If the first week of the Camino felt like a dream, my night in Leon brought it crashing back down to earth pretty quickly.
I booked a bunk at a pilgrim hostel near the center of town and was greeted by the cheerful hostel owner who immediately shifted her attention to my feeble attempts to climb the stairs just beyond the front door. She checked me in and offered to take me to a doctor to have my knee evaluated. I demurred, and said I planned to take the night to rest and see how I felt in the morning before walking on from Leon. It was a comfortable space with separate bunk rooms, clean bathrooms, a laundry room, kitchenette, and a garden with a clothesline for that highly anticipated evening pilgrim ritual known as "wash all your stuff, or you’ll reek tomorrow."
Now, one of the most talked about and terrifying subjects that comes up on pilgrim message boards is the topic of bed bugs – specifically, how to avoid them (you can’t) and what to do when you encounter them (keep reading). I felt pretty good about my progress to date, having avoided blisters and bed bugs, despite having rusty hinges and being in a good deal of pain.
There is all manner of opinions about how to properly defend yourself from these bloodsuckers, from spraying your pack and sleeping bag with permethrin (a likely human carcinogen, but a topic for another day), to performing detailed inspections of mattress seams, mattress covers, avoiding wooden bunks, soaking your clothes in repellent, wearing DEET to sleep, and all sorts of other unsavory things. In many ways, obsessing about it is a distraction from the other enjoyable aspects of walking to Santiago. Some take no precautions and never encounter them, while others radiate repellent and still manage to tangle with the dreaded bugs eventually. It’s the luck of the draw. I think Paris Hilton was bitten once in a 5-star New York City hotel. Go figure.
I shared a bunk next to an Italian chap who spoke nominal English but had clearly done some of the same reading I did in preparation for the Camino. He had everything laid out neatly on his bunk, contemplating the proper order of events in order to minimize re-packing in the morning (the correct order, incidentally, is shower, wash clothes, hang to dry, eat, re-pack shower items, send your notes and photos, lights out, wake up, grab your laundry, and head out quietly if you’re getting up early). When he was done laying out his items, he pulled out a flashlight and began one of the most comprehensive insect investigations ever logged on the Camino. Bunk to bunk, occupied or not, he came around and unzipped mattress covers, pulled open pillowcases, lifted the mattresses of the racks, and nodded approvingly as he moved about the room. 45 minutes later, he was finished, but would occasionally re-check his own bunk in an abundance of caution. I gave my own bunk similar scrutiny but I looked less like Inspector Gadget while doing so. Lights out, and on to the next day’s walk.
Or so we thought.
My Italian friend awoke at 2am, flashlight in hand, and began scurrying about the room. He’d spotted a bug. Unsure of whether it was actually a bed bug, he called me over and turned on the light to the room. There, on the wooden footboard of his bed was the dreaded traveling vampire. We talked over next steps through hurried hand signals and decided that we’d be wise to evacuate the premises. I packed my things carefully, ever conscious of any unwanted travelers, and we decided to head a few blocks over to another pilgrim hostel with a live-in hospitalero (Camino hostels are usually not staffed overnight, with the exception of larger facilities in popular stopover towns).
We rang the bell and waited, and we were greeted by a weary attendant who heard our plight. “Chinches? Que mierda. Esperen aqui.” Bed bugs? [Expletive]. Wait here. We waited 2 or 3 minutes, and he granted us 2 of the remaining beds in his facility. He would not, however, let us through the door, until we had fully decontaminated our equipment, to make sure we weren’t inadvertently spreading the problem. We sat on the steps with him and another attendant, and we took everything out of our bags. We put everything that could be washed and dried (including our rucksacks and shoes) into two large black garbage bags.
We thought we were done, but the hospitalero expected us to put EVERYTHING into the large garbage bags, including the presumably infested clothes we were wearing. Several blank stares were exchanged before he lost patience (3:30 am now) and asked us to hurry it up. So there, on a doorstep in Leon half a world away, my Italian friend and I stripped down to our birthday suits and handed over our last remaining shreds of dignity. I should really know his name. We didn’t exchange contact information…
Luckily, a comprehensive scrub revealed no signs of the bloodsucker, and we had dry clothes in about 45 minutes (minimal wash needed, it’s the heat that kills the darn things). I opted to re-assemble my pack in the morning, and thus ended my first night in the glorious city of Leon.
I guess the moral of the story is, achieving your goals ain’t always pretty (it sure wasn’t that night), and hardship is sometimes part of the road we have to travel. It’s how we handle the hardship that defines who we are, and whether or not we will reach them in the end.
The Book of Common Prayer is a pretty handy tool for finding a daily collect about just about anything. Alas, there is no prayer for defense from bedbugs. In fact, the prayer book doesn’t mention them at all! I’ll prep a letter to Bishop Curry when I return.
A children’s poem feels right, instead:
Be glad your nose is on your face,
not pasted on some other place,
for if it were where it is not,
you might dislike your nose a lot.
Imagine if your precious nose
were sandwiched in between your toes,
that clearly would not be a treat,
for you’d be forced to smell your feet.
Your nose would be a source of dread
were it attached atop your head,
it soon would drive you to despair,
forever tickled by your hair.
Within your ear, your nose would be
an absolute catastrophe,
for when you were obliged to sneeze,
your brain would rattle from the breeze.
Your nose, instead, through thick and thin,
remains between your eyes and chin,
not pasted on some other place—
be glad your nose is on your face!
- Jack Prelutsky
I’m glad my feet are in Leon and not some other place, chinches and all.
Will
Postscript: Mercifully, there are no photos of the evening's events. I'll have more tomorrow when we head to Ponferrada to visit the Knights Templar.