One of the cool things about Camino has been washing our clothes by hand…every single day.
A lot of places now have washing machines and dryers, but spending €4.50 per day to wash our clothes when we can do it for free seems silly!
After a long day of walking, arriving to an albergue means a lot of chores. First, checking in, paying, getting our sello (stamp) in the pilgrim passport. Then getting & making our beds, unpacking, showering, and…laundry. All the albergues have had the old style washing sinks, which is way more effective than using a hand sink, and lines to hang clothes. We took safety pins instead of clothes pins, which have been great to hang things with. Washing and hanging clothes for 40 minutes is the last thing you want to be doing after walking all day (and before eating a real meal), but today was particularly enjoyable.
The washing sink was not in a basement laundry room but outside against a stone wall of the gorgeous albergue we are staying in outside of town, free of youth groups and turigrinos. While I washed clothes by hand, elderly women sat in chairs in the street laughing and talking, and a cow mooed from the barn next door. It felt right, like this was the way it is supposed to be.
I’ll be happy to have access to a wager and dryer back at home, but it has been a great experience to sink into the washing of clothes by hand, transforming it from a chore to an experience.
