i finish on 28 May, that way I can stay in smaller and perhaps less crowded places.

From what I experienced in my starting group, there were many Germans, some French, Italians, English , South Koreans, several Scandanavians,and only a few Americans. There seemed to be a race each morning at 4:30 to see who could get out the door and on the road, to be the first at the refuge at the end of the day. I was a bit surprised and disappointed at some of the rudeness displayed, but in any group ofpeople there will always be a few...

And, on Santiagobis:

Today Tuesday, May 6, a dead pilgrim was found outside Puente La Reina, on the steep slope climbing towards Mañeru. The Navarrese police had cordoned off the area and covered the corpse with a blanket, but itseemed to be a man. I could only see his hiking boots sticking out and his staff nearby. That made me sad. It will be hard to get over that sight for a while. I am reporting from Ciraqui.

News coverage in Diario de Navarra.
French Pilgrim Dies of Heart Attack in Mañeru
Early this morning other pilgrims saw the victim collapse and called SOS Navarra.- The victim was 60 yrs old and lived in the locality of Limoges.A french pilgrim of around 60 years who was walking the Camino de Santiago died this morning as he passed Mañeru due to a possible heart attack as reported by the government. At 8:20 other foreign pilgrims who were walking behind saw how A. G., from Limoges, collapsed as the crossed the rest area near that locality.After calling 112 of Navarra, the first to reach the area were police agents from Estella who were patroling the vicinity. They practiced resuscitation techniques but the pilgrim did not respond. A doctor in Puente de la Reina could only certify his death. His body is currenttly at the Navarra Institute of Legal Medicine where an autopsy will be performed.

REMIND ME NEVER TO WALK A CAMINO IN MARCH OR APRIL

More posts on bad weather in high places: Teenagers trapped in Pyrenees snowstorm rescued after making SOS phone call home.

From: http://www.caminosantiago.com/

Date: April 24, 2008 08:53AM
Two British teenagers on a religious pilgrimage to the Pyrenees were rescued from a dangerous mountain path after making an SOS phone call home to their parents. The pair, both 19, came close to succumbing to hypothermia during a snowstorm on the French-Spanish border, close to a spot where another Englishman died. Edward Broad and a friend who has not been named were forced to huddle shivering in sleeping bags after being caught out by the suddenness of the storm. But they raised the alarm by phoning their parents in Wimbledon, South-West London, from the isolated area on the French-Spanish border. Emergency services from France and Spain fought through the treacherous conditions to find them on Tuesday. The young men had to spend a night in hospital but were released yesterday to continue their bicycling pilgrimage to the northern Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela. The route, known as the Camino, has been travelled by Christians since medieval times. A spokesman for the clinic in St Jean Pied de Port, in France, where they were treated, said: "When they arrived here they were in a very bad way, but both are young and they were treated swiftly and efficiently." The teenagers, who are Christians, were on a three-week trip. Edward's mother Margaret said her son had called her from the mountainside and told her not to worry. "He told me everything was fine but I was obviously extremely concerned," she said. "My son's friend had called his parents who had called the police. I knew the emergency services were doing their best to reach them but I was still really worried, as any mother would be. "There is a certain feeling of helplessness when you're stuck in Wimbledon." The area where the pair got into trouble, at 4,000ft, is close to the spot where City banker Chris Phillips, 50, was caught in a blizzard a year ago. He died later in hospital.

Another forum member posted this reply:

I was in SJPDP on the 23rd of April and the weather was warm and sunny at noon time. The refugio does not open till 3:00 or 4:00 PM but there was a notice on the door in English very clearly advising against taking the Napolean route and instead heading toward Valcarlos due to severly inclement weather in the mountains. No idea whether these two young people saw that notice or not. The real point I want to emphasize is that the weather in town was perfect in every way and it would be so understandable to ignore the notice on the refugio door and head for the Napolean route. All first time pilgrims should seriously seek out local information regarding conditions on the mountain before making independent decisions on their own. Not doing so could turn out to be a fatal mistake.

And this from the trail:

22nd April:
O Cebreiro 151 km to go (altitude 1300m)Another high point on the Camino and it is snowing again - 6 inches of snow along the road. Absolutely stunning! The most beautiful time of the year thru this section - steep valleys, gushing rivers and streams, bright green trees, fruit tress in full blossom! Today's long, hard 32km non-stop uphill in the rain and snow was well worth it!Triacastela 130 km to go (altitude 665m) 12 inches of snow overnight, it is still snowing and I am walking!!

Comment: Remind me never to walk el camino in March or April.