A conversation with Nancy Reynolds

A conversation with Nancy Reynolds

by | Mar 10, 2023 | interview

Nancy Reynolds is a very experienced pilgrim.

She walked her first Camino in 2005, when she was dealing with many important changes in her life (divorce, quitting her job, turning 40). She came back for a second Camino in 2007. Since then, she has walked twice a year, most years. Mainly the Camino Francés, her love, as she describes it.

Nancy hosts the You on the Camino de Santiago podcast and guides groups on the Camino Francés.

The podcast is unique in that its focus is those pilgrims who are preparing for their first Camino and are full of doubts and questions. In each episode, Nancy shares her expertise on all things Camino and she also talks to people who haven’t walked yet and get to ask her about any aspects of the pilgrimage that worries them.

In our conversation for the Spanish for the Camino podcast, Nancy shared 3 tips with us:

  • Don’t be in a hurry. Take it easy, especially on your first days; you can only walk your first Camino once.
  • Spend some time thinking why? Why do you want to walk the Camino? What are your motivations?
  • Always look back! Enjoy the view, breathe… and check you’re not leaving anything behind after you stop for a break.

Nancy has been able to use the Spanish she learned in school on her many Caminos. Her ability to speak Spanish has allowed her to connect with the local people, to be a part of their daily life.

Regarding this, she has another piece of advice. Something, actually, I keep saying to anyone who wants to listen: start your conversations with a greeting. Whether you’re looking for a bed in an albergue, buying something from a pharmacy or a supermaket, remember to greet people. This is much more important, if you want to be polite and respectful, than saying gracias and por favor many times.

Nancy also shares her secret, which works both for when she’s speaking Spanish and when she’s speaking English to a non-native speaker: keep it simple. Simple grammar, simple vocabulary. Makes communication much easier for both parts.

You can listen to the whole conversation, in Spanish, here: 

 

 

Don’t forget to check Nancy’s podcast, You on the Camino de Santiago.

And you can also find out more about her guiding services at The Camino Experience.

 

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¡Buen Camino!

Fish, birds and the Camino

Fish, birds and the Camino

by | Feb 22, 2023 | Culture and traditions

New podcast! I was not meant to publish a new episode this week, but there’s something going on today in many Spanish towns that I thought was worth explaining. It has to do with the Carnival, or with the end of it, to be precise. In most cases it involves fish. We do things a bit differently here in Pontevedra. So no fish for us, but a bird instead.

 

I’m talking about el entierro de la sardina (the burial of the sardine), a celebration that typically takes places on Ash Wednesday and marks the end of the Carnival celebrations. The origin of the burial of the sardine ceremony is not clear; there are several theories. But we know for sure that it was already a very popular celebration is the 18th century.

El entierro de la sardina usually involves a parade that is kind of a mock funeral procession. Instead of colourful costumes, people wear black and the parade ends with the burning of a figure, usually a sardine.

 

As I mentioned before, we don’t bury sardines in Pontevedra and we don’t celebrate the end of the Carnival on Ash Wednesday either. We stretch the festivities a little longer.

If you’ve walked the Camino Portugués, you may have seen the statue of a parrot. It’s very close to the Peregrina church. That parrot is called Ravachol, and that’s who we bury at the end of the Carnival.

 

The pharmacy

There used to be a pharmacy where the statue is now. The pharmacy was a meeting point for politicians, artists and scientists, among others. In 1891, Perfecto Feijoo, the pharmacist, was given a parrot, that turned out to be quite mischievous.

Ravachol used to be either in the pharmacy or outside, next to it, where he could watch people pass by. He soon became a very popular character in the city. His voculabulary was not the most polite, and he was said to be quite smart. He would call his owner if a customer entered the pharmacy or insult those who didn’t give him a sweet. And he would sing during mass times at the Peregrina church across the street…

Ravachol died in 1913, after eating too much cake soaked in wine, apparently! The people of Pontevedra were devastated, and telegrams of condolences were sent from all over Spain. They organised a wake and a funeral por Ravachol. The invitation to the funeral encouraged people to wear costumes. It was a huge event, with music bands, floats and a large crowd. In 1985, a group of people decided to re-enact Ravachol’s funeral during the Carnival. It was a great success and in a couple of years it become one of the most popular events of the Carnival in Pontevedra.

