Pilgrim office in Santiago

[Joejoe]

Hola folks,
I have just completed the Camino Mozarabe from Almeria, the strange thing is the office in Santiago does not know this route exists.
They would not put it on the Compostela and insisted that the route was the de la Plata.
Very poor show from the staff.

 

[malingerer]

Hola folks,
I have just completed the Camino Mozarabe from Almeria, the strange thing is the office in Santiago does not know this route exists.
They would not put it on the Compostela and insisted that the route was the de la Plata.
Very poor show from the staff.

I have always regarded the Mozarabe routes as feeders to the Plata and started from Malaga years ago. I have also regarded the Plata as starting in Sevilla and ending in Astorga. I get annoyed when it is now lumped together with the Sanabres which is one of several options from Zamora and finishes in Santiago. But I don't make the rules and there are now more routes than ever.

Buen Camino and walk soft.!

Samarkand.

 

[Kathor1]

They would not put it on the Compostela and insisted that the route was the de la Plata. Very poor show from the staff.

I guess there is a misunderstanding somewhere.

The people working or volunteering in the Santiago pilgrims office may or may not know that there is a Camino Mozarabe in Spain. Or a Voie du Puy in France. Or a via Gallia in Belgium. Or a via Regia in Germany. It doesn't matter for your Compostela and their statistics. They very sensibly drew the line at the border of Galicia. The name that matters is the name of one of the caminos on which you walked within Galicia towards and into Santiago.

There is no camino name on the Compostelas in any case so I guess you refer to something else anyway?

 

[Jeff Crawley]

Hola folks,
I have just completed the Camino Mozarabe from Almeria, the strange thing is the office in Santiago does not know this route exists.
They would not put it on the Compostela and insisted that the route was the de la Plata.
Very poor show from the staff.

Do you mean the Certificado de Distancia? There's no place anywhere on the Compostela to put the name of the Camino walked.
The database we used when I worked there gives a limited range of choice but then there are dozens and dozens of variations in the web of Caminos, sifting through them all would be an onerous task when there's a queue of pilgrims waiting their turn.
Be grateful that you had the opportunity to walk any Camino in the current state of matters.

 

[lovingkindness]

Commisérations, @Joejoe I know how it feels....
...a few years ago I walked from Italy to Norway. It took me 6 1/2 months to get there. At the Piligrim centre in Trondheim, for the sake of statistics, the volunteer insisted that I had only walked from Sundsvall, Sweden (the last leg of my journey). He wouldn't write down Trieste, my starting point because those collecting statistics were only interested in numbers walking official St Olafs trails and none of those started in Italy. I felt somewhat diminished. For a long moment the joy , the discoveries, the struggle and pain experienced along the way felt irrelevant..... ahhhhhhh, statistics. What a mockery.

 

[Davie Blisters]

I think it depends who you see and how busy they are at the time.
My last expedition included camino's Madrid, Frances, San Salvador & Primitivo. These were listed on the 'distance certificate' along with total km.

Personally, I always look forward to see how my name is translated into Latin. I now have 3 versions

 

[lovingkindness]

ps @Joejoe .... these negative feelings were but for a moment. They were erased by a string of delightful surprises and the kindness of a stranger, who seeing my fatigue and faded clothes, invited me home for a few weeks.... God bless the Norwegians!!!!

 

[IngridF]

Hola folks,
I have just completed the Camino Mozarabe from Almeria, the strange thing is the office in Santiago does not know this route exists.
They would not put it on the Compostela and insisted that the route was the de la Plata.
Very poor show from the staff.

There is no mention of the route on the Compostela. The distance certificate is another matter. Having served as a volunteer at the pilgrims office, there are logistical challenges at times to include all the different routes of your walk.
Btw I enjoyed your pictures and reports, you are one of the few fortunate pilgrims who was able to complete a camino during COVID. For so many of us who longed to do this even for a short distance would be a positive.
Light and Love and stay Safe!

 

[gns]

Hola folks,
I have just completed the Camino Mozarabe from Almeria, the strange thing is the office in Santiago does not know this route exists.
They would not put it on the Compostela and insisted that the route was the de la Plata.
Very poor show from the staff.

