To Walk Far, Carry Less : Camino de Santiago (10 page)

Lightweight Notes

How Much Does That Snack Weigh?

• One medium-size piece of fruit—like an apple, orange, or banana—
  averages
  about 200 grams (7 ounces).
  
• One liter of water weighs about a kilogram (2.2 pounds).
  
• That’s about 1.2 kilograms (2.6 pounds) for a piece of fruit and a bottle of water. Most pilgrims need more than that for a typical hiking day on the Camino.
  

If you carry more food and water than you need, efforts to trim grams for a lightweight backpack will be for naught. Think of Vidal’s maxim about carrying one’s fears when gathering food and water supplies on the Camino. But don’t skimp, either: proper nutrition, hydration, and appropriate calorie consumption are essential for a healthy Camino journey.

Within a day or two on the Camino you’ll begin to feel more confident when planning ahead for both food and water and will have a sense of the right amount to carry and the consequences of carrying too much—or too little.

For dinner you can often find a “pilgrim’s menu” at restaurants, bar-cafés, and even at some pilgrims’ accommodations along the popular Camino routes. This relatively inexpensive meal typically offers three hearty courses plus wine and helps to replenish the calories you’ve burned during a long day’s hike. It also provides one hot and nutritious meal each day.

On the Camino

Kitchen Facilities

There’s no need to take plates, bowls, or cups on the Camino. Where there’s a kitchen facility at a refuge, there’s usually some crockery and cutlery. Most kitchens also have pots and pans, although sometimes a refuge has only a microwave oven—or a hotplate. Occasionally you’ll find basic staples like rice or pasta left by other pilgrims. Spices, salt and pepper, and cooking oil are sometimes found too. Most pilgrims check out the facilities at their accommodations and then go to the local grocers to get what’s needed for their evening meal and for breakfast the next morning.

A picnic lunch while hiking might include foods that are high in calories with relatively limited weight, like snack bars, nuts, olives, bread, a hunk of cheese, an avocado, slices of meat, or hard-boiled eggs. You can also buy small canned foods like tuna salads or squid-in-ink (the latter found in Spain). You can even carry yogurt for lunch or a snack if it’s kept inside, and on top of, your backpack (so it doesn’t get squashed).

A typical lunch on the Vía de la Plata route: olives, water, and a cheese
bocadillo
(Spanish for sandwich).

Most pilgrims prefer to eat a light lunch, then consume snacks throughout the day to keep their energy levels high. Occasionally you’ll get lucky and find yourself in a village or town around lunchtime so you can enjoy a hot meal. Caution: too much beer or wine, along with a large lunch, can make walking the final kilometers of the day extremely difficult!

You can choose between a few options for breakfast on the Camino: make your own breakfast at the pilgrims’ refuge; carry breakfast foods in your backpack (like a piece of fruit, bread, and cheese); or eat breakfast at a bar-café, where you’ll usually get a glass of orange juice along with the usual bread (sometimes toasted), butter, jam, and coffee.

Camino Lingo

Breakfast

Spanish =
desayuno

French =
petit déjeuner

Investigate the breakfast options after arriving in your destination for the day. If a bar-café or restaurant doesn’t open until after you want to leave the next morning, buy breakfast foods at a local bakery or a grocery store that evening. That way you won’t be hanging around for an hour or two in the morning, waiting for breakfast (some places to eat don’t open their doors until after eight—and sometimes even later—in the morning).

Water is surprisingly heavy. Bottled water is usually measured by the metric system, and one liter—a little less than a quart—weighs 1 kilogram (about 2.2 pounds).

Drinking enough water is so important while backpacking that it’s better to err on the side of carrying too much. If it’s clear toward the end of the walking day that you’ve overestimated, pour out some of the excess water on the ground, or over your head if it’s hot, instead of carrying it the last few kilometers. You can then replenish your water supply after arriving at your accommodations for the night. That’s a better scenario than underestimating how much water you’ll need and running out. (While tap water is safe in both France and Spain, it’s best to ask the locals whether the outdoor fountains provide safe drinking water.)

The amount of water to carry depends on the distance walked during a particular day, the weather, your body’s needs, and resources available along the way. Again, a guidebook usually tells where water is available—and where it is not—so you can plan accordingly (we’ll look at options for carrying water—water bottles and backpack hydration systems—in
Chapter 12: Backpack Features to Consider
).

I recently walked in the excessive heat of southern Spain. I started each day with at least two liters of water, but sometimes more when the guidebook indicated that no water was available along that day’s route. When a guidebook warns about a lack of water for a long stretch of the Camino, it’s a good idea to carry more than what you usually require for the same distance. Once you’re familiar with the average amount of water you drink each day for a particular distance, you’ll know how much extra water to take when your guidebook tells you that water is scarce.

Remember that cold-weather walking also requires a healthy supply of water. You’ll still perspire in the cold, and your eyes will water and your nose will run. Moisture released from the body needs to be replaced.

