Marcelino, the pilgrim who said that the Camino "lacked beer, marijuana and condoms," dies
We recover an interview from ten years ago that portrays the freedom, provocation and the particular meaning of life of one of those characters who made the Camino their home
🎧 LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW
The Camino de Santiago is made of millions of steps, but also of characters who leave a mark that is impossible to erase. Marcelino was one of them.
After learning the news of his death, today we want to recover on Camino de Santiago RTV an interview conducted approximately ten years ago and preserved in the Buen Camino Radio archives. A conversation that, listened to today, takes on a completely different meaning.
And just read its title to understand who Marcelino was:
"The Camino lacks beer, marijuana and condoms."
Provocative, free, direct and far from any politically correct discourse, Marcelino spoke about the Camino as he spoke about life: without filters.
That phrase could shock some and cause others to laugh, but behind it appeared a character who understood the Camino from a very particular perspective. For him, pilgrimage was not just about walking to Santiago, accumulating kilometers or getting a Compostela.
It was living.
It was meeting people.
It was sharing.
It was feeling free.
And, above all, it was to escape for a time from the rules that so often condition our daily lives.
A voice from another Path
About ten years have passed since that interview and listening to it today is also traveling to another moment on the Camino de Santiago.
A Way less dependent on social networks, mobile phones and photographing every moment. A Way where characters like Marcellin could become, almost without intending to, part of the human landscape of the pilgrimage.
They didn't need thousands of followers.
The pilgrims knew them.
And that was enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjsh50VyZsg
Marcelino belonged to that lineage of characters that are difficult to define and appear from time to time on the Jacobean routes. People who may not fit into any tourist guide, but who end up forming part of the memories that walkers take home.
You could agree with him or think exactly the opposite.
But it hardly left you indifferent.
An interview that today becomes a memory
The sound archive has something that photographs can never achieve.
The voice remains.
That is why that conversation recorded approximately a decade ago has a special value today. Marcelino speaks again. His way of expressing himself, his humor and that particular way of understanding the Camino returns.
And that phrase destined to become a headline also returns:
"The Camino lacks beer, marijuana and condoms."
Ten years later it can still provoke exactly the same reaction: surprise, indignation or a huge smile.
Marcelino probably would have loved it.
Because some pilgrims leave a stone on the Cruz de Ferro.
Others leave a photograph in front of the Cathedral.
And some characters leave stories that continue to circulate long after they have finished walking.
Marcelino left a few.
Today we recovered one of them.
Good Way, Marcelino.
