Katia Taam
Active Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- Every year, since 2000. Most times portuguese camino also twice the french camiño. Two time Le Puy .
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For extra precaution hand your backpack on the bed
Nearly every gite in France required that I leave the coat, pack, boots, and poles in the front hallway. So the pack goes nowhere near your bed. This is something of a problem if it comes as a surprise, and you have simply thrown everything into the pack. Modular packing is best on the Le Puy for this reason - get everything into several stuff sacks.
A noticeable number of the gites do not allow backpacks past the entry point. The contents of your pack can be carried to your bunk. One place did not even allow sleeping bags into the rooms. It supplied a clean cotton sleep sack! Still, a majority of the places are just like Spain, so take normal precautions. There is a lot of literature scattered around gites that deals with bed bugs, almost always in French. The French are sufficiently concerned about them that every tourist office sells spray bottles of insecticide. Since only a small fraction of the visitors to the offices are trekkers, I presume that the problem is not limited to gites. Hotels and chambres d'hotes probably share the problem!Do I have to leave the backpack outside the room? Do I have to carry a big plastic bag to protect my backpack ?
You leave your pack in the front hall (vestibule, out of the weather) along with your boots, poles, coat and hat. You take with you all the stuff sacks you need (sleep sack, valuables, electronics/charger, toiletries, clothing) for the night. Leave behind the sacks you do not need for the night (rain gear, first aid kit, repair kit, spare food). There are fewer lodgers at French gites, perhaps 12-15, and no more than 6-8 in the dorm rooms (fewer in the doubles or singles, obviously). So there is less risk of loss - but one still keeps one's valuables on one's person at all times.I am wondering what you do with your pack when you are sleeping.
Reading this thread and preparing for our upcoming adventure on the Camino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Also we will spray the bed to see if there are any bugs.
You leave your pack in the front hall (vestibule, out of the weather) along with your boots, poles, coat and hat. You take with you all the stuff sacks you need (sleep sack, valuables, electronics/charger, toiletries, clothing) for the night. Leave behind the sacks you do not need for the night (rain gear, first aid kit, repair kit, spare food). There are fewer lodgers at French gites, perhaps 12-15, and no more than 6-8 in the dorm rooms (fewer in the doubles or singles, obviously). So there is less risk of loss - but one still keeps one's valuables on one's person at all times.
Yes, you have free access to your pack at any time. And yes, one must repack in the morning.I imagine you can go to this vestibule any time to pack your used/washed cloths and also it must be some gathering in the morning to re-pack your stuff..??
Yes, in the gites when you have a dorm room that sleeps 6 or more. Often in the smaller rooms (4 or fewer) you can take the pack into the room - but you still leave it just inside that room's door, not on your bed.Also, when you have a room you have to leave your pack out of it?
We plan on using the method mentioned by Kanga.With what may I ask?
Tio Tel
Nowhere that I have been! One albergue in Rabe de las Calzadas did, but it has disappeared from most lists of albergues (the hospitalera had a way of antagonizing pilgrims, and was regularly criticized here and on the internet).Do you leave your pack outside of the dormitory in the Spanish hostels as well?
Nowhere that I have been! One albergue in Rabe de las Calzadas did, but it has disappeared from most lists of albergues (the hospitalera had a way of antagonizing pilgrims, and was regularly criticized here and on the internet).
I have a rope loop on the pack lift loop that is big enough for all bunk posts. I treat the pack inside and out with permethrin. Where there are no bunks, the floor has to serve (use a chair at the peril of incurring hostility from fellow pilgrims who think the chair is for sitting.)Where did you put your pack to avoid/prevent bed bugs? Did you hang it up, put it in a garbage bag, left it in the floor?
I found the bedbugs to be nearly as bad on the Le Puy route as on the Frances. I got bitten several times and saw bedbugs in my bed and caught one on my face in the middle of the night. So they are out there. I found (perhaps coincidentally) that I stopped having problems with them once I began hanging my pack up; on a shelf, a chair, a window, anywhere but on the floor. I do not use any sprays for health reasons (I have a neurological condition that makes that inadvisable) and that may be why I seem to report them more than most folks. Bedbugs notwithstanding, the LePuy route is fantastic and I enjoyed every kilometer of it. I did both trips late September to late October.Hi everyone
Do I have to leave the backpack outside the room? Do I have to carry a big plastic bag to protect my backpack ?I'm alergic and it was a big problem on my last camiño. I was bitten at Vilafranca and it's not easy...
Katia
Well now, there's an idea. Here in the States, we eradicate garden slugs by enticing them with a dish of beer. Perhaps a similar strategy would work with bedbugs? Just offer them a dish of vin rouge, which they will mistake for blood ......it also helps to chant a magic spell...
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