What is the silliest thing you have encountered on Camino?

[David]

Hi all .. was wondering about this, harmless silly incidents.
I met a young Croatian man in the evening at Roncesvalles, back in the year 5. He was obviously very handsome as over the next few days I always saw him at the centre of a group of female pilgrims. He only spoke Croatian but had been given a two-language dictionary before he left home. Unfortunately it was Croatian-Italian so he did have some communication problems.

Anyway - I went down to the bathroom before lights out and there he was, completely naked and just out of the shower and crouched over, trying to dry himself under one of the electric hand dryers. Those hand dryers are in the entrance where male and female peel off left and right.
I went over to the "help yourself" shelves (for those who don't know, there are shelves downstairs where pilgrims dump all the excess stuff they realise, after walking over the Pyrenees, that they really don't need, so it is always full of t-shirts and so on) - I picked up a few t-shirts and gave them to him to dry himself with.

I think he thought that they were for sale or something - I couldn't explain it to him, so I ripped one apart and mimed using it as a towel, handed them over and then left him to his own devices.

A couple of days later he managed to explain, via a pretty Italian pilgrim, that he had lost his towel the day before. He had almost no money, no guide, an old pack, but an absolute heart of gold, really radiated out of him ... I wonder how he got on ...

Actually, thinking about it .. if a few female pilgrims went down there at that time it isn't surprising they followed him afterwards.

So - any silly happenings in your Camino memories???? Tell all !

p.s. Thinking about it, you could probably start your Camino with an empty rucksack and fill up at Roncesvalles!

 

[miguel_gp]

Well there I was, naked in an Albergue in Roncesvalles, innocently drying myself with the hair dryer, when this guy tried to give me his clothes and when I turned them down, he started to rip them up in front of me....you certainly come across some odd people on Camino.

 

[David]

Oh dear, that is SO Brilliant!!!!

 

[RobertS26]

I mentioned this incident on another thread. The day I walked that long 17 km stretch between Carrion and Caldadillla de la Cueza the wind was howling out of the west--right into our faces. Then it began to rain--hard. Other than those three picnic areas, there was no where to get out of the weather. So I put my head down, cinched down my hood, put on my gloves and pressed forward. I rarely looked up because I didn't want to see that I still had a long ways to walk in the wind and rain. As I was plodding along, I literally walked into a female pilgrim who had stopped in my path on the left side of the road. Confused by her lack of movement and the odd look on her face, I asked her if everything was okay. She looked at me, then turned her attention to her mother, who was voiding her bladder 5' feet away on the side of the road, looked back at me and said, "It will be as soon as you leave."

 

[wayfarer]

The only thing that springs to mind is one afternoon as my brother and I were booking into a private albergue, I asked for a twin room, she stood hand on hip and asked "hermanos" , misunderstanding, I quickly replied "no, no, we are brothers". The girl behind me started to laugh then said something to the lady and they both laughed, she then turned to me and said "hermanos means brothers". Felt a bit silly.

 

[mikevasey]

I walked from Astorga to Acebo on one of my stages, I had planned to do it before I set from my albergue in Astorga but I was lucky that I met a Basque guy on the road who wanted to do it as well. We both started to get a move on, it being late november and the weather was quite changeable at the higher areas. Suddenly like an express came this Peregrina catching us and over taking us on the entry to Rabnal, she zoomed past and headed to an Albergue door and sat down waiting for it to open, it was 12.30 pm, I realised that she thought we were racing for beds. I learnt later that she and two friends had started in Leon and thought it was going to be a bed race. Im not laughing too much at her because i did it twice on my last camino on the Norte, only to be the 1st Pilgrim to arrive and hardly anyone else turned up.

 

[Anniesantiago]

A puffed up American redneck punching out another pilgrim in the albergue in Acebo last year - that was pretty silly.
Oh, and the American's daughter, who had been overheard saying she wanted to start a fight with the fellow in the upper bunk -who screamed in the middle of the night, causing all the rucous.

That was especially silly.
So silly I wanted to tie her and her father up with duct tape.
THAT would have been hilarious!

But seriously, the silliest person on the Camino I've ever met was myself on my first Camino.
I was very exhausted going over the mountain from SJPP to Roncesvalles and got especially angry when I saw a busload of pilgrims without packs being left off at the top to scurry down laughing, with lots of energy. Meanwhile, I was crying each step because I was so out of shape. I probably said some pretty awful things in my head about them.

Then, one noticed my tears and offered me a piece of chocolate to get me down the hill.