Ravachol 2022
Ravachol 2023
See inside book of Camino Portugues legends
If you want to read about this and other traditions, check my book Historias tras cada paso. Leyendas y curiosidades del Camino Portugués.
All the stories are about places along the Camino Portugués; many of them are directly related to the Camino or St. James.
The book is in Spanish, for intermediate learners, and includes a vocabulary guide with English translation.

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¡Buen Camino!

What is the Camino de Santiago

What is the Camino de Santiago

by | Feb 3, 2023 | Camino de Santiago

After 100 blog posts, I thought it was time to try other things.  I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a podcast for months. And now, finally, the Spanish for the Camino podcast is here.

Unlike the blog, podcast episodes will be in Spanish.

The idea with the blog was to help those with no Spanish at all to learn at least some basics.

But I know that some of you have those basics covered and are looking for something more advanced. And that’s where the podcast comes in. Short episodes, on not too difficult Spanish and all about the Camino.

I recorded a very short episode in English explaining what you can expect from the podcast. And… you can also listen to the first ‘proper’ episode. In Spanish.

Episode 1

To give you some context before you listen: the title of Episode 1 is ‘Qué es el Camino de Santiago’ or, in English, ‘What is the Camino de Santiago’.

In this episode you’ll hear an overview of what the Camino is and how it started. You will also hear what the main routes are within Spain and some of the most common motivations to walk.

Without getting into too many details, because the episode is just over 6 minutes long.

 

The plan

The plan is not to turn the podcast into some sort of Camino encyclopaedia with lots of data (there already are some fantastic websites out there with plenty of information). The plan is to give you an opportunity to improve your Spanish while listening about one of your favourite topics: the Camino.

If you know me, you’ve probably heard me talk about the importance of consistency when learning a language. If you’re going to do 1 hour of Spanish a week, it’s much better to split it into shorter periods and do around 10 minutes a day, rather than doing the whole hour the same day.

And that’s one of the reasons why I plan to keep the podcast episodes short. They could be your 10 minutes of Spanish a day.

OK. Enough explaining.

 

The podcast

 

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¡Buen Camino!

Walking & talking on the Camino

Walking & talking on the Camino

by | Dec 30, 2022 | Camino de Santiago, Camino Portugués, Camino Spanish

I did it again. I walked the Camino with another group of strangers. Sort of.

 

Let me explain.

In 2019 I walked the Camino Inglés with another Spanish teacher and a group of total strangers who wanted to improve their Spanish. The truth is, I hadn’t even met the other teacher in person until we both arrived in Ferrol the day before we started walking. Despite all my fears (and I had many), the experience was so amazing that we were planning to do it again in 2020. But we all know how 2020 went…

Fast forward to 2022. The idea was to give the plan another try. A different route, though. But, again, things didn’t go according to plan. This time it was the other teacher, who had to pull out of the project, quite unexpectedly, for personal reasons.

That left me wondering, should I go ahead by myself? Or should I just forget about the whole thing? So many changes of fechas (dates), cancellations, and other setbacks… maybe it was not meant to happen again after that first wonderful experience.

After much thinking and some ‘consulting with la almohada’* I decided to do it.

Since our original dates were too close, I moved forward to September. I also made the decision to take a smaller group (4 or 5 max.).

As you can imagine, the group changed a lot since we originally planned this Camino in 2020. And even from the time I decided to go ahead with it and the time we actually started the walk.

The walk

We ended up with a very balanced group: 2 hombres (men) and 2 mujeres (women); 2 with previous Camino experience and 2 who were walking their first Camino; 2 I knew, and 2 I had only met once briefly when they were inquiring about this experience. That would require some adjusting and getting used to each other’s quirks, I thought. But we got on quite well and I soon felt like we had all known each other for a while.

