Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela

[falcon269]

Snoring is prominently featured in virtually every blog about the Camino, usually with a mixture of humor and irritation. I heard several times that some albergues have rooms or space set aside for snorers, but I never found one. I met a peregrina who spent many nights sleeping outside to get away from snoring (she did not like to wear earplugs). One hospitalero passed out disposable earplugs when a heavy snorer fell asleep early in the evening from tapas and wine. The laughter lasted for several minutes as pilgrims made jokes about the obliviously sleeping snorer. He never knew why everyone was smiling at him the next morning!

Does anyone have thoughts on dealing with snoring?

[MermaidLilli]

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change". One of my favorite quotes.
It works.
Lillian

[Annette]

Mermaidlilli,

I will add this quote to my website -
I too love this quote. It is absolutely true... and the camino is the right place to practise this... - Not only is it good on the Camino but in daily life as well... things become so much easier.

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change"

[John Hussey]

Snoring is prominently featured in virtually every blog about the Camino, usually with a mixture of humor and irritation. I heard several times that some albergues have rooms or space set aside for snorers, but I never found one. I met a peregrina who spent many nights sleeping outside to get away from snoring (she did not like to wear earplugs). One hospitalero passed out disposable earplugs when a heavy snorer fell asleep early in the evening from tapas and wine. The laughter lasted for several minutes as pilgrims made jokes about the obliviously sleeping snorer. He never knew why everyone was smiling at him the next morning!

Does anyone have thoughts on dealing with snoring?

I'd like to know, too because I believe I am part of the problem. At least I have been told i snore, so I must asume that I do. But I am not sure what I can do about it, as much as I would like to. I vaguely do recall one, at least , albergue had a room set aside just for snorers but I cannot recall where it was...but it was on the Camino Frances....atapuerca???

[msuze]

In the spirit of the lovely quote provided by Lillian, I found that accepting snoring as an essential part of the Camino experience allowed me to be changed by it. Like John, I was worried in the beginning that I kept folks up with my occasional snoring. As soon as I learned to accept others' snoring and trust that others could do the same, I became less judging of myself and others. In a strange way, I was amused to learn that so many people snore in so many different ways! The rhythmic chorus of breath and snoring each night were potent reminders that we are all equally corporeal... snoring as a lesson in mindful loving. I really grew to love it all.

That said, I found my snoring greatly diminished when I drank lots of water, avoided wine and dairy products before bedtime; and slept close to an open window (if possible).

Back at home now, I wake in the middle of the quiet night and fondly remember those communal ensembles. Really

-melinda

[Rebekah Scott]

my first time experience with hospitalero-ing was at Refugio Gaucelmo in Rabanal del Camino, where our Scottish co-warden described the noise in the dormitory as "midnight on the Kalahari!"
We had a four-bunk room set aside for snorers or sick people, but unfortunately the sick people took precedence that time. ..and many snorers don´t identify themselves as such. Who wants to be a leper?

My husband Patrick is a great snorer, and has given up using albergues and walking caminos, he says, because his nighttime racket is so disturbing to others. (I wear earplugs to bed almost every night, even though Shirley McLaine says they block my "chakra flow." I´d rather sleep, thanks anyway Shirl.)

Short of stoning the snorers, Earplugs are the only practical answer I´ve found. If you don´t like using earplugs, and you still can´t sleep, try drinking another couple of glasses of tinto with dinner. You will sleep, but you may find out the next day you joined in the midnight chorus!

If you really really can´t stand it, and you´re beginning to feel hatred toward the snorers, maybe you ought to check into a hotel or hostel for a night or two until your attitude adjusts. Or consider going home. If you can´t take the racket (or the solutions offered), get out of the albergue.

[sillydoll]

Midnight in the Kalahari!!
That reminded me of a comment Joyce Rupp makes in her book - Walk in a Relaxed Manner. (I've lent the book to a wannabe peregrina so I hope Joyce will forgive me if I don't recall her comments exactly). She said that her apartment in the US borders on a wood or forest. At the end of the day, she likes nothing better than to watch the sun set and listen to the sounds of the night - frogs croaking, crickets chirping, birds coming home to roost, and even the odd coyote calling. Why then did she find human night sounds so disturbing? She decided to accept the pilgrims' snoring, snuffling and talking in their sleep as normal - sounds of the night. From then on she she slept much better.

