Sleeping Arrangements

One of the big lessons on this trip is that the old adage about judging a book by it´s cover also holds true for albergues. There are basically three types of albergues - municipal, private and church sponsored. The municipal albergues tend to be very well equipped and efficient. They almost always have internet, sheets on the mattresses, and sometimes even have a washer and dryer. And they´re cheap (about 5 euro or $7). But they put as many people in a room as they can cram in, which usually means that you´re sleeping with 20-30 people. As you crawl into bed (generally lights out at 10:00), you lay in the dark praying that there are no major snorers in the group. I actually read a British pìece on Snore Rage (the uncontrollable urge to put a pillow over a fellow travelers face to cure his or her snoring issues) in a church-sponsored bulletin! The private albergues are owned by a family. They charge a few euros more, but you get more creature comforts - less people to room, colored paint on the walls and an occassional pillow. Then there are the church-sponsored albergues. While the others look after your comfort, the church looks after your soul. No internet, less modern showers. They don´t charge anything (just ask for donations) and include both breakfast and dinner in the deal. But you have to participate in the cleaning of the albergue and the preparation of the meals. Any takers on which type we like best? Well, I´ll answer that by telling a little story.
We stayed in a very small town in Navarette that had two albergues - one private, one church. We came to the church one first so it´s the one we went to. (Side note: after walking for 6-7 hours with a 22 pound pack on your back, you have no idea how grateful you are when you go to an albergue and ask about space and they tell you that the have room for you. The other option is to keep walking until you come to the next albergue, which could be another five six miles down the road). When we were shown the sleeping accomodations, I was literally shocked. It was a room with a platform built onto three of the walls. Mattresses had been placed side by side on the platform so that you were in really close proximity to your neighbors on both sides. No personal space in this albergue. The matresses looked like they had seen better days. Last year, there had been a bed bug breakout on the Camino and I immediately knew where it had started. This place looked like a flop house. But, as I said, you´re always grateful that there a space at all for you, so I chose a mattress in the corner next to the wall and hoped for the best. After our showers and clothes wash, we went outside and discovered that there was a winery a couple of hundred yards from our albergue. A couple of us went down to see if we could get a tour - we couldn´t but they sold us a couple of bottles of wine which we brought back to the albergue. Everyone staying there was sitting at the tables in front of the albergue just reading or writing in their journals and soaking up the late afternoon sun. We broke open the bottles and soon had a little cocktail party going. Our hosts were a brother and sister from Montreal who volunteered to run the albergue for three weeks. They were unbelievably hospitable and had made friends with some of their elderly neighbors. The neighbors came out and joined us, so we had the marvelous mix of people from all over the world, people who were traveling and people who were staying, the very young and the very old. After that we all ate our evening meal. The next morning, the Canadian couple put out not only the manditory bread and jam for breakfast, but blackberrys and figs that they had picked the previous day. We left the albergue with such a warm feeling. From then on, we´ve stayed at the church albergues whenever possible.
By far, our most special evening was in a very small town called Granon. Another church albergue, this one with no mattress - just a pad on the floor. It was located in the church building. We hung our wet laundry in the bell tower to dry! After dinner, they walked us through a dark corridor into the church. Although Granon is small, it has a very fine church that is in good repair. The altar is typical Spanish - very ornate and very gold. I believe it was 15 or 16 century - massive stone blocks repleat with beautiful arches. Our corridor led us to the top of the church to the choir chairs. There were no lights on in the church - just votive candles on each arm of the carved wood choir chairs. We took our places in the chairs and they started a little service consisting of a Travellers Prayer, which was read by each group represented in their own language - Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, English, Danish and German. An older Danish couple sang a couple of hymns (in beautiful harmony) and then this French girl got up and announced that she´d like to sing for us. Instead of singing towards us, she turned towards the altar and sang to the front of the church. She had an outstanding voice and the church was filled with some of the most beautiful music I¨ve ever heard. Her voice just resonated off the stone walls. When she was done, most people in the church were crying - it was just one of those wonderful moments!
Just one last albergue story - when we were in Vianna (wonderful larger village with beautifully maintained historic buildings) we stayed at a municipal albergue. The modicum of efficiency, it had bunk beds stacked three high with very clean sheets, multiple showers and two internet terminals! There were probably 80 people in the albergue in total spread over five rooms. After lights out, one poor woman got the giggles. She simply could not stop laughing. The more she went on, the more obvious it became that she had had one too many glasses of wine at dinner. After about 30 minutes of this, others in the albergue started to get angry. We´re all pretty tired at the end of the day and you have to get up at 6:00 so sleep is very important. One man finally got up and asked her to stop. He tried to reason with her but that´s very difficult to do with someone who´s overdone the wine. Next, a woman got up and pleaded with her to be quiet as we all will have a long day tomorrow. That too was to no avail. The first man then went back in her room and basically threatened her. That led to a brief exchange where it was deteremined that it wasn´t the individual character that was causing the disruption but an issue with everyone of her nationality. Then all hell broke out. Strings of curse words that made me blush (impressively, the whole argument occurred in English), the woman´s husband trying to broker peace - it just went on and on. It ended with the woman (Sheila) being escorted out of the albergue by her husband who was yelling at her the whole way. So now when Mark asks me where I want to stay, my answer is always the same: I don´t care as long as Sheila isn´t there!