We all met in Tui, our starting point, on Sunday September 25. We started walking the Camino Portugués the next day. The plan was to walk for 6 days, and arrive in Santiago on Saturday, October 1.

It was still quite busy on the Camino at the end of September. We kept seeing other pilgrims along the way. 

Our destination for the first day was Porriño. We didn’t know this, but there was a local festival there, with everything that entails: lots of people, busy bars and restaurants, loud music, etc. It was hard to rest after lunch, due to all the noise. And we were worried we would not be able to sleep at night. But we were lucky and they didn’t finish too late. Phew!

The weather

The weather forecast for the week wasn’t bad. The first 2 days, the weather was perfect for walking: dry and not too hot.  The forecast for the third day was confusing. Depending on where we looked, we could make it to Pontevedra without rain… or not. 

We made it to Arcade in dry weather. But when we left the café where we had stopped for a break, it was raining. The rain was light at first, but it soon became heavier. I had good memories of the section between Arcade and Pontevedra from the previous time I had walked it. But I can’t say I enjoyed it this time. The rain was relentless; I was roasting under the poncho; the group got split and I ended up in the middle, losing track of the ones ahead of me and not seeing the ones behind me either. Kind of stressful. We eventually got reunited, and at some point I decided to take off my hood. It was either getting my head wet or passing out from the heat. Getting wet sounded like the best choice.

It stopped raining a couple of miles before Pontevedra. It rained heavily that night and we feared we would have another very wet and miserable day, but it didn’t rain that much while we were walking between Pontevedra and Caldas de Reis. No more rain after that. We got loads of fog between Caldas and Padrón and the last day was just perfect!

Into data?

As I mentioned above, we all had different backgrounds and interests. So, while I’m not too interested in data, we had someone in the group who gave us a daily report. That’s how I know we walked for 29h 44min in total. We covered a distancia (distance) of 121km, at an average speed of 4.07km/h. The day we walked in heavy rain was our slowest. The day we walked in the fog was our fastest.

The day we arrived in Santiago, 2897 Compostelas were issued.

The talk

Almost 30 hours spent walking, plus breaks, mealtimes, etc. That’s a lot of speaking time.

The good news is that we never lacked topics for conversation.

Some conversations were serious; some, funny (or even ridiculous! 😂). Some were happy; some, sad. Some were very informative; some, full of useless facts (thank you, Andy, for the ‘useless fact of the day’).

We talked about life, death and everything in between. We told jokes and scary stories. We discussed books and films, history, family, food, sports… even politics and religion! All in Spanish. All flowing naturally. It wasn’t perfect. In fact, we may have coined one or two new Spanish words… But that was not the point. Or the goal.

The point was to communicate, to learn new things, to make connections. And we certainly did that. We even had a couple of Camino moments!

And the connecting part did not just happen among ourselves.

Finding a place that was open for desayuno (breakfast) in Porriño was complicated. According to Google, there were many to choose from. The reality was that only one of them was actually open.

And that’s where we had our first encounter with a very lively group of Spanish ladies. They were sitting at this café, all wearing the same jackets and being quite loud, we thought, at that early time. The camarero (waiter) was reciting a poem to one of them, the others were recording with their phones and making jokes. In short, they were having a blast.

We met them again, later that day. Some of our group got to talk to them a lot (all in Spanish), learn about their story and bond -something they couldn’t have done if they didn’t speak Spanish.

We learned that these ladies were from Valencia and belonged to the Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer (Spanish Association Against Cancer). They took part in many activities together, like singing in a choir… and they did sing a lot while walking. It was their way of keeping the spirits up of those who were struggling with serious health issues. They were a lovely group, always happy and positive, and it was a joy to meet them day after day, including the day we walked into Santiago. 

There are so many anecdotes and we shared so many moments (good and not so good) that I could keep writing and writing. But I don’t want to bore you. I may write another post about the experience. Or not. Can’t promise anything.

Anyway, the video below will give you an idea of some of the special moments we shared.

Today’s Spanish words

*Consultar con la almohada is the Spanish version of the English expression ‘to sleep on something’.