[MermaidLilli]

Exactly!!
I also like to tell people that snorers were around in cave-man days as a way to scare off night-time predators. Bears would not come into a cave with all that racket! So it's a survival technique. See? We are protecting you!
LIllian

[KiwiNomad06]

(I wear earplugs to bed almost every night, even though Shirley McLaine says they block my "chakra flow." I´d rather sleep, thanks anyway Shirl.)
Short of stoning the snorers, Earplugs are the only practical answer I´ve found.

I bought earplugs in Viana. The biggest problem was choosing which kind as the pharmacy had so many varieties. (Obviously I wasn't the first person to buy them there!) They made a huge difference. I felt quite sanctimonious on a few mornings when others complained about the noise on some bad nights and I had to ask 'What noise?' Though even with earplugs, there was the night in Brea, not far from Santiago, when the woman's snoring was sooooo bad (someone described it as being like a pig that kept getting its throat cut) that I couldn't block it out even with earplugs. But it became a topic of convo along the way the next day, and then you discovered others who knew the same woman from other nights along the trail.....
Margaret

[Alan Pearce]

Our small group had been on the road for nearly 4 weeks when we arrived in Leon and decided to give ourselves a treat by not going to the usual albergue, but booked in to a hostal instead. One of the attractions of this plan was that we would get a much better sleep, undisturbed by the multitude of snorers that you find in the albergues. The plan worked really well until 12.30am, when some lunatic started playing the bagpipes just below the balcony of our second storey window. Don't get me wrong, I love the bagpipes, but in the right time and place! In the end we got the giggles and drifted off back to sleep, with the piper still going in the background.
Perhaps we need a forum where people can write in with their funny tales of the camino.
Alan

[MermaidLilli]

Now, if someone can fall asleep to the sound of bagpipes.....snoring is nothing compared to that!
One night I had a hard time falling asleep in Burgos because we had to be in bed at 10 pm but we could hear children playing downstairs. Now that's a twist!
Lillian

[JohnnieWalker]

Definition of a musician - someone who can play the bagpipes but chooses not to

[Rebekah Scott]

A bagpiper standing below your balcony... OMG. How did you ever resist throwing a great vat of water out the window??

(I know a pilg who used a squirt gun on a repeat snorer. It seemed like a cute idea, but the snorer figured it out and just about punched the joker in the face!)

[falcon269]

In France, fellow pilgrims would whistle to wake the snorer. Of course, that woke everyone! Perhaps the hope is that everyone will be able to fall asleep before the snorer starts snoring again.

[viajero]

I have had to laugh while reading this thread and it has made me recall the snoring situation when I walked in March. I am a light sleeper anyway and do not sleep so well when I am away from home. I wore earplugs but pretty much felt that I would often be awake whether people were snoring or not. Often I would lay awake at night in the albergues, tired but grateful for a place to stretch out my body. There were few of us in the albergues at that time of year and more often than not, we were with people that we had spent quite a bit of time with. The dear French gentleman that we walked with, and who we adored, was a snorer. One night, while he was snoring, the young Dutch woman started clapping her hands. After one clap the snoring would subside a bit. She later told us that she had read that if you clap, or make some other noise, it would waken the snorer (only slightly)and he would resume sleeping without snoring. It seemed to work a bit. I snapped my fingers a few nights myself. We tended not to do this in a large albergue, or with "strangers". Some nights later, at about 3:00 a.m. the young German woman in the bunk next to me and I were awake even though it was quiet. She looked at me and said, "I think the French man might be dead! He isn't snoring." The next morning we told him this and we all had a good laugh about it. I loved that among the new pilgrims, people were fairly gentle with snorers and tended to let it go. But, when a friend from home joined me for the last week and she proved to be a snorer, I reached over to her bunk, shook her strongly and said, "STOP SNORING". I guess the snoring is part of the experience and the earplugs helped a lot.

