Sleeping Arrangements...

Here is a photo of sleeping accommodations (by the way--the photos may show up on your screen as little blank boxes with X's--just click on the box to see the photo)...Usually about 50 or so pilgrims would wind up in a small town on any night (more like 100 in larger cities). We would pay about $6 or $7 to stay in a "refugio," a pilgrim dorm like that pictured, that might be administered by a locality, or by a fraternal group like the Knights of Malta. As you see from the photo, it's pretty close quarters--like sleepaway camp. This one pictured was about as good as they got; others were on the pretty claustrophic end.. In some cases you were assigned a bunk; in others you grabbed an open bed. Falling asleep was usually not a problem: the lights go off at 10PM, and by that time most folks seemed to be exhausted enough to fall asleep despite the snoring....The morning was another story. As early as 4:30 or 5:00 AM one would hear the early risers unpacking and re-packing noisy plastic bags into and out of their knapsacks as they got ready to head out and beat the sun. by about 6AM, more or less everyone was awake whether they wanted to be or not...I'll probably report in another post about hygiene and other aspects of refugio living.