Travels with My Donkey: One Man and His Ass on a Pilgrimage to Santiago by Tim Moore

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Travels with My Donkey: One Man and His Ass on a Pilgrimage to Santiago by Europe Travel Books

Travels with My Donkey: One Man and His Ass on a Pilgrimage to Santiago by Tim Moore
Price: $11.16

Features

Paperback: 336 pages

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin January 24, 2006

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0312320833

ISBN-13: 978-0312320836

Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches

Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces

From Publishers Weekly
A man, a donkey, and a very long walk: Moore's latest European adventure (after French Revolutions and others) finds him embarking on an ages-old physical and spiritual pilgrimage across Spain to the famed cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Moore entertains with his snappy one-liners and skewed views of the locals, his fellow pilgrims and his own reasons for undertaking the camino. Against advice to the contrary, he pursues his search for a donkey to accompany him, which "upgraded his camino from big walk to revelatory voyage of self-examination." Moore shines in detailing "Tim and Shinto's Excellent Adventure": during the day, he accumulates "clicks" (kilometers) and cajoles Shinto across bridges, grates and roads; afternoons and evenings are spent searching for donkey-friendly lodgings (and encountering a share of slammed doors). Fellow pilgrims (the "Baroness von Munchausen"; "New Mexico Joe") get full portraits between details of communal living and eating, and the sordid intimacies of the shared bathroom. His sections on the pilgrimage's history and the towns he passes, however, are dry in comparison to his anecdotal asides and may only appeal to history buffs or those who've traveled this route themselves. While Moore may not have found his "inner Tim," he does take readers on an entertaining, unusual adventure.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
Having no knowledge of Spanish and even less about the care and feeding of donkeys, Tim Moore, Britain’s indefatigable traveling Everyman, sets out on a pilgrimage to the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela with a donkey named Shinto as his companion. Armed only with a twelfth-century handbook to the route and expert advice on donkey management from Robert Louis Stevenson, Moore and his four-legged companion travel the ancient five-hundred-mile route from St. Jean Pied-de-Port, on the French side of the Pyrenees, to the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela which houses the remains of Spain’s patron saint, St. James.
Over sun-scorched highways, precipitous bridges, dirt paths shaded by leafy trees, and vineyards occasionally lashed by downpours, Moore and Shinto pass through some of northern Spain’s oldest towns and cities in colorful company. Clearly more interested in Shinto than in Moore, their fellow walkers are an assortment of devout Christian pilgrims, New Age--spirituality seekers aspiring to be the next Shirley Maclaine, Baby Boomers contemplating middle age, and John Q Public just out for a cheap, boozy sun-drenched outdoor holiday.
As Moore pushes, pulls, wheedles, cajoles, and threatens Shinto across Spain, the duo overnights in the bedrooms, dormitories, and---for Shinto---grassy fields of northern Spain. Shinto, a donkey with a finely honed talent for relieving himself at the most inopportune moments, has better luck in the search for his next meal than Moore does in finding his inner pilgrim. Undaunted, however, Man and Beast finally arrive at the cathedral and a successful end to their journey. For readers who delighted in his earlier books, Travels With my Donkey is the next hilarious chapter in the travels of Tim Moore, a book that keeps the bones of St. James rattling to this day.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Travels with My Donkey: One Man and His Ass on a Pilgrimage to Santiago (Hardcover) Note: this book has been originally published in Great Britain as "Spanish Steps", with the same subtitle. From the early 1990s the Camino Francés - an ancient pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in the Spanish province of Galicia - has been undergoing a rapid revival, to the point of becoming a hike of choice for the middle-age crisis sufferers and the spiritually fashionable from all over the world. Several good books (and many more indifferent and downright bad ones) have been written about the Camino, and now Tim Moore joined the level-headed group of authors with his "Travels with my Donkey". His account is not going to go down well with the professional "pilgrims" and the holy phonies who people both the road to Santiago and the Camino internet groups. He does not speak in vague and tearful terms about the "spiritual renewal". He makes fun of the highfalutin fantasies of Shirley MacLaine and Paulo Coelho. He is not a believer in Templar mysteries, ley lines, Celtic lore and magic swords. What's probably the worst, he does not look at his fellow pilgrims through the love-clogged lenses of New Age sentimentality. His book is full of annoying power-walkers, elderly lesbians, old naked German men, assorted nut cases, overcrowded refugios, eternally closed churches, sticky mud, bloody blisters and donkey crap. Just the same, he also describes ordinary people doing various acts of heart-warming kindness, and some of his weirdos are much more likeable than the average "pilgrim" types. Like Tim Moore's previous travel accounts, "Travels with my Donkey" is full of his trademark humor (somewhat heavy on sexual innuendo and mild scatology). It should be required reading for all the would-be walkers to Compostela, along with Jack Hitt's "Off the Road". PS. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Moore (without knowing his identity) in front of the Villatuerta albergue, after following him and Shinto the donkey at a very brisk pace for about two kilometres. He kindly took my picture with Shinto, and I would like to thank him for that again. Comment | Permalink | (Report this)

Travels with My Donkey: One Man and His Ass on a Pilgrimage to Santiago
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Updated on 8-25-2008.