Notre Dame Du Chocolat

The Camino is full of ordinary people doing an extraordinary thing. As in regular life, when you meet so many people at once it is hard to remember names. Hence we have developed shorthand for when the name escapes:

Notre Dame Du Chocolat : The ebullient Quebecoise celebrating her birthday by giving us chocolate.

The Belcher: The I-am-sure-perfectly-nice pilgrim who went to say Buen Camino to us at the top of a hill and let out a huge belch instead.

The Gamers: The Korean Father/Son duo who take rests so the son can play games on his phone.

Facebook Dokdo Guy: A young man from the tiny Korean island of Dokdo who wears a huge flag advertising his facebook page

The Irish: all of Ireland are walking the Camino right now, apparently. It’s a joyful thing.

The Women of Duncan: A foursome from Duncan, Vancouver Island. One named Bea and another named Steph, so Jenny feels right at home

Shorty Shorts Guy: There is this youngish guy who rolls up his shorts inward quite high on his leg. Eek.

Portlandia: a friendly trio from Oregon and Alaska who we keep bumping into. One of them retired on a Tuesday and all three of them got on a plane for the Camino on Wednesday

Krispy Kreme Mark: we’ve had lots of chats and tapas with Mark who used to work for Krispy Kreme

The Malaysian Australians: thanks for the paella recommendation near Santiago!

Amazing George who happens to be deaf, is walking the Camino on his own.

James, the Devonian Sculptor: we hope you find your camera.

Guadeloupe James: Buen Camino James

Father James: A young Catholic priest who everyone talks about but who we have not met. He seems to surprise everyone with the fact that he is a priest. Hope we do meet him. He may be the only we person we meet doing this for a religious purpose.

I suppose it should be no surprise there are so many men named James waling the Camino, but it kind of is.