Five Years Ago, A Blue-Haired Woman Nearly Messed Up My Camino, And I Had To Ditch Her

The kindness and compassion of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain didn’t matter to her. My personal values took a serious kick in the ass of my quick-dry pants. She had to go.

Meredith muttered in Spanish to the taxi driver, “Come demasiado.” She eats too much. She was talking about me.

I didn’t even care. I was in the back seat in agony, afraid my gripping stomach cramps foreshadowed an explosive ataque de mierda before I could get to the airport restrooms. Oh, misery!

The night before, I ate a farewell meal with her. The food poisoning struck around 10 p.m.. Maybe it was the perfect way to end the trip, considering how ill-suited we were as traveling companions.

I didn’t mind Meredith was trash-talking me in a language she assumed I wouldn’t understand. This was who she was. This shit-attack was my karma for walking away from her, but the Camino de Santiago — Spain’s pilgrimage — was special to me.

The Camino de Santiago is on many bucket lists for very good reason. First, the Camino is an ancient pilgrimage in Spain. Many paths lead to the end destination, Santiago de Compostela, where a cathedral supposedly holds relics of St. James. Spain is a beautiful country, and attracts millions of people who walk the many paths to Santiago de Compostela.

Even for those not particularly religious, the Camino is a place of happiness, nature, and fun people drinking wine at night. Walking the Camino is often an annual event for people all over the world, who long to escape the daily grind and get away from electronics. People want to see the stars at night, hear the crickets, and experience joy. Spain is a place of great beauty.

I liked her online, in the Camino de Santiago Forum. She was funny, making mildly sarcastic jokes. I assumed she was a sparkly person who would be kind to others, and know how to go far and stay long in Spain. Nope. I told my friend, another pilgrim, about my plan to meet up with Meredith.

“I don’t know,” she said, “Something’s not quite right there.” Then, courteous silence. She and a few other pilgrim friends would be in Spain around the same time. I was torn. Arrange meet-ups with them, to drink red wine and eat pilgrim dinners? Or walk with Meredith, the sarcastic joker with brilliant blue hair? I decided to get to Spain, meet up with Meredith, and see how things went. My other friends would be there at the same time, so maybe I could see them too.

When we arrived in Burgos, a hotel worker remembered her, after Meredith cued her, “Remember me? You do remember me, right?”

“Oh, you’re the one with the skateboard,” the receptionist didn’t seem happy to see her. Later I realized Meredith was that needy traveler who expected service.

The room wasn’t quiet. The food wasn’t right, and is there a more expensive bottle? something better?

She needed her luggage shipped ahead, the 30-pound bag of speakers, electronic toys, hiking outfits, and the kitchen sink.

Normally I don’t mind people and their quirky habits. I met so many people from all over Europe the first time I walked Camino, 500 miles from St Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela.

Quirky people told intimate details of their lives.One German guy told me he was walking the Camino to process an accident in his homeland. He hit a drunk guy while driving late one night.

“Did you pull over and call the police?”

“I did,” he said, “But I can’t forgive myself. I keep seeing it, and hearing it.”

“It might be one of those hard things you have to live with,” I told him.”One of those horrible things. I’m so sorry.”

Another French guy woke me up late one night to tell me I was making little snoring noises. I lay in bed awake until I could hear his own little snoring noises.

Happy new lovers shared tiny bunk beds at midnight, and most of us in albuerges (hostels) used ear plugs. Now I typically stay in cheap hotels, preferring to sleep alone. Not always though.

Meredith didn’t like me from the get-go, and I reciprocated.

I listened to people, and she looked bored and irritated. She wanted a bestie to travel with, and I was a free agent, no one’s bestie.

Meredith didn’t like her time “wasted.” That’s what she said.

Around the time she was walking past me and throwing up her middle finger — I’m beating you! ha ha! — I realized we were not going to finish this long walk together. I texted my other pilgrim friend and told her what was happening.

• She’s rude to wait staff.
• She’s packing thirty pounds of gear, and she plays music everywhere we go. No silence.
• She got angry at me for helping someone with a bad blister, saying, “It is not your responsibility to help other people.”

“Just walk away,” my friend said. “She sounds so unpleasant.”

And why didn’t I walk away? I was torn between a sense of obligation to Meredith and completely ditching her.

Slip out the back, Jack, as Paul Simon sings.

I began pulling away. I was courteous to her when I saw her, and tried to be friendly. I asked her how far she was walking. I might say, “Maybe see you for dinner,” or “I’m going on a little farther. Have a good walk.” I basically disengaged.

I didn’t see the need to prolong the agony. We were not a match, not at all.

I channeled my grandma, who sat staring straight ahead taking puffs of her Marlboro light and slightly raising her eyebrows. Grandma could tell people to fuck off without saying a word. Not that she’d ever use language.

Meredith was annoyed because I didn’t download Twitter on my phone.

