A Place To Lay Our Heads

The earliest records of visits to the shrine at Santiago de Compostela date back to the 9th century. By the 12th century over half a million pilgrims, or peregrinos as they are known in Spain, were making the pilgrimage each year. Religious orders started building Alberques or Refuges to provide support and shelter for the many pilgrims making the pilgrimage. In the past, the pilgrimage was a dangerous undertaking due to weather, bandits and wild animals and many pilgrims did not make it back home.

Today if you are planning to make the journey, you have several choices as to where you will sleep each night. Some people only stay in hotels along the way and book their accommodations in advance. Some stay in boarding houses or bed and breakfast type of accommodations and also book them in advance. The advantage of doing it this way is that you are assured of a private room with bath and don't have to worry about whether or not you will find a place to stay. The down side is of course the cost and the fact that you are locked into a set schedule and must cover a certain number of miles in order to reach the hotel you have your reservation in.

The other option is to stay in the Alberques or refuges that are only open to pilgrims making their way along the route. They operate on a first come first served basis and you have to be a pilgrim carrying a credential, or pilgrim passport, to be allowed in. This is how Savanna and I will be doing it. The advantage of doing it this way is that we are not on a set schedule and since we will be carrying everything we need in our backpacks we can stop whenever we want. We just have to find a village that has an alberque that has a couple of open bunks for us. The other good thing about staying in them is the cost. Most cost from 5 to 10 Euros for a bunk and breakfast which is about 6 to 11 dollars.

Above is a picture of a Credential or Pilgrims Passport. As you can see it bears multiple stamps. The stamps are from the alberques or churches you visit during your pilgrimage and serve as evidence that you completed the journey when you reach Santiago where you will receive a certificate of completion from the church. Some alberques are operated by the village government. Some are ran by religious institutions. Others are operated by private individuals. No two are alike and the services they provide vary greatly. Some only provide a bunk and others may have washers and dryers, wi-fi, kitchens and meals. Some are housed in buildings that are hundreds of years old and others are in more modern structures.

Most of the alberques lock their doors at 10 PM and pilgrims have to be out by 8 AM the next morning. This might sound strict but in reality after walking 14 to 20 miles during the day, the last thing you need is someone drunk and staggering around the place waking everyone up late at night. The caretakers also have to get everyone out early so they can start getting ready for the next days bunch of pilgrims. That is the reason for being kicked out so early.

Savanna and I will be doing our pilgrimage a lot like the pilgrims of the past did. We will be carrying our belongings with us on our backs, making our way to Santiago on foot, eating wherever we can find a place selling food, eating what the locals eat, and sleeping wherever we can find a place to lay our heads in a refuge. I am sure some experiences will be good and some will be not so good but that is part of the adventure. One of the sayings on the Camino is that "The Camino Will Provide". You just have to have faith that it will.