Free Travels with my Donkey by Tim Moore Page A

in words I could only ever imagine applying to an epic penalty shoot-out or premature ejaculation. In very many more ways than one, I had a long way to go.
    'Santiago good!' said the hotelier, slapping me on the back rather too hard as he poured out my third coffee. 'And children happy!' He beckoned me to the window, and we watched the kids who'd been making all the nocturnal racket prancing gleefully around a snout-down, grazing Shinto. What a lovely place for a one-donk sanctuary, I thought: how much better for both of us that he stay right here. But then the owner raised his eyebrows, apologetically moulding the features beneath as he morphed into the reluctant harbinger of bad news. 'Ah...' he murmured hesitantly, pointing at the field and then pinching his wrinkled nose. I nodded, drained my coffee and set off outside. It was all over the sandpit. A minute later, as the Internet translation of French donkey hygiene tips had advised, there I was, using two cardboards by way of spoons.
    The children gathered to watch as I flicked crap into the nettles with procrastinatory thoroughness. The hotelier had primed them, and I smiled bravely as they fired out the nouns I would soon become accustomed to hearing muttered around me: inglés, burro, peregrino. English, donkey, pilgrim. '¿A Santiago?' enquired a pigtailed ten-year-old, who after my wan nod of confirmation followed up with '¡Que sacrificio!' Fearsomely ominous words, the valediction to a suicide bomber, but uttered in a tone that suggested 'sacrificio' might be Basque for 'twat'.
    With an extended internal sigh I laid out saddle and luggage in the dewy grass. Shinto grazed on. He hadn't even acknowledged me yet. How desperate, how ludicrous this all was, like being pushed behind the wheel of a double-decker after half a lesson in a Mini Cooper. Wondering why I had to have an audience on the first morning, I filled the palm of my hand with supermarket rock-salt and lowered it to Shinto's head. 'Look, I know this is the hand that feeds you,' I began, but then he jerked up, snorted half the contents into the grass, then licked the rest from my flesh in three fat-tongued rasps.
    Well! The children aahed, and I nearly joined them. And it got better. I saddled and bagged him in ten minutes, and managed to clean out his hoofs, crap flakes and all, almost as if I knew what I was doing. I untied and coiled the night rope and clipped on the dog-chain attachment that fastened the walking lead to his head collar. I couldn't understand it: nothing bad was happening. The patron rushed out and gave me a tin of pâté. The children patted Shinto's flanks farewell. There was a pitch-roofed chalet just above us and from each of its open windows waved at least one pair of hands. Returning the gesture to all I launched into a stride and Shinto clattered obediently on to the concrete path. Make way for the ass-meister! Let the pilgrimage commence!
    We wound down the curves to the main road: Saturday morning, and almost no traffic. I took my place at Shinto's shoulder — correct positioning for road travel — and with something approaching aplomb off we marched, one man and his donk. With my senses emerging from panic stations to resume their normal duties, I could now appreciate the chilled and dewy morning's development into a fully-fledged azure-heavened Pyrenean scorcher. Valcarlos was where Charlemagne's rearguard had been ambushed and slaughtered by Moors (or in fact the first of what's clearly been a long line of Basque guerrillas) in 778, but despite this and the ongoing pilgrim fatalities it was difficult now to imagine it a Valley of Death. Above us on either side soared sheer cliffs and waterfalls, with farms perched impossibly in lofty iridescent pastures. The roadside verge was speckled with yellow alpine poppies. I filled my lungs and stripped down to my T-shirt. Shinto, I thought, looked terrific. The sun glossed and sleeked his mousy coat, his crested mohican of a mane