Her kindness broke through my anger like a ray of sunshine.
I immediately felt ashamed and yes, silly.

The next funniest (or silly) thing I saw was in Azofra.
We walked into the village in the middle of the people setting up for a fiesta.
They were putting their tables and chairs out into the street.
When the food began to be served, a group of 8 pilgrims sat themselves down at a family's personal table. The family tried, in vain, to explain that it was their private table, and for the pilgrims to please move. The pilgrims, not understanding, just nodded and grinned and stayed put. After a bit, the owners of the table threw up their hands and went in search of another table for their family. It was a wonderful night! We ate and drank ourselves into oblivion!

 

[robertt]

There's a relais, a truckie's stop also used by pilgrims, just below Montréal-du-Gers, on the Le Puy route.

At a shared table full mainly of Swiss I applied dessert custard to my salad, thinking it was either very thin mayo or very thick vinaigrette. The Swiss were very politely amused. The French, however...

 

[Larazet]

Well, this isn't so silly, more a coincidence. A girlfriend of mine had rung before I set off from home in SW France to wish me well and said they had a friend (senior) who was cycling from Bordeaux with a friend on the Camino Frances and were leaving at about the same time as me. She was seeing them later in the month and had invited him and his wife to supper. She said wave at them if you see two obviously mature Englishmen on bicycles. Ha, ha.

Well, you wouldn't believe it!!!!

Old man selling oranges by the side of the track after Burgos, Spaniard with bike problem being helped by two mature Englishmen.... What did I say? Ah.... are you from Hampshire? ... Yes, they said. Ah.... So you must be having supper with my friend Frances when you get home later this month!!! AMAZING... (Sorry, capitals..)

 

[mspath]

One stormy night late January 2009 in Trinidad de Arre at the Marist fathers' albergue I was writing in the common room a blog post on happenstance, chance encounter and camino serendipity.

At the very moment that I defined the word 'serendipity' another pilgrim knocked at the door. Happily speaking Italian he was welcomed by two Spanish pilgrims. The Italian entered the common room, turned to say 'buona sera' to me and then enthusiastically shouted 'Margaret'! Imagine my delight upon realizing that he was Mario whom I had last seen during breakfast at Burguete the year before in 2008!! Another fortuitous chance encounter indeed.

We and a French pilgrim, Polo, had met on the little train going to St Jean Pied de Port and together walked up the Valcarlos route to Roncesvalles. As Mario and I nostalgically recollected those 'good old times' we tentatively promised to meet again "next year on the camino". ...Although our paths have never re-crossed, one never knows !

Margaret Meredith

 

[tploomis]

We were hiking out of a little town somewhere between Roncevalles and Zubiri, possibly Burgette?, and there was a short, elderly man, all dressed up, who was kissing all the female pilgrims. He had stationed himself just before a little bridge, so he had everybody lined up and was kissing the women one by one. He refused to kiss me, preferring to focus only on women. We nicknamed him "The Kissing Bandit." How about that for a nice post-retirement job?

 

[Kanga]

The brand-new still with label pair of Calvin Klein jeans abandoned by the track on the Sierra del Perdon....

 

[Kanga]

And, on a video made for the Asturias government the star "pilgrim" walks in the shortest of short denim mini-skirts. Not exactly practical. But more unbelievable, she wears a pack with a hip belt that she leaves undone (so the pack is hanging off her shoulders) and latches her thumbs under the arm straps pulling down and putting even more force on her shoulders. I just can't believe she doesn't immediately drop the pack as soon as the camera stops rolling!

But I still love watching the video because it shows the Norte beautifully.

 

[RobertS26]

He refused to kiss me, preferring to focus only on women. We nicknamed him "The Kissing Bandit." How about that for a nice post-retirement job?

No offense Tom, but I wouldn't want to kiss you either. Give the guy a break.

 

[Anniesantiago]

I ran into the kissing man on my first Camino.
Cute little guy, he.
Probably a perv, but I loved him! lol!

 

[Maggie97520]

I wanted to have a picnic one afternoon, so I went to the store and bought some pan, cheese, and apples. A few hours later, sitting on the side of the path I opened my package of cheese only to find it was a block of butter. Going to Spain without any Spanish is pretty darn silly.

 

[tploomis]

I ran into the kissing man on my first Camino.
Cute little guy, he.
Probably a perv, but I loved him! lol!

So the Kissing Bandit has been waylaying women since 2009! That's an amazing track record of longevity. It must be very rewarding. Here he is in action.