[Gocamino] Holy Year records shattered

[Sil]

Today is the day the record will be broken!  lavozdegalicia.es

Sometime today Santiago will receive pilgrim number 180 000 for 2010,
meaning that the 2004 record will be beaten - with 127 days of Holy Year
still remaining.

It was cold, but not raining, that Friday night on 31 December 2004 with not
even a handful of minutes left to nine o’ clock in the evening when a
pilgrim from Barcelona (12) collected his Compostela.  The Catalan had just
been give a very special, in fact, unparalleled certificate, the last one
for that year and would enter the annals of Christianity as the largest
turnout of pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago. Previously, in that Holy
Year, another 179 943 people had obtained the certificate.
Today as an adult, the kid will lose that status because between this
evening and tomorrow, pilgrim number 179 945 will arrive in the Galician
capital.  The record of the historic route will not only be broken, it will
be shattered. So far 122 142 Spanish (68.7 %) and the rest, almost 55 600,
foreigners have earned the Compostela.
Throughout August the Archbishopric of Santiago has been issuing a daily
average of 1,791 documents, while on certain days of the month as many as
2450 . Therefore, depending on the workload assigned in the next 48 hours to
the office where the credentials are provided, the historical record of 2004
will be beaten today. Not surprisingly, the staff of the pilgrim centre now
has 35 employees and volunteers.

Also, therefore, the most optimistic forecasts of the Church, whose leaders
had predicted in 2009 that the Apostle would attract during this Xacobeo
Year, in the best case scenario, 200,000 pilgrims, will be exceeded.
This means that if between now and Christmas this rate does not fall, or go
up, the estimates will be roughly 235,000 pilgrims. The pope's trip to
Galicia on 6 November could pull those numbers even higher, according to
experts. For now, the announcement of the visit has already filled the
hotels and their rates shot up to 205 euros per night.

-- 
Sil
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www.2009pilgrims.blogspot.com
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