I've had this experience twice. Once walking from Zamora via Braganza and then on the Camino Torres.

It seems that in the latter case I hallucinated the first five days as the certificate says I started in Almeida, whereas I distinctly remember setting off from Salamanca.

It qualifies as a mild annoyance in the grand scale of things.

I must admit that when I walked in July/August I thought I wouldn't bother with the Compostela, but when I arrived I wasn't alone and enjoyed going to get it with the others. It also felt right to go to the office as I had always done so before. I don't know how I will feel in future. There may come a day when it doesn't matter enough to walk the short distance to collect it, but that feels like as much of a conceit as placing too much store on the document.

I suppose there is no right answer and everyone just has to follow their own path as usual.

 

[Joejoe]

Do you mean the Certificado de Distancia? There's no place anywhere on the Compostela to put the name of the Camino walked.
The database we used when I worked there gives a limited range of choice but then there are dozens and dozens of variations in the web of Caminos, sifting through them all would be an onerous task when there's a queue of pilgrims waiting their turn.
Be grateful that you had the opportunity to walk any Camino in the current state of matters.

Jeff , don't tell me to be grateful, the people in the office should know the main routes, they have plenty of time to study them at the moment with so few pilgrims to deal with. The two staff manning the desk were quite rude when trying to explain to them, anyway none of that matters as i had a great adventure with fewer pilgrims on the routes.
Last year was a bit of a nightmare at times due to the vast numbers but overall still enjoyable.
I spoke to about 20 pilgrims in the plaza this year and they all said it was a far more fulfilling experience without the tourygrinos and the the stream of taxis dropping walkers off to fill up the albergues early in the day.
The downside to this is that many businesses will not survive without the pilgrims and many are already shut down.
Joe.

 

[Jeff Crawley]

Jeff , don't tell me to be grateful, the people in the office should know the main routes, they have plenty of time to study them at the moment with so few pilgrims to deal with. The two staff manning the desk were quite rude when trying to explain to them, anyway none of that matters as i had a great adventure with fewer pilgrims on the routes.
Last year was a bit of a nightmare at times due to the vast numbers but overall still enjoyable.
I spoke to about 20 pilgrims in the plaza this year and they all said it was a far more fulfilling experience without the tourygrinos and the the stream of taxis dropping walkers off to fill up the albergues early in the day.
The downside to this is that many businesses will not survive without the pilgrims and many are already shut down.
Joe.

We (the volunteers) that have manned the desks in the office do know the principal routes - they are listed out for us, but the authorities can't be expected to include every individual highway and byway.
Perhaps you might care to volunteer one year and see what it's like on the other side of the counter?

 

[David Tallan]

Jeff , don't tell me to be grateful, the people in the office should know the main routes, they have plenty of time to study them at the moment with so few pilgrims to deal with.

It is entirely your choice whether you want to feel grateful or entitled. It is other people's choice how they respond to what you have chosen.

 

[SabsP]

Jeff , don't tell me to be grateful, the people in the office should know the main routes, they have plenty of time to study them at the moment with so few pilgrims to deal with. The two staff manning the desk were quite rude when trying to explain to them, anyway none of that matters as i had a great adventure with fewer pilgrims on the routes.
Last year was a bit of a nightmare at times due to the vast numbers but overall still enjoyable.
I spoke to about 20 pilgrims in the plaza this year and they all said it was a far more fulfilling experience without the tourygrinos and the the stream of taxis dropping walkers off to fill up the albergues early in the day.
The downside to this is that many businesses will not survive without the pilgrims and many are already shut down.
Joe.

Please try to remind that the staff is working under stress. Not for the number of people but because of the fact that they are working in a semi public office in a region that is greatly hit by the Covid pandemic.
I applaud them that they are open in the first place!
Please be grateful that you were able to walk and not bedridden on some Covidward in a hospital.

To the mods : feel free to intervene in my post....

 

[Paul J W]

To pick up a compostela has, for me, been a prize in itself.
Over the past decades I have amassed an album of the certificates and, on the back of each, I have written details of route taken. A joy now, in my dotage, to read along with the photos and diaries!