Day 8: "El Punto del Muerte"

3 am I awake with a sudden urge to use the bathroom. I coax myself out
of my warm sleeping bag and quietly tip toe down a row of bunkbeds
with sleeping pilgrims. I arrive at the door of the bedroom in order
to make it to the bathroom down the cooridor and I find the bedroom
door stuck. I quietly and gently try to ease the door open...nothing.
I push a little harder...nothing. I begin to put all my body weight
against the door...nothing. With no other solutions, I wake chris up
to see if his strength or engineering skills could open the
door...nothing. Now, both of us urgently having to use the bathroom
are locked inside the bedroom with no way out.
We sit back on our designated beds facing each other and contemplate
using the street via the 3rd floor window. Finally, we heard a pilgrim
staggering towards the door for the same purpose. Chris and I quietly
observe a large hairy Spanish pilgrim (in his tidy whities) juggling
the doorknob hoping he has more success than we did...nothing. Next
thing I know, Chris and the Spaniard (Inagi) are standing at the door
in their skivies urgently trying to solve this rubix cube...nothing.
Everyone, with a full tank of gas, returns to bed. As I miserably lay
awake, I wait for the next midnight rider with mudbutt to approach the
door. I watched 4 different pilgrims fail at every attempt to relive
themselves.
Finally, 2 1/2 hours later, the original large Spaniard (Inaki) is no
longer concerned with waking the sleeping pilgrims but for his own
life. He was at, and I quote, "el punto de muerte". A Dutch woman who
had learned the secret of the door the day before (and the only
pilgrim that didn't have to use the bathroom at the wee hours of the
morning) hears the ruckus and thinks something is horribly wrong. She
jumps up and with the nudge of her pinky finger opens the door.
All 7 pilgrims, whose blatters are moments from bursting, run to the
bathroom only to find there is no toilet paper (which was obviously
not important to those who went before me).

If you look closely at this picture, you will notice I am the only
girl (excluding the famous Dutch woman to my left). There are many
things I can do without...toilet paper is not one of them. By the time
I was finally able to use the bathroom it was time for everyone to
wake up and I had to walk 30 km on 4 hours of sleep.
Day 8 is a memorable one.