[sillydoll]

We booked into Hostal Suso in Santiago at the end of our walk last year.
I could not sleep. It was too quiet. There was no snuffling, snorting, coughing, snoring. I had gotten used to those sounds and slept through them but sleeping in a private room was dreadful. I could hear water dripping into the toilet cistern in the en suite bathroom, and every voice that floated up from downstairs. I lay awake like a Dik-Kop - an African bird with wide staring eyes. For days after we returned home, I couldn't sleep when my husband snored and he couldn't understand how I'd managed to sleep through 60 - 100 snores in one room but couldn't bear his lone croaking!

[Artemis]

Snorer here. My sister and I both snore. When we reached an albergue after a long hot day of hiking we would try to beg (in our poor Spanish) to be able to drag our mattresses into the kitchen or hallway so we wouldn't bother all the other pilgrims. That meant we had to stay up until the last person left the kitchen and wake up when the first person came in. We only found one place that had a room for snorers and that was in Obanos. I know there must be more places. If there was a list of albergues with rooms for snorers we would happily plan our stops there next time we do the camino. We are thinking we might have to take a tent if we can't find snorers rooms.

[ElRicardoL]

I have to confess, I am a snorer.
I was really concerned before setting off on our Camino last September. I did not want my snoring to cause anyone a sleepless night. What could I do?
There is a product called "BreatheRite" (I think that's how you spell the word?). It consists of an adhesive strip that you afix crosswise to your nose. The object, is to open up the airways and therefore reduce snoring. According to my wife - who has spent many nights listening to my snoring, this product is quite effective and reduced my normal nocturnal roar to a soft purr (even after a few glasses of Rioja).
Readily available in our home country of Canada, I'm sure it is also available in many other countries - perhaps under a different name.
Time for my afternoon nap - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Richard

[Rebekah Scott]

yes. Breathe-Rite Strips are available in large farmacias in Spain. They work pretty well on snorers who can be convinced to use them!

[isabelle304]

I thought I´d revive this thread as it has special resonance for me (excuse the pun!).

I´ve just finished my Camino and it was during the very first night - in St Jean de Pied de Port - that I found out that I am quite a loud snorer - I was mortified to be told by my room mates in the morning that they had just had a terrible night because of me. I hoped this might have been a one-off but alas, I also got reproachful looks the next morning when getting up in Orisson. In Villamayor de Monjardin, I woke up around 1am to go to the loo, and the girl next to me begged me to change position/sleep on my side.

My snoring became quite a worry for me. I tried EVERYTHING. Sleeping on my side. Sleeping on my front. Sleeping without a pillow. Sleeping with 2 or 3 pillows. Sleeping sitting up (yes, really!). I tried two different types of anti-snore spray. I tried the nose strips. I begged hospitaleros to let me have a bed away from everyone else (most of the time, that was impossible, and the hospitaleros just laughed at me and said snoring was part of the camino). In Negreira, I even sneaked out of bed once everyone was asleep and went and slept downstairs on the very uncomfortable two-seater sofa, where I slept badly with my feet wedged up the wall and my head next to a very noisy Coke dispenser.

Yet I found no solution to my snoring. The embarassment actually caused me a fair amount of stress and worry and I would seriously think twice about doing the Camino again, just because of that! On several nights towards the end I stayed in pensions, just so I could get a room to myself and relax! I know plenty of snorers on the Camino just laugh it off and don´t care if they keep others awake, but I do

Isabelle

[Artemis]

Oh Isabelle, I feel for you. That was exactly how it was for my sister and me. We hated keeping other people awake at night and hated the looks we got in the morning. Every evening it was a worry about whether we could find a place away from the other pilgrims. We slept on floors when we could in the kitchens or hallways. We stayed at pensions as much as we could afford but hadn't budgeted for them. I snuck downstairs in Portomarin and slept on that sofa so I had to laugh when I read about you doing the same thing. I wish there were more snorers rooms in the albergues. We usually got the same response from the hospitaliers, "This is not a vacation, this is a pilgrimage, people should expect snorers!" But of course they didn't have to sleep in a room with us. We have tried the strips and the sprays also and they didn't work for us either. Before we left we thought blisters, sore muscles or getting lost would be our problems but snoring was the major problem that we had.