- Time of past OR future Camino
- Too many and too often!
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There’s this popular, but false, image of pilgrimage as the solitary quest of a lonely wanderer searching for enlightenment. On the Camino, that image doesn’t survive for long. As soon as you arrive, you’re surrounded by crowds of travelers from all over the world. You sleep in communal hostels, you eat dinner in bars full of other pilgrims, and you pass through a steady stream of communities that are supported almost exclusively by the Camino economy.
This is the nature of the vast majority of traditional pilgrimages, from the Hajj to Mecca, to the journey to Bodh Gaya in India, to the festival of the Virgin of Guadeloupe in Mexico. They happen in crowds.
This isn’t a bug in the system. It’s a feature.
A final thing that people have a hard time dealing with in Camino culture is the pervasive sense of faith that surrounds it. I don’t mean religion. I mean the simple acceptance that the Camino is a walk that will change your life.
It’s true. It’s all so cringe-inducingly earnest.
Here’s the thing though: that faith is well-founded, and the last lesson the Camino has for thru-hikers is to lean into it. Make it weird. Admit that you’re going on trail looking for magic. In all likelihood, you’re going to find it.
Nice, right! I think I saw "Fast Hiker" Youtuber say - and I paraphrase, we want the entire world to start walking to places again, so crowds, the bigger the crowd the more forward thinking the Camino will become. Walk town to town, enjoy the novelty of each bend, and marvel that people are drawn to walking in a group. Listen/Read Canterbury Tales, the tales are not even about the walk itself, because it was so normalized then, and I think normalizing walking to a place, even if far off, is beautiful.Thanks for sharing, that was an interesting perspective. I thought this was the most instructive part:
That's worth keeping in mind as we go through another year of 'Is the camino too crowded?' type threads.
Although the part below goes against the typical wisdom here, which is to try to lower expectations of first-timers because the experience may not be as life-changing as they'd thought it would be:
There are several route options for the Way of Saint James that are quite lonely until you reach the final stretch into Santiago.If you're looking for a pilgrimage where you can be alone with your thoughts a lot of or most of the time, look into the Shikoku 88 temples Buddhist pilgrimage in Japan.
For us Camino afficionados, you are certainly correct. For the audience of this particular article, "Camino" is going to refer to the Frances or one of the more popular routes in Spain, for which he has provided a not inaccurate description. The percentage of people each year who walk a Camino longer than a Yriple Crown thru-hike through wilderness and semi-wilderness is small enough, compared to the percentage of people walking the Frances, that I think the author is justified in describing the latter rather than the former.It’s a long walk across a whole country, but compared to the long trails in the States, it’s pretty soft. There are towns, hostels, and bars at two-hour intervals the entire way. It can be genuinely busy, with something near half a million people walking every year. There’s no actual wilderness involved.
It's of course not "a long walk" but a huge network of pilgrimage Ways, some of which are longer than any of the Triple Crown thru-hikes, and some of which do pass through wilderness and semi-wilderness.
I agree. The audience of this article is the typical thru-hiker and not the typical Camino peregrino. As @Bradypus said at the beginning of the thread the article is a different perspective, a nice antidote if you like, to Francis Tapon's article - an article, btw, that I only vaguely remember now but I don't remember it as negative as its title made it sound and where numerous forum reactions were a response to the provocative title and not to the content. Recollections may vary, of course.For the audience of this particular article, "Camino" is going to refer to the Frances or one of the more popular routes in Spain, for which he has provided a not inaccurate description
The Francis Tapon article is still available online. I just read through it again. Although he does list points in favour of the Caminos Tapon's main issue with the Camino is that it is simply not wild and remote enough for his liking. A mismatch between expectation and reality. The Tim Mathis article starts from a very different position - recognising from the start that a long-distance wilderness trail and a Camino are fundamentally different in character and then finding more positive elements in the difference.a nice antidote if you like, to Francis Tapon's article - an article, btw, that I only vaguely remember now but I don't remember it as negative as its title made it sound and where numerous forum reactions were a response to the provocative title and not to the content. Recollections may vary, of course.
Thanks for sharing this. I met the author on the Meseta on the 2017 camino she referenced. She was studying pilgrimage in general (eg she had worked on the filming of a pilgrimage documentary in Tibet) and I found her to be very interesting.Here is something else I stumbled upon today:
Conflicting Times on Camino de santiago
Of course I understand that point, but apart from the fact that treating "the" Camino as one particular route "starting" in SJPP and ending in either Santiago or Fisterra is a major cause of the overcrowding being discussed in another thread -- it does a disservice to the PCT/CDT/AT thru-hikers contemplating a Camino by reinforcing their expectations to the detriment of some alternative Camino routes that might suit them better.For us Camino afficionados, you are certainly correct. For the audience of this particular article, "Camino" is going to refer to the Frances or one of the more popular routes in Spain, for which he has provided a not inaccurate description. The percentage of people each year who walk a Camino longer than a [T]riple Crown thru-hike through wilderness and semi-wilderness is small enough, compared to the percentage of people walking the Frances, that I think the author is justified in describing the latter rather than the former.
And "end" points. On Facebook quite recently I saw some comment on the proposal to charge for entry to the Obradoiro - on similar lines to a proposal for a tourist charge to enter the Plaza de España in Sevilla. One person objected that it would stop pilgrims from completing their pilgrimages because all Caminos end at the inscribed stone in the Obradoiro which marks the recognition of the Caminos as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1993. That was certainly news to me!Of course US thru-hikers tend to see hiking routes as having fixed "start" points,
I've always considered the true "KM0" to be the relics of the saint. They are the foundation of the route.And "end" points. On Facebook quite recently I saw some comment on the proposal to charge for entry to the Obradoiro - on similar lines to a proposal for a tourist charge to enter the Plaza de España in Sevilla. One person objected that it would stop pilgrims from completing their pilgrimages because all Caminos end at the inscribed stone in the Obradoiro which marks the recognition of the Caminos as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1993. That was certainly news to me!
Johnnie Walker tells me that when he was involved in running the pilgrim office he suggested that the cathedral install a KM0 marker somewhere near the cathedral doors as a photo opportunity. The Dean at the time gave him a ticking-off and said that the Apostle's reliquary is and always has been the end of the pilgrimage and no other marker was needed. A point which the pilgrim office website makes quite eloquently on its homepage.I've always considered the true "KM0" to be the relics of the saint. They are the foundation of the route.
I walked the Inglés last year with first-timer friends who were amazed at the lack of a KM0 marker in Santiago. Maybe given the secularisation of the camino and the relaxing of requirements for the compostela in recent years, it could be time to revisit the idea of that marker.Johnnie Walker tells me that when he was involved in running the pilgrim office he suggested that the cathedral install a KM0 marker somewhere near the cathedral doors as a photo opportunity. The Dean at the time gave him a ticking-off and said that the Apostle's reliquary is and always has been the end of the pilgrimage and no other marker was needed. A point which the pilgrim office website makes quite eloquently on its homepage.
I think that would be an official confirmation that the Caminos are no longer to be seen as a pilgrimage to the tomb of the Apostle but are simply a long distance walk without any particular religious significance. If someone wants an explicitly non-religious end point for their journey then of course they are free to choose one for themselves. I find myself agreeing with Don Segundo that it is not something the cathedral should actively encourage.it could be time to revisit the idea of that marker.
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