“I don’t know why you can’t just download it,” she’d say. “It would make things so much easier.”

She wanted me to get a hiking skirt like hers, so we could sit on the ground together in hiking skirts. It would be so cool if we both had them.

Worst of all, I didn’t want to listen to one of her favorite singers, Nicki Minaj. I told Meredith I thought Nicki Minaj was full of herself. She stared at me as though I’d slapped her in the face.

And no, I didn’t wish I looked like Nicki Minaj, spreading her thighs and twerking her ass as she sang lyrics I didn’t want to hear. Meredith loved to watch videos of her. Yawn.

I tried to share the Camino joy with her. I introduced her to one of my favorite albuergues, a humble place just off the trail. The family members, kind Spanish people, greeted me with a hug. They recognized me, because I had given them a gift the previous time I was here, a postcard. They showed me they still had the image of Mt. Hood, pulling out the old guest book.

Meredith looked angry and later said, “I just wanted them to stop talking and give us the key. I’m tired.”

I wanted to throttle her at that point.

The kind patriarch of the family built a fire for us, and it crackled in the fireplace, and the sounds of night in a Spanish countryside fell in. She got out her blue tooth speakers and prepared to play more Nicki Minaj, asking me if I’d heard this song or that.

I made dinner for her with food I bought at a little market, and she asked me what she should do. Dishes would be great, I said.

Later she sniffed that the staff could do the dishes.

Final straw!

I left the next morning, and never spent another night with her. I found a couple nice guys I ended up doing a lot of walking with. One guy from the Netherlands, who got drunk on two beers and had to close one eye while walking. The other guy was from S. Korea, a cheery guy who bought oranges and bananas from the trailside wooden stands and shared them. The guys laughed a lot, and spoke English well enough to suggest we take a break and drink beer. Nice people. We walked apart, but came together in villages along the beautiful Camino.

One afternoon, I got lost and wondered out of a forested area onto a road. It was getting late, and the sun was going down. I saw a sign that pointed to an albuergue just down the road. I walked and walked, and finally got there. It was like a beautiful park, with trees and plants and flowers. The host was kind, and ushered me into a room with several beds.

“You can sleep in here alone,” he said, “unless someone else comes along.”

About ten minutes later, there was a light knock on the door. It was the guys! They took off their hiking boots and put on flip flops, and we went to dinner. We ate slices of pork, salad, and a bit of bread. Dessert was flan and fruit. A perfect meal with lively friends.

It was like being with family, humble kind people who weren’t lugging around electronics, clothes, and massive amounts of money to “make it rain.”

Eventually the two worlds clashed.

Just ten or so miles east of Santiago de Compostela, the guys and I sat at an outside cafe, drinking icy beer with lemonade. Out of the restaurant hobbled Meredith. She was now taking taxis, as she had twisted her ankle jumping around a hotel lobby demonstrating her old skating moves to an eleven-year-old who looked on in boredom. Later, she quietly admitted she deserved the sprain for showing off, which was uncharacteristically humble.

I dutifully marched to a pharmacy and bought her ice packs and pain relievers, as a good hiking buddy does. Her walk in Spain was done, at that point. I think she was glad. The previous day, some pilgrims walked by me and told me about some woman with blue hair cussing up a storm and acting angry with the world. Yep, that was our Meredith.

So when she hobbled up to us, the three pilgrims having a pitcher of icy beer, she put her blue tooth speakers on a table nearby and asked the Dutch guy for the wifi password. He looked at her out of his one critical blue eye (already drunk) and said, “What the fuck are you talking about? Put that shit away.” The Dutch guy never minced words, plus he was drunk.

She stood up, pinched her mouth in a tight knot, and flipped him off, grabbing her speakers and marching away. Uh oh.

I learned a lot about myself on that trip. I am getting better at a more assertive approach. I should have said, “Look, this ain’t working. Let’s call it quits.”

In Santiago de Compostela, my other pilgrim friends texted me, “Are you in town? Want to have dinner?” Yes, I did.

As we shared wine, I told them how hard the trip had been, and how hard it was to deal with my traveling companion, how in Astorga, I gave her my lower bunk, as she was frightened of sleeping in an upper bunk. How the next morning I stumbled into the cafe exhausted, and bumped the table with my leg. Her coffee cup splashed in the saucer a bit. She said, “Goddamn it!” in her angry voice. I walked away, always a bother to this woman who vexed my spirit too.

My friends and I toasted to having a special meal together, and poured more wine. Stories were told, and we laughed. I realized I was with my tribe — gray-haired women in merino wool shirts with small back packs like mine.

Meredith and I shared that final trip to the airport, and I survived the taxi ride. The best part of that Camino was I learned some things about myself on that trip. Mostly, I need to be more outspoken and clear about my values.

Better yet, play it safe and travel solo.

Tunnel art in Burgos, Spain. Photo by author.