Understanding fellow pilgrims....

They say the Camino touches you, makes you a better person and allows you to better appreciate your fellow man. Despite that, as we walked to Santiago, Janna and I for some reason felt inclined to spend time compiling a list of 'Camino capital offences', in other words those pilgrim behaviours that we felt warranted the highest level of punishment.

Those people in albergue bunk houses that don't put their phones on silent at night and sleep through the continuous beeps and pings of message and Facebook alerts that wake everybody else.

People who sit up in their bunks late at night playing with their phones and illuminating the whole room with the brightness of the screen.

Any large group of pilgrims, particularly if singing, should be culled in the same way as a deer herd to achieve a more manageable size.

Anybody doing the Camino by bike that does not have, or does not use, a bell to alert walkers of their presence. In reality this probably means most bikers.

Anybody doing the Camino on a bicycle with one of those electric motor assisted pedal systems whether they have a bell or not. There are quite a few and it’s just 'not cricket'.

People in albergues whose alarms go off at 5.30am and which then go off again while they are in the bathroom because they only put them on snooze. In fact, let’s just go for everybody who sets their alarms for 5.30am.....

A whole range of 'walking pole offences' including: having them stowed in your rucksack tips up, at dangerous angles and eye height; and walking along not using them but trailing them horizontally behind you while waving them around and banging fellow walkers.

The woman who shared a room with a guy Gale met: there were just the two of them in an albergue bunk room and in the middle of the night the woman turned on the room light 'for twenty minutes as punishment for snoring'.

Anybody who plays their music aloud while walking, failing to appreciate that others do not necessarily want to share it. In fact, anybody who thinks that listening to the music they can listen to back home while walking rather than the experience the birdsong or wind or other sounds of nature should be tried on a case by case basis....

People in albergues who think that because they are up and about at 6am everybody else wants to be and turn the room lights on....

....which are probably the same people who do not have a volume control on their voices early morning or late at night.

Coach drivers who run the Sarria groups around, just because....

And maybe anybody who has walked from Sarria to Santiago and seriously thinks they have done a Camino.

I guess if I hadn’t done the Camino, been touched by it and learned to better appreciate my fellow man, the list would be longer......