Spain

So how’s that medical insurance thing going?

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About six months ago, I wrote a popular blog post about how I price-shop around for medical, dental, and vision services. So what do you do about medical insurance? So how’s that working out for us?

Prescriptions:

Have you ever heard anyone say “You can actually get that medicine in (insert name of country here) without a prescription!” During our summer in Europe, I decided to find out if it’s true. By the end of our Camino hike across Spain, I’d finished the years’ worth of prescription thyroid medication that I’d filled at the Walmart in Florida. (Don’t forget -if you pay out of pocket, you can buy all of your refills at once, instead of 90 days at a time!). I was pretty stressed out thinking about getting my prescription filled in Santiago. I needed to find a Farmacia, ask for a pharmacist who speaks English, explain which medicine I need (I kept the pill bottle), possibly get sent to a clinic to see a doctor and get a blood test (all by public transportation), possibly wait for the results, and hopefully get a new prescription by the end of it all. I’d worked myself into a bit of a frenzy thinking about it, but Santiago was the only place we’d be staying for more than one night at a time, so I bit the bullet and gave it a shot. I walked to the closest Farmacia, and timidly asked “Hablas usted Inglés?” The pharmacist answered, “a little” and took a look at my pill bottle. My thyroid medication is extremely common, so in less than ten minutes, I walked out of the Farmacia with 100 pills of my exact dosage for 9.95€. Yahoo! Emboldened, I walked down the street to the next Farmacia and asked again. This time, I walked out with 100 thyroid pills for 4.95€ Double yahoo! For 15 Euros or about $16.75 I had enough medication to carry me over until I’m in one place long enough to find a doctor and get settled. I also take a slow-release pain reliever for osteoarthritis. When I ran out of the pills in Portugal, I MAY have used my status as a pilgrim walking to Fatima to ask for a little bit of sympathy from the pharmacists. In Porto I was able to buy two boxes of 60 pills of meloxicam each for a total of 20€ Once again, it’s enough to last me through the rest of my European summer and until I could sort out something more permanent, and the price was quite reasonable.

What else have I done to keep medical costs down in the past six months?

Vision:

I’m extremely happy with the quality, style, and durability of Warby Parker prescription eyeglasses. My first pair of prescription sunglasses lasted for two years in the extremely harsh environment of sailing – even spending one whole night at the bottom of the ocean in the harbor under our boat, requiring a snorkel rescue the next day. So during our brief trip to Colorado this summer I ordered two new pairs: a clear lens pair for $95 and a pair of polarized sunglasses for $175. Not dirt cheap by any means, but try comparing to prices in the optometrist’s office and you’ll find it’s a pretty darn good deal. Stylish too!

Dental:

I bought another Groupon this year for Capt. Mike’s and my dental cleaning and x-rays. It’s a great deal for new customers, but of course they are going to try to find something else that needs fixing in your mouth, because that’s how the dental office makes their money. This dentist found two old fillings that she recommended replacing, and it think it’s legit. I have a mouth full of fillings and the old ones do fail eventually. The dentist’s office manager gave me the option to pay cash using their dental discount plan. But wait! With an hour of research on the internet, I found a different dental discount plan that allowed me to pay by the month rather than subscribing for a full year, and I could cancel as soon as the fillings were complete. AND the fillings were cheaper too even provided at the same office by the same dentist. Lesson learned – it never hurts to shop around, and don’t hesitate to ask for a few days to decide before agreeing to treatment.

