The Story Behind the Sinner’s Guide
An unfortunate brush with the law, a riderless customised motorbike, and a chance encounter with a gorgeous hippy girl has wild biker Eddie Rock heading straight for Amsterdam’s red light district to drink, think, and process his reckless antics of previous months.
During his sabbatical in the city of sin, a bizarre encounter with a human plant pot and a freak accident in an adult cinema propel Eddie towards the path to redemption and re-enlightenment.
Going from two wheels to two feet, Eddie heads to Spain to sort himself out once and for all by walking the fabled Camino de Santiago pilgrim trail, hoping to find forgiveness for a lifetime of bad behaviour. What followed is history and became The Camino de Santiago: A Sinners Guide.
The aptly named Sinners Guide is a laugh-out-loud essential item for the modern-day pilgrim. Eddie’s detailed experiences are more like the antics of some of the bawdier characters in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales than the spiritual guidance knocked out about the Camino de Santiago by most other authors.
Eddie Rock's book is an honest, entertaining, warts-and-all long walk through alcoholic indiscretions, brushes with the law yet again, and the accidental genital application of deep heat. . And all the while Eddie provides an entertaining commentary upon his surroundings, while never taking himself too seriously.
Eddie gives you a refreshing change from the usual run of Camino pilgrimage books, bringing a bit of fun and immorality to the Camino.
About time someone did!
An unfortunate brush with the law, a riderless customised motorbike, and a chance encounter with a gorgeous hippy girl has wild biker Eddie Rock heading straight for Amsterdam’s red light district to drink, think, and process his reckless antics of previous months.
During his sabbatical in the city of sin, a bizarre encounter with a human plant pot and a freak accident in an adult cinema propel Eddie towards the path to redemption and re-enlightenment.
Going from two wheels to two feet, Eddie heads to Spain to sort himself out once and for all by walking the fabled Camino de Santiago pilgrim trail, hoping to find forgiveness for a lifetime of bad behaviour. What followed is history and became The Camino de Santiago: A Sinners Guide.
The aptly named Sinners Guide is a laugh-out-loud essential item for the modern-day pilgrim. Eddie’s detailed experiences are more like the antics of some of the bawdier characters in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales than the spiritual guidance knocked out about the Camino de Santiago by most other authors.
Eddie Rock's book is an honest, entertaining, warts-and-all long walk through alcoholic indiscretions, brushes with the law yet again, and the accidental genital application of deep heat. . And all the while Eddie provides an entertaining commentary upon his surroundings, while never taking himself too seriously.
Eddie gives you a refreshing change from the usual run of Camino pilgrimage books, bringing a bit of fun and immorality to the Camino.
About time someone did!
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versión español below
Excerpt:
‘Her eyes they shone like diamonds. I thought her the queen of the land and her hair hung over her shoulders tied up with a black velvet band. Well, that was Suzie, almost . . .
The musicians played on with the traditional old classic, and I sank deeper into the frolicking blue eyes of the mysterious blonde hippy girl sitting beside me. Her happy face sparkled as she giggled naughtily at my tales of global misadventure, and now seemed a good time to introduce Suzie to a very good friend of mine; a special friend who had travelled back from Amsterdam with me (in my boot).
‘Mr. Jack Herrer?’
As we walked out through the smoky bar to meet Jack, I couldn’t help but notice Suzie’s fine physique. Her figure was perfect as far as I could tell—slim and shapely in all the right places, and when she walked, she took very long strides, giving her an almost panther like step. ‘So, where’s this Jack friend of yours?’ she asks.
‘He’s just arrived,’ I laugh, pulling a large joint from my pocket.
‘Ladies before Gentlemen,’ I say, handing her the reefer.
Our hands touch for the first time, releasing a spark of sexual energy that bounces around my body, arousing the most base of intentions.
In the darkness her pretty face glows, as she takes a hit, with smoke billowing from her sexy lips into the warm summer night.
‘Wow, holy Jeysus,’ she laughs. ‘My head’s fecking spinning!’
‘No; Holy Jack Herrer, Cannabis cup winner three times.’ I tell her.
‘It’s similar to the grass we smoked in Spain last year,’ she says.
‘You ever heard of the Camino de Santiago?’ she asks.
‘No, I never smoked it!’
‘Noooo, you fecking eejit. It’s an old pilgrimage route through Spain. I walked it last year with my three girlfriends, Marie, Siobhan, and Clare. ‘Great Craic we had every day and plenty of smoke’
As Jack Herrer began to take us on his journey, Suzie began to take me on hers. I sat back and listened intently as her gorgeous Irish accent spirited me up and away on her fun-filled journey through Spain.
Her happy hippy tale began in the French Pyrenees and ended five hundred miles later on the Atlantic coast. It sounded like a fantastic adventure and in my Herrered haze I see myself on the trail, becoming one with nature, surrounded by a posse of sexy hippy girls whilst sleeping out under the stars and little parties around the campfire, leaving the rat race far behind.
The more I smoked the better it all sounded, and I particularly liked the parts of the story where the girls got naked, drunk, or stoned and often all three at the same time.
An alternative hippy holiday, just the job for a tortured soul like me.
‘Suzie, I’m sold. How do I get there?’
‘Hang on,’ she says. ‘When you finish the pilgrimage at the cathedral in Santiago you put your hand inside a handy hand shaped hole in a magic pillar worn away by millions of pilgrims hands and all your worldly sins are forgiven.’
‘What, all of them?’
‘Yeah, all of them, ’ she says.
‘What, by putting your hand in a handy hole shaped hand hole?’
‘Yeah’ she laughs ‘And when you get to the sea you burn all of your clothes on the beach, get naked, and party like it’s nineteen ninety nine!’
‘Wow, I wish I’d been at that one,’ I tell her.
‘Jesus, you should go. It would do you the world of good,’ she says, smoking the last of the joint.
Author bio:
Eddie Rock was born at 10:10pm in Crumlin hospital Dublin on the 5th of October 1971. Being born Irish probably explains his love of storytelling.
Eddie dropped out of school at the age of 16 and got a job at the local steel works, quickly realising that there was more to life than making steel. In 1990 he began his writing and travelling career, booking a one way ticket to Israel and a spell on a kibbutz.
After Israel came Amsterdam followed by a brief spell back in the UK. Then Eddie was off to Australia on a one-year working holiday visa. There he ended up in all kinds of adventures and misadventures and 18 months later Eddie found himself on the wrong side of the law at her majesty’s pleasure in the Perth Immigration Detention Centre with a colourful Japanese Yakuza Gangster as a cell mate. It was during this time Eddie put pen to paper and began his travel comedy entitled ‘Backpacking: for the Craic’.
‘Craic’ is an Irish word meaning fun, and not to be confused with ‘Crack’ a small white stone smoked in a glass pipe.
Eddie’s varied travelling career includes time as an explosives handler in the Canadian Arctic, a carpenter’s mate in Holland, and a wine maker in Galicia.
Since 1994 Eddie was putting pen to paper in the hope of becoming a writer but fate, and Eddie’s wild side, had him all over the place until he finally managed to complete ‘The Camino de Santiago: A Sinners Guide.’
Eddie hated the idea of the fantastic people of Spain lacking a valuable reading experience and had the book professionally translated into Spanish.
Apparently the Spanish copy is better than the English.
Eddie now lives deep in the Galician forest in northwest Spain.
1 comment:
A really enjoyable book. Makes the pilgrimage sound far from religious.
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