For some, a great attraction of the Camino experience is escaping the normal routines and patterns of everyday life back home. Shedding the everyday worries and electronic leashes can be liberating. But I'm convinced that for some, they provide some type of comfort.
So why not get up when you wake up? The noise and light around you starts at about 5:30am and slowly crescendos to full volume by 7:30. At this time, ear plugs and eye shades can no longer do their jobs effectively and you are awake. If you manage to stay in bed any longer, a hospitalero will be shaking you awake or will have already called an ambulance to pick up the dead body. So does waking up and then getting up out of bed really make that big a difference in this two hour window of time? You don't need to strategize to avoid rush hour, you don't have a "can't miss" meeting with the boss, or an appointment in the next town for a "?". So just relax and go with the flow, when else can you do this?
Along these same lines of "preparation" for the day, I was always amused by the number of peregrinos who needed to check the weather the night before and first thing when they got up. Why? There is nothing you can do about it. Do you need to psychologically prepare yourself for rain or sun shine, hot or cold? It is what it is. If it starts raining, you put on your poncho/rain jacket, if stops raining you take it off and if you are living in the present, you generally don't need to consult your weather app to find out if it is raining now or if the rain has stopped. 99.9999% of the time, you wake up, get dressed, step out of the Albergue and start walking no matter what the weather condition is so why all the worry about it?
Same thing with route elevations for the day. I noticed a fair number of people checking out this information the night before, the morning of and during the hike with comments like, "it gets really step in the next few kilometers, or we are almost at the highest point of the trail today. I understand this from the small talk perspective but it seemed like it was usually brought up with the intention of a warning or getting prepared for it and like the weather or if I get up at 5:30, 6:30 or 7:30, it's really not important and it doesn't make any sense to me to introduce something to worry about or think about that is of no consequence.
I can understand that someone who is struggling physically needs to have a minimum amount of sleep and maybe needs to minimize the hours they are in the hot sun so an alarm to get up at 5am is necessary and to prepare psychologically for the wet mud or the hot sun and each steep section of the trail but those were not the people I saw that were so focused on these distractions. I'm not criticizing any of this behavior I'm just curious about it.
It's good to be relaxed but most of us need some kind of a plan for the day. And yes, weather, elevation and starting time are relevant factors one needs to take into consideration. My preference was not to worry about any of this until lunch time. After some good food, wine and/or beer, a lot of laughs, people watching and just feeling so good to be alive and to be where I was at that moment, I pulled out my guide book and based on current time, trail conditions, elevations ahead and weather conditions I did calculate my options for where I might stay that night. If I was with a group a reservation was usually made at this time, if traveling alone sometimes a reservation was made.
The Camino experience for me was a very relaxing, laid back experience and from my observations, it's that way for the majority of the pilgrims. Everybody go to bed at 10pm and then get up when you wake up without alarms, you can't be late when you don't have to be anywhere on time.
