Camino Royal

Worker loading bags into a car.

As the Camino is having resurgence, not every Camino is the same.  First of all for most it is no longer an exclusively Catholic experience.  Like society many who walk to St. James are not adherents to a particular Church: not to mention the Roman Catholic Church.  They are looking for something.  But what?  Many are young and idealistic.   And in a very selfish and individualistic world it is the community of the Camino that they seek.  For others, the beauty of creation beckons them to the hills, and valleys and streams.  Yes, even mountains beckon to be climbed.

Making the Camino is strenuous.  It was difficult back a thousand years ago.   It is today.  But even though there is one woman that I have come across making the Camino on horseback, we have changed.  So has the way of making the Camino.   Here are some observations of what I like to call “Camino Royal.”

One of the many companies that provide service to the pilgrim.

First of all is the business side of things.  As it has been from the beginning, many people make their livelihoods off the Camino.  They provide services that are needed, expected, demanded.  Here are some ways of making a “Camino Royal.”

You can have your bags picked up and sent from stop to stop.  There are companies that pick up bags at your hotel and bring them so that they await you at your destination.  I wish I would have known that before climbing the Pyrenees.

My faithful mochila!

Besides the moving of bags there is the moving of people.  Each town has taxis that are dying to take pilgrims from point A to point B on the Way of Saint James.  Not only do they wait, they also advertise.  Even more than hotels and albergues are the advertisements for taxi service along the way.

Of course people have to stay somewhere.  And while the Camino Frances is the best supported with infrastructure of all the routes with albergues, sometime people want more and so there are hotels and hostals and casas rural etc. to put them up when they need a little more or a little less of others.

Besides sleeping, people have to eat.  Food is good and brings people together.  Along The Way pilgrims will buy groceries and cook for themselves.  They also will go to coffee bars or restaurants.  Even Michelin rated restaurants!

Cyclist Support on the move!

Finally, I want to mention the cyclists, many of whom use support services.  Those support services can be very elaborate.  Cyclists can have there bags taken from destination to destination, be follow or preceded by a support truck and even have lunch prepared for them at a predetermined place.  They tend to stay at 3 or 5 star hotels.  What can be most irritating is the lunch though.  A support person will begin setting up for the peloton an hour or so before they arrive at choice picnic tables somewhere not allowing others to use that spot.  They set up at time can be elaborate:  table cloths, coolers, dishes and utensils.  The whole nine yards!   So that when the cyclists arrive they have (and have paid for) a veritable feast!

Ah! Camino Royal!