Flu Shots:

Sure, my international insurance plan doesn’t cover preventative care like free flu shots. But honestly, I’d rather pay between $20 to $40 out-of-pocket once a year rather than paying thousands of dollars in premiums for high-deductible plan I don’t use! Once again, I did a bit of internet sleuthing. The drug store chains don’t post flu shot prices on their web sites, but you can easily Google it and find bloggers who have done the price comparison research. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that Costco offers the cheapest flu shots this year at $19.99. But you MIGHT be surprised to learn that ANYONE can use the Costco pharmacy services for prescriptions or shots even without a membership. I was surprised! And I’m going to keep it in mind for future cost cutting. There weren’t any Costco warehouse stores near where we were staying in upstate New York, so I went to the next cheapest option at Sam’s Club. $35 with a normal membership, $30 with a Plus membership. There was no line at the pharmacy, I walked right in and had my flu shot complete for the year in less than ten minutes. Drug stores, such as CVS and Rite Aid, are more convenient locations for getting a flu shot, but they’ll charge at least $40. Sometimes they’ll give you a gift certificate or coupon toward a prescription discount to offset the higher cost.

Doctors and Accidents:

Thankfully, I haven’t had any injuries or accidents or gotten very ill, so I haven’t had to see a doctor since I signed up for the IMG international medical plan. But I do have a United Health Services insurance card with an individual and group id number that works both in the US and overseas. The premiums for Mike and I are affordable, and the deductible is “only” $1000 so if a big accident did take place, we could cover those costs more easily than we could with a high deductible plan. I’ll be in Puerto Rico for at least a month this fall, so I’ll go to a medical center there (after doing some cost comparisons, of course) and get prescriptions for the next year.

How’s much does it cost to walk the Camino de Santiago?

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I’ve been thinking a lot about this as I’ve walked toward Santiago over the past month. And I’ve come to the conclusion that you can do it quite comfortably and enjoyably for a budget of €35 per person per day. Maybe with an emergency fund of €100 or so… just in case! It’s really an inexpensive European trip, although once you multiply by 30-40 days to walk the entire 800 km, it does add up!

Lodging: Budget €10 per day

For €10 you’ll get a bed in a shared room with access to a shared bathroom, a hot shower, a place to do laundry, a common area, and probably a kitchen and wifi. Basically, this is everything a pilgrim needs after walking 20-35 km per day.

On a tighter budget?

Whatever your mileage goals for the day, there will always be a municipal (run by the city) or parochial (run by the church) albergue that charges €5 or €6 per night. They’ll provide all the same services, but might be bigger with a younger crowd, and therefore more crowded and maybe less clean. There are also donation-based albergues where you simply pay what you can afford.

Can splurge a bit more?

Sometimes it’s really worth it to splash out for a private room. You’ll have more space, your own bathroom, fewer snoring Croatians, maybe even perks like cotton towels, free breakfast, and a terrace to overlook the city. In our first 28 days on the Camino, we spent 7 days in private rooms, ranging from €35 to €45 per night for the two of us. But that includes our rest days in Burgos and León. Albergues won’t let you stay more than one night unless you’re injured or sick. So taking a rest day really requires private accommodations. Of course, you could also stay in a hotel, Casa Rural, or Bed and Breakfast and could choose to spend much more!

Dinner: Budget €10 per day

Either your albergue or one of the many nearby bars will offer a pilgrims’ menu – three course meal with bread and wine – for somewhere between €8 and €12. The pilgrims’menu has three things going for it:

  1. It’s filling. Focusing more on quantity than quality, a cheap pilgrims’meal will probably include french fries, pork, eggs… or all three!
  2. It’s served at a reasonable time. Since Spaniards eat dinner at 9:00 or later, the 7:00 pilgrims meal is a lifesaver for someone who’s walked 20 miles today, and who’s going to wake up before sunrise tomorrow to do it all over again!
  3. It includes wine. They don’t call it the vino Camino for nothing. Plus… it helps you sleep.😉

(So the photo below is a regular people’s weekend menu, not a pilgrim menu, so it’s more expensive, but you can see how it works- and how difficult it can be to decide what to order if you don’t speak Spanish!)

On a tighter budget?

Instead of a three course meal, you could order a plato completo, which is basically your whole meal on one plate. You can find the usual eggs or pork and fries and salad for around €5.

Or, better yet, shop at the grocery store and cook for yourself. Most albergues have kitchens, and a hearty pasta meal hits the spot after a long walk. One night, we bought groceries in the tiniest shop in the tiniest town and the entire thing, including gluten free pasta, sauce, veggies, olives, a bottle of wine, and yogurt, eggs, and coffee for the next morning cost us €16.

