They had come over 2400 km from their home in Belgium, to fulfil a dream she’d had in which she saw herself travelling to Santiago de Compostela with a donkey. She told me her husband had laughed at her and her mad idea, but in time realized that he’d have no peace till she had done her pilgrimage. Unable to separate the baby burro from its mother and father, they ended up travelling with three donkeys.

Waving them on, I rested in the shade, peacefully gazing around at fields of wheat and oats with red poppies and camomile peeking out. My knee was stiffening up so I pressed on, the foliage becoming lavender and yellow gorse, some blue lupins and pure white daisies. By mid-afternoon I was dizzy and tottering as a Frenchman strode past me in utter silence, dressed as one of the apostles in a sort of caftan and staff—but with sensible heavy walking boots, not sandals.

I reached the temple fortress in Fonterrada but found it was closed for renovations, so I had to sit watching the cranes at work. After a night listening to the most amazing snoring I ever heard in my life I set off early, and at the first bridge I caught the couple with their three donkeys. The baby was noisily refusing to cross the bridge. He wouldn’t budge; his legs locked solid even when roped to his dad towing and the husband pushing.

“He’s been like this from the start,” she told me, as her husband struggled down the bank with the strong little beast. “Won’t cross bridges; we have to wade through with him. It takes forever.” With the father and mother braying encouragingly from the far bank the little guy let the husband drag him into the shallows and across. Climbing the bank was not easy, and clearly the mud-caked husband had had enough.

“One more bridge,” he threatened. “One more bridge.”

But there were three more bridges, and they arrived at the inn long after dark.

Next morning the baby was gone and the woman’s face streaked with tears.

“Chorizo,” was all she would tell me. Not knowing the word I asked around and learned that the husband had offered the little burro to the innkeeper as raw material for the long dark sausage with a rope hanging out of the end, favoured by us pilgrims. Usually of coarsely chopped fatty pork seasoned with mild Spanish paprika, it can be made with meat other than pork, the innkeeper was happy to tell me. In Spanish slang chorizo can mean something very rude, something that it resembles. It can also mean “thief.” “But I am an honest man,” he insisted, offering me a fine breakfast of huevos con chorizo. “All pork, and your choice of either picante (hot) or dulce (sweet).”

I skipped breakfast, put bread and water in my backpack and went outside into the heat. That was the day I saw a pilgrim die on the street. He’d had a heart attack and they were using CPR and electric shock paddles, trying to revive him, but to no avail. The policeman told me five or six pilgrims die each year in that stretch. God knows what the total is for the entire route...there are home-made monuments all along the trail marking the last steps of various modern-day pilgrims. I guess it was a good day to die, as the native Americans say. Still, it rattled me. Would I survive this heat?

Then two days later—the mountains! I had magnificent views for miles around but ice cold winds, so I had to rug up in all the clothes I could possibly wear at once. My back pack felt pretty light that day and I didn’t raise a sweat at all ... that’s saying something when you’re climbing steadily for five or six hours..

Then I crossed the mountains into Galicia, the Celtic part of Spain...Galicia is dubbed green Spain as it rains so much, but right now it's in drought, although you wouldn’t know it from the lush vegetation and forests. The days were very warm to hot between high 20s and low 30s so walking was not a good idea after 2 p.m... there are some lovely walks along winding trails through forests and along country lanes, although the latter have the handicap of having been traversed by many cows whose past presence is evident in the copious mounds of runny shit and the stench of stale urine.

Actually, this inadvertently gave me one of the best quotes I heard on the Camino. I’d been collecting Italians along the way, mostly men called Sergio. One of them, a retired merchant banker, but still a left wing socialist, took a lung full of the tainted air and in very eloquent Italian said,

“You know, if you smell shit, you usually find shit (caca de vaca- cow shit) ... reminds me of Berlusconi!” (Already, I believe, in jail.) I cracked up, then he made me promise not to tell his good friend Franco, a pro-Berlusconi doctor travelling with him. But ever since that moment we had a shorthand for foul stenches...Berlusconi! It never failed to elicit laughter from one or both of us.

When I was walking with the Italians, the first decision we had to make each day was to agree to stop for coffee at the first bar we came across, and then agree on a time for lunch. And for dinner. The Roman army must’ve marched on its stomach if the modern- day Italians I met are anything to go by. They spoke as little English as I did Italian, we all spoke some Spanish, but we managed to understand each other perfectly. They also told me their idea of a good death is to die in flagrante delicto in some young woman’s arms...one last gesture of defiance. But a young Italian woman I met advised me not to take any notice of these guys and their pronouncements—according to her, all Italian men think they're 20 and act like it.

They’re completely harmless, but I pity any woman who isn’t well groomed or good looking, as they believe they can comment at any time. Women are not the only targets of their distinctive social skills—I cringed at the bewildered look on a rather serious Dutchman’s face at dinner when the Italians blithely just began talking over him...it’s their way, but he didn’t seem to know that and took it a bit personally.

My knee was stiffening and after another week I couldn’t keep up with my Italian friends and had to call a halt around two each day. But I did make it all the way, limping in to Santiago de Compostela and, though I’m not religious, I entered the beautiful church—to see the woman who had dreamed of making the trip with a donkey. She had made it! I congratulated her, and when she had finished her prayers we left together. Her two donkeys were tethered outside, contentedly trimming the graveyard grass. There was no sign of her husband so I asked where he was.

She came close, her eyes bright, and said the one word:

“Chorizo.”