12th June Digital

 

Santillan de Mar to San Vincent de Barque 36.5km

For the first 61 years of my life I had no real need of a mobile phone. I didn't feel I was missing out and was quite happy to have both hands free and my vision not cast permeantly down at a screen when out and about. I didn't  suffer from FOMO (look it up if you don't know what it means for FOMO...lol)

Then faced with this trip and a gift voucher I needed to redeem before it expired, I took the plunge and joined what appears to be the rest of the world. Not I hasten to add to particularly use as a phone but more as a camera during the trip and as a way to WhatsApp 'TOM' to find out what's up! Indeed my first two months Tesco mobile bill showed I had made 2 calls and sent 3 texts and still had 11.99GB of my 12GB data left.

All of which brings me to the digital Camino. Compared to how I remember the Camino Frances back in 2017, everything now seems to be done online. Accommodation is booked and paid for on line or via the beep of a card. It's been useful to ask for directions or questions from the locals via Google Translate. Routes are planned, mileages calculated, blogs updated and real time GPS apps are endlessly compared by pilgrims. Are you using Camino Ninja, Buen Camino, the Spanish language Gronze or have you splashed the cash for a £5 subscription to Wise Pilgrim?

I downloaded several before setting off and you would think it almost impossible to get lost. And it is. Almost. Once I had worked out that the 'red' line on the various maps was the Camino route and not the 'grey' ones, that represented roads, often dreadfully busy roads, life got a lot simpler...lol.  Not that I am fully competent by any stretch of the imagination.

I still prefer to follow a fellow pilgrim until the first visible yellow arrow or shell appears at the start of each day rather than standing outside the albergue waiting for my digital  avatar to be downloaded  from the ether.