Our first day on the Camino began like an Edgar Allan Poe poem, or something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. A chill permeated the morning air and dense and heavy fog, like wet cotton, obscured the morning light. We set out alone; one backpack between us, the damp settling onto our shoulders as we hiked down the murky path. And then, she appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, dark hair, pale face, a young woman alone on the trail. “Hey, are you from Milwaukee?” she said, falling in beside us. Damn, I thought. Is our Midwestern accent giving us away

Why is our train going backwards? The announcement over the PA system provided no clues. The rapido delivery of the announcer was no match for my college Spanish. Even when she switched to heavily-accented English, the only words I could make out were “train,” “flood,” and “bus.” Thankfully, a young, bilingual British woman sitting across the aisle filled us in. “The train can’t go all the way to Sarria,” she said brightly, as if this unexpected wrench in our travel plans had won each of us a lottery ticket. “They’re putting us on a bus to get us there.” She