Can you splurge a bit more?

The the food in Spain is really amazing! If your budget allows, you can always go out for a real dinner instead of the pilgrims’ menu and enjoy octopus, iberico ham, paella, roasted lamb, and much more. A restaurant meal would increase your dinner cost from €10pp to €30pp or more – PLUS wine. León has a fabulous tapas culture, so it’s fun to explore and hit the bars. You could treat yourself to a cocktail instead of the ubiquitous wine – that would raise the cost of your end of the day celebration from €1.50 per drink to around €6. You could certainly eat all three meals in bars, rather than carrying hiking snacks. The cost of food is entirely in your control!

Other expenses: Budget €15 per day

If you’ve budgeted €10 for lodging and €10 for dinner, that leaves €15 per day for everything else: breakfast, hiking snacks, coffee, wine, museum entry, donations at churches, refilling your soap and toothpaste. Plenty! Skip the overpriced albergue breakfast and get espresso and tortilla at a bar for €3. All the tourist sites offer discounted rates for pilgrims. There are plenty of supermercados and tiendas selling nuts and fruit and ham and cheese. And a cup of espresso or a glass of house wine costs between €1 and €1.50. that €15 will go far!

Optional expenses

Of course, you can always spend more money if you’ve got it.

Laundry

Some albergues have a washing machine and charge between €2 and €4 per load. Every three or four nights, it’s nice to wash all your hiking clothes with soap in a real machine. And if you combine with someone else, you’ll have a full load. 😁

Luggage transfer

There are a number of competing companies that will carry your pack from town to town for about €5 per day. You don’t even have to plan ahead or commit to the whole trip. If you’re having a rough day, or you’ve got bad blisters, or the next day’s route is particularly hilly, your albergue can arrange for luggage transfer tomorrow. Pilgrim Hack! If you’re traveling with a partner, combine your heavy great into one bag for transfer and carry the rest and you’ll only spend €5 for the two of you! (No, Mike and I haven’t tried this yet. Did I mention we do things the hard way?)

Use a travel agent

This is a very American way to do the Camino. You can go through an adventure outfitter and have them plan and schedule your trip, book your accommodations, arrange your meals, reserve your luggage transfer. And … add a big premium to the cost for this service! But as I’ve described, it’s not very difficult to arrange lodging, luggage transfer, and meals for yourself. Plus, if you are pre-booked into a tour, you don’t have the flexibility to stop early if you’re hurting or the weather’s bad (or there’s a fiesta!) Or to walk longer some days if you’re feeling good or you’ve just heard about an albergue that’s “the best on the Camino.”

Bottom line?

It’s not as expensive as you think to walk the Camino Frances! Between different types of accommodations, discount meals and entry costs for pilgrims, and honestly the small amount of “things” you actually need, you can make this a very affordable trip. But keep in mind that doing the whole trip from St Jean Pied-de-Port to Santiago will take 30-35 days. On the plus side, you’re not putting gas in the car at home, your water and electric bills will be lower back there, and you’re not going out to movies or concerts or shows. You may find it’s cheaper to do a pilgrimage across Spain than to stay home! And of course, the beautiful views, scenic visas, and ancient churches are the same no matter how much you pay for your trip!

So here’s a funny story…

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Two pilgrims walk into a bar. First pilgrim says to the second pilgrim….

Ok. I don’t really know any pilgrim jokes. I need to work on that! But the day before we walked to León, we walked 21 miles from Sahagún to Reliegos and ended the day by walking into Bar Gil around 3:00 pm. Now a bar in Spain isn’t the same as a bar in the USA. Yes, they serve beer and wine, but also coffee, sandwiches, and the ubiquitous tortilla. Basically a bar is a casual place to eat and drink that’s open all day instead of a fancy white table cloth restaurant that’s only open at Spanish (late!) dinner time.

