"plastic pilgrims"

Today an Irish guy sat down at a table with me and my friends as we were drinking our morning coffee. The rainy shadow of a huge monastery behind him, he warned us, "Be careful of the plastic pilgrims. They´re out, you know."

As we sit reflecting on our 600+K and several weeks of walking, sad that it is ending, figuring out ways to savor it, these new, clean folks have entered the Camino. In order to earn a Compostela, one only needs 100K of walking. The end is in sight, but for them it is just the beginning. Their untanned skin and clean hair and clothing are a dead giveaway. Either their packs are stuffed full because they have overpacked, or they have wee sacks because their luggage is being bussed from hotel to hotel. The latter are the worst. Tours. They take tours. And sleep in beds with sheets. And wear white and pink. Imagine! Pink! We despise them in a luscious loathing way. Of course, the other kind, the kind who sleep in albergues, are likely to take our places, to run on their fresh legs and take up all the beds so that we weary ones are forced to sleep on church porches. Surely they won´t earn any exemption from hell in this way.