[Gocamino] last-minute questions

[Robert Spenger]

The way I look at it is that the "crime" was making the mistake of 
having the passport stamped in Leon. You weren't really starting there, 
so there was no point to it. If you had presented a completely blank 
passport at the small village, the hospitalera might actually have been 
honored that you had chosen that little village as your starting point. 
Hard to tell at this point. The fact that it was late in the very heavy 
2004 season probably did have a lot to do with it. There were a lot of 
longer term pilgrims still looking for beds and many of the 
hospitaleras/os were probably feeling rather frazzled by that time with 
the big crowds that they had been having.

Incidentally, Leon to almost O Cebreiro is a lot more than 3 days 
walking for most pilgrims. Only the real trail tigers would attempt 50 
km per day. Most of us would take 6 or 7 days to do that section.

regards,

Bob S.

On May 13, 2005, at 7:57 AM, Wm Thorkel Clark wrote:

My wife and I thought we could do something of the same.  We got our 
passport in Leon and after a couple of days visiting the city we took a 
bus up to a village within 7 km of  O Cebreiro.  When we presented our 
almost blank passports and requested beds, the hospitalera flew into a 
"rage" because we were "cheating".  She did stamp our passports; but 
beds were out of the question for the likes of us.  We paid 42 Euros 
for a nice room in a little hotel in the village.  That was September 
of '04, the Holy Year, and lots of folks were still on the Camino.  
Perhaps this year and this early the same crime will be only a clucking 
and a scolding .... but don't count on it.  We were in the wrong by 
leap frogging over about a three days march.  From there on we walked 
every foot of the distance and put lots of stamps in our credencials.   
Regards to all, Thorkel Clark

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