And in this case, Bar Gil also hosted a few bunk rooms for pilgrims. So we went through the albergue routine: put our hiking poles in a container just inside the door, left our muddy boots on the shelf, showed our passports and credentials, paid our 8€, and chose a bunk.

After a shower, Mike and I were sitting at a table in front of the albergue with a snack chatting with other pilgrims when a cloud of grey smoke rolled up the narrow street. Locals sitting at the adjoining tables jumped up and hurried in the direction of the smoke. So we followed. It turns out that all of the dry grasses and vegetation in a 500 sq ft courtyard had caught fire, with a spark rapidly spreading across the entire space. If the shed or house caught fire, the entire street of connected but brick and wood buildings could be lost. With no firefighters in sight, the villagers (and a few pilgrims) grabbed rakes and shovels and tarps and beat the flames out. When the worst of the fire was contained, we all took turns pouring buckets of water on the embers and stamping on the sparks. I eventually decided it wasn’t the smartest idea to do so wearing sandals! I didn’t take photos during the fire (it seemed ghoulish) but here’s Mike in full Bombero (Spanish firefighter) mode as things were calming down. When we returned to our table in front of the bar, two of the local men thanked us for helping.

The next morning, we stayed out of the way while our French roommates packed up and got an early start. As soon as they were gone, we took over the bathroom and the floor space and did the same. As we were leaving up our boots to hit the trail I told Mike, “Um…I think we have a problem.” We had left our hiking poles in the bar which was now firmly locked and abandoned at 6:00 am. Drat!

We tried every door… Locked. I was getting ready to start knocking on the private doors to wake someone up to open the bar. Although I had no idea how is explain what I needed – in Spanish. We found an open window, moved several pots of plants and climbed through… Only gave us access to the restrooms. We found a back door with a key in the lock… Only accessed a back dining room with a few tables. But wait! Tossed in a corner of that dining room were our poles! Nowhere near where we left them. And not in any part of the building where pilgrims normally have access. Hmmmm…. Seems suspicious. But better not to think about it too hard. We had all of our gear, and we could go on our merry way. Just 45 minutes late and after quite a bit of breaking and entering.

So we walk into a little town and a bull fight breaks out…

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In the middle of a Europe-wide heat wave, Mike and I set the alarm for 5am, and started walking by 5:30 to beat the afternoon heat of 100°F or higher. Our earliest start yet, we found our way out of the town of Los Arcos in full darkness, and covered almost 7km before sunrise.

By the time we reached Torres del Rio, we were jonesing for some tortilla and coffee. This was one of those stops where we could not find tortilla without bread to save our lives, so Mike worked some magic, and talked a bar owner into scrambling up some eggs special. I asked for four (two eggs each), but Mike raised me and ordered six.

With such an early start, we were doing great and reached out halfway point for the day at Viana by 11:00. We entered the ancient walled city through a gate topped with a warrior right out of Game of Thrones, and started to look for a good spot to take a break and rest our feet.

But less than 100 yards down the narrow, cobbled street we found ourselves in the middle of a party! Lots of little kids, all dressed identically in white with red neck kerchiefs, racing around a square, being chased by a costumed man with a huge paper maché head and a whip.

Well I’m not sure what that was all about, but it was certainly intriguing. We continued about a block further, and found ourselves in the middle of a parade! Absolutely everybody was wearing white and red, a band playing, and four giant king and queen puppets dancing and spinning in the middle of it all.

So we joined in! We followed the festivities right into the middle of town where the parade dissolved into the town square, and everyone pulled up seats at tables that filled the square and the surrounding streets from curb to curb, drinking wine and eating pinxtos. I saw a table of pilgrims we knew and Stefan from Switzerland said, “It’s the town’s feast day. And there will be a running of the bulls at 2:00!” What?!?!? Mike and I plopped down our bags, ordered a glass of wine of our own, and discussed the situation. The beauty of not booking anything in advance is that we really don’t have to stick to a schedule, right? And even though we got up early, and have only made it halfway, nothing says we HAVE to keep walking, right? And there’s going to be a running of the bulls… RIGHT DOWN THIS STREET, right? It was an easy decision. If we could find a place to spend the night, we’d stay.