Designate a plastic bag or a stuff sack, ideally with a drawstring, to carry all food-related items. Then when preparing a picnic lunch, for example, you can pull out the bag and have everything you need. Keep the food bag in the top of your backpack for easy access.

I use an old sleeping bag’s stuff sack for a food bag. The sack has a drawstring and is laminated on the inside. That prevents liquids and gooey or sticky foods from infiltrating the contents of my backpack.

Here are some other things that should be carried in the food bag besides food.

Small Spoon

Although it’s not essential, a small spoon is useful. The size that comes with a cup of tea or coffee in a restaurant works well enough for things like eating yogurt or canned tuna salad or for scooping out an avocado.

Pocketknife

Although a one-blade pocketknife is sufficient, a second blade can be useful if it’s also designed to be a can opener. But toothpicks, screwdrivers, and various blade sizes add too much weight. You’ll use the knife primarily for slicing picnic foods like cheese, tomatoes, or fruit.

If you’re flying into Europe and won’t be checking any luggage, remember that security restrictions will prevent you from bringing a knife on the plane. You can easily buy an inexpensive knife in France or Spain.

Camino Lingo

Pocketknife

Spanish =
navaja

French =
couteau

Bandana

This is the most versatile item you can carry in your food bag. It can be used as a picnic tablecloth, a napkin, and a washcloth. After dowsing it with water, it can be used to clean a knife blade or spoon.

If my weight budget allows, I’ll take two bandanas: one for the food bag, and one I can use as a washrag or to cover my face when it’s cold.

A guidebook usually warns you about areas with a lack of opportunities to get food and water—but not always. I’ve already mentioned the long Easter weekend and other holidays that can play a factor. In addition, sometimes things change between the time a guidebook is written and the time you’re walking the Camino. Restaurants, shops, or bar-cafés can suddenly close forever.

When there’s no place to get food, it’s necessary to improvise. For that reason, I recommend carrying emergency food in your backpack—just enough to get you through the night and into the next day.

I carry a minimal amount: a couple of tea bags, a snack bar, a packet of instant soup, and sometimes a chocolate bar or a small bag of nuts. I can usually supplement this meager fare with leftovers from lunch or snacks, like bread, cheese, almonds, olives, or dried fruit.

I’ve only tapped into my emergency rations a couple of times, but they saved the day. One can get mighty hungry on the Camino, especially after walking several hours in the cold, wind, and rain.

Emergency food bought ahead of time—just in case there wasn’t an option to eat dinner on a Sunday night in a small town (there wasn’t)

* * *

Pilgrims have no choice but to carry food and water, regardless of how much weight they add. But some other types of items truly are optional, such as technology devices.

Technology devices are not essential for a Camino journey. Throughout the ages, people have walked to Santiago without a mobile phone, camera, computer, GPS, digital language translator, or any other device. And many pilgrims do the same today.

On my first two Camino journeys, I carried no technology devices—not even a camera or a mobile phone. That was freedom: nothing to fuss with, nothing to charge, no reason to worry about theft when separated from my backpack. Who would want my clothes and toiletries? (Take my dirty socks, please.)

On my third Camino journey, I bought the least expensive mobile phone I could find in France. It was useful, so I took it on subsequent journeys, even though the battery charger was a weight hog in my backpack.

By my fourth Camino journey pocket-size digital cameras (no film!) had come on the market, so I started taking a camera when walking the Camino. Technological advances were beginning to seduce me...

So perhaps it was inevitable that I’d fall in love with the first generation of the iPhone. This device is much more than a mobile phone; it’s also an address book, flashlight, calculator, alarm clock, calendar, language dictionary, and a camera (iPhones now have video cameras too, although I still use a pocket-size camera because it has more settings and better storage for photographs and video). The iPhone holds a dozen books and various documents. It surfs the web and sends and receives email. All in one compact device. Even the battery charger is so slight that I don’t worry about its weight inside my backpack.

Of course the iPhone isn’t the only smartphone available. Phones that use the Android software and Blackberry smartphones offer similar features and functions.

To decide which approach is right for you, ask yourself: Will tech devices enhance my journey and/or save weight? Or will they become a burden?

After all, if millions of people over the past thousand years have walked the Camino without this stuff, so can we.

The following sections provide only general information about the tech devices most commonly used on the Camino. We’ll also look at a few devices that novice pilgrims might be tempted to take. For those who’ve never been on the Camino, it’s understandably difficult to know what to expect on the journey.

The purpose of this information is to help you decide what to take—or what not to take. But because choices are numerous, and technology is changing rapidly, I won’t recommend any particular devices.

For the latest information, go to the Camino forums (
www.caminodesantiago.me
and
www.caminodesantiago.me.uk
) to ask questions and read what others are saying about technology on the Camino.

Digital cameras are perfect for backpackers: no film canisters, lightweight battery chargers, and the ability to store thousands of pictures on tiny memory cards. You can quickly grab a small camera from a pocket to catch moving critters before they vanish.