What I have noticed over these first 4 days from SJ to Cirauqui is the total absence of Americans. Are there any or am I just riding an American free wave?
In one sense the suggestion by someday that interest in the Camino wanes is true -- when the "Camino craze" grabs people of a certain nationality, there tends to be a wave of people from that country lasting several years, as many of those whose interest is piqued will get along into Spain simultaneously. There have been waves of French, Italians, and Germans, and now Americans.
As a local, national interest in the Camino can fade over time, as those interested in the Camino will end up as already having done it, nevertheless each new wave still incrementally increases the underlying basic numbers, as each nation provides new generations of pilgrims to follow where their elders have been before them (plus of course all of us repeat offenders
) -- but it is natural for the % of French, % of Italians, % of Germans, and % of Americans and so on to drop after a time to more of a generational baseline.
Perhaps the initial wave of the American influx of those inspired by
The Way is finally coming to an end, and the current numbers may also be reflecting a more typical drop in numbers after a Holy Year, as was the 2016 Jubilee Year, than was visible at the height of that wave ? The existence of such huge numbers of pilgrims in years that were not Holy Years during the 2010s has been a fairly unusual phenomenon.