All of the private hotels were full due to the fiesta, but not the pilgrims’ albergue! We were in line when they opened at noon, and had paid 8€ each for our bunks and taken showers and headed back out into the streets by 1:00. We joined the locals at a small table lining the main street through the old walled city and ordered a couple of pinxtos to sustain ourselves until the main event. My restaurant Spanish is getting better: Dos pulpo (octopus) por favor, and uno atún con cebolla (tuna and onions).

Suddenly, the excitement level kicked up a notch, and all of the tables and chairs were getting whisked away. It was pretty intimidating watching these big metal grills get dragged in to cover the doors and windows of the shops to protect them from angry bulls. We lurked at a cross street, waiting until city workers started pulling a big wooden gate closed across the intersection, then we climbed up on the gate for a front row seat!

I’ve learned a few things from my one and only running of the bulls. First, they don’t just run once, at least in a small town like Viana. They run back and forth through town several times. And…

The first time – the bull is fast! No one runs with a fresh bull. At most, the macho guys wait for the bull to run past, and then stick out a leg, or a water bottle to poke at him as he runs by.

As a spectator, you’re more at risk of getting clobbered by a man leaping the fence to escape the bull, than you are from the bull himself. Fair enough!Eventually the bull gets tired. Then men start to run with him. Only the youngest and fastest at this point…

Eventually the bull gets angry. After a few passes through town, he’s hot. And tired. And big plumes of snot are hanging from his nose. He’s not very fast anymore, but he’s willing to get distracted and ram into the crowd. Or a gate. Or a wall. Or pretty much anything.

  • This is when it gets interesting. Young men run with the bull, and jump out of the way. Old men hold sheets of plywood and cardboard across the street and dare the bull to break them. Spectators leap out of the way when a distracted bull charges the fence for no good reason. (this actually happened, but I don’t have pictures. Self preservation) At this point, Mike was happy he decided not to run with the bulls.
  • Finally, the clock strikes 2:30, and the poor tired bulls get to return to their pens. The town’s people grab another round of drinks to celebrate that they are still alive, and then… Siesta….

You’ve got a lot of huevos, my friend…

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My Camino is pretty much powered by eggs! Mike and I are both gluten-free for medical reasons so we can’t eat bread, pizza, sandwiches, or pasta. It can make things kind of tricky in Spain. Breakfast here is usually bread or croissant with butter or jam and coffee and juice. The easiest snack to grab during the day’s hike or when the day’s walk is over but there’s hours until dinner is a boccidillo, or ham and cheese sandwich. Since we can’t do bread, we eat tons of eggs instead.

We are becoming connoisseurs of the Spanish tortilla. At it’s most basic, it’s a big omelette of eggs and potatoes. It’s usually sitting in the counter of a bar, ready to be sliced and served alone or as a sandwich.

Now mind you, we’re eating this at least twice a day, so we get really excited when we find something different -maybe tortilla with olives and peppers, or one that’s extra thick or particularly crispy on top.

Of course, Mike is thrilled when they give him a slice that’s extra big – when they don’t, he’s taken to ordering two slices right off the bat. I, on the other hand, order two coffees ’cause there are no venti-sized cups here!

Occasionally, the tortilla is already premade into sandwiches, so we have to negotiate using our very limited Spanish to see if they’ll make us a fresh one “sin pan.” Sometimes these turn out to be the freshest, yummiest tortillas of all!

We recently spent the night in the small village of Atapuerca, which is organised to support tourists visiting the archaeological site and not really supportive to pilgrims. The only place serving food before 8pm was a bar. And the only option besides sandwiches was fried eggs. Go figure!

Add that to the hard-boiled eggs we often make when we stay in an albergue with a kitchen and, as Mike says “I think I’m on my eighth egg of the day.”