 

Consultar con la almohada

Hombre

Mujer

Distancia

Desayuno

Camarero

For more details about each of the stages and the towns we visited, check my previous posts. I had walked this route before, at different times, with different people, and I wrote a post about each of the stages. You can start here.

Interested in the next Walk & Talk experience. To get an idea of what to expect and join the waiting list, read more here. 

 

¡Buen Camino!

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Finding food on the Camino

Finding food on the Camino

by | Nov 4, 2022 | Camino de Santiago

How often did you have trouble finding food on the Camino?

This is a complaint that comes up on a regular basis in Camino groups. It usually has to do with one of these 2 scenarios:

  • Pilgrims are trying to get cena (dinner), but restaurants are closed and no one is serving hot food.
  • Pilgrims want to buy supplies on a domingo (Sunday) or festivo (public holiday).

To avoid either of these situations, you must understand how things work in Spain.

 

So, what do you need to know to avoid not finding food on the Camino?

Let’s start with the second situation: domingos y festivos.

Most businesses are closed on those days.

Bars and restaurants are usually open. So, eating out on a Sunday or holiday should not be a problem. At least, not at lunch time. Dinner could be tricky.

Panaderías (bakeries)  will open in the morning. But supermarkets and other shops in general will be closed. So, you could get fresh bread and pastries in the morning. But, if you’re hoping to buy something else… well, ¡buena suerte! (good luck).

In smaller towns you may find that shops close on sábado (Saturday) evening too.

Something else to keep in mind: buses and trains are less frequent on Sundays and holidays, but that’s not our topic for today, so let’s focus on food.

 

Finding food when it’s not a Sunday or holiday

Now we know what happens on Sundays and holidays. But what happens the rest of the week? Why do some people struggle to find food? And no, the answer is not siesta, in case that’s what you’re thinking.

 

The first thing you need to understand is that there are specific times for each meal in Spain. Finding a place that serves hot food outside of those times is a rare occurrence. You can find snacks, but not a proper cooked meal. 

For more info on what you can find and where, check ¿Dónde vas a comer?

Breakfast is the least important of all our meals and, as such, it’s more flexible. Most Spaniards will have a cup of coffee and a tostada (toast) or a couple of galletas (biscuits or cookies, depending on where you’re from) before heading off to work. A second breakfast, pretty much like the one pilgrims have, is common.

Lunch is the main meal of the day in Spain. And lunch happens typically between 1.30-4.00pm. After 3.30 (or 3.45 at the latest), the kitchens in the restaurants close and they don’t reopen until dinner time.

 

When is dinner time?

Late, for other countries’ standards. Having dinner at 9.00, 10.00pm or even later is perfectly normal. But not such a good plan if you’re starving because you’ve only had a few snacks throughout the day. Or if you need to be back at the albergue before 10.00pm. 

Finding food

Restaurant kitchens usually reopen at 8.30pm for the dinner service. 

In this restaurant they have their kitchen times posted outside. You can see that their kitchen opens 30 minutes earlier, for both lunch and dinner, than what I said above. 

Not every single restaurant opens and closes at the same time, obviously. But finding a place that starts serving dinner before 8.00pm and lunch before 1.00pm is the exception rather than the norm.

 

What can you do?

Your best bet is to try the Spanish way: have lunch as soon as you get to your destination for the day, as long as you finish walking before 3.00pm. You can shower and rest after you’ve eaten. And then you can have something light for dinner, like a drink and a tapa or two.

Doing it like this will also give you more options, since the menú del día is usually available for lunch but not for dinner.

 

If having your main meal earlier in the day does not appeal to you, you have 2 options: starve until dinner time or find a shop selling food and buy something to help you make it until dinner time. 

 

Today’s Spanish words

For the pronunciation of siesta (and for an explanation of why siesta is usually not the answer), check 5 things you need to know about Spain.

For the pronunciation and more info on what menú del día is and how it works, check Menú del día.

For the pronunciation of tapa, check ¿Dónde vas a comer?

 

Cena

Domingo

Sábado

Festivo

Panadería

Buena suerte

Tostada

Galleta

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¡Buen Camino!