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Yes! I lost the credencial, but I didn’t mind because I also got the sellos in my journal, with comments about each (not only albergues, but one or more bars/cafés per day and even a few shops).
At Oasis Trails, when we were full, we always made phone calls to other albergues and/or taxis for the pilgrims we could not host. I suspect 90% of albergues would do the same.
To get up there, I had to unhitch my bike trailer and strap it on my back. A Korean pilgrim offered to carry the bike. And a local was very insistent I not try to bike the descent. So I took highways to Uterga.
And there was a spot near Logroño where I might have learned to fly if the brakes...
Yes, good question. The credencial with all the sellos is sufficient evidence you walked, eh?
But then there’s that bit about sins being forgiven. Or have they removed that wording?
I share your hobby, though I might not want to pay for a stamp. Would the Correos folks postmark the credencial (or diary, in my case) without a purchased stamp? I have stamps from albergues, cafés, turismo offices, and other shops, but Correos never occurred to me. I also got a nice sello...
Maybe some of them. Others change the date on the cover and sell something otherwise unchanged. The 2016 Michelin guide I bought did not list an albergue that had started in 1999, but did list in the same village one that had been in ruins for several years. (I spent more than fifteen months...
At our albergue, we did not allow dogs inside, but if it were raining, we could drape a tarp over our check-in table to make a tent and fasten the dog’s leash to the rather heavy umbrella post in the center of it. One pilgrim with two large dogs was allowed by the powers-that-be to sleep in the...
My experience, having biked thousands of kilometers (and walked thousands) is that most of us do know that. And that includes hundreds of kilometers in both modes on the Francés and the Vía de la Plata.
I stopped for café con leche at least once in every village and got a sello from them. Got a sello from at least one albergue in every village whether I slept there or not. And frequently from a shop or oficino de turismo. But I put them in my diary with comments about the place and the area...
I’ll list neither what I liked nor what I didn’t, because when I go somewhere, I want to see what IS more than what I would prefer it to be.
But I will confess that there were things I liked and things I didn’t.
For some guides, "updated" apparently means they changed the date on the cover. In 2016, the Michelin Guide for that year did not mention an albergue that had been there twenty years, but it did mention a parochial in the same village that had actually not exiswted for five years.
I’m seventy and I don’t think so. Spent fifteen months doing so from age 60 to 64. Only reason I’m not still doing so is someone else’s medical condition. And for what it’s worth, I've checked in pilgrims older than me, one of them blind. And walked/biked thousands of kilometers myself...
I’m skeptical about any “rule of thumb” for when places will raise prices. It’s true that many will pick the first or last day of a year or month, but they don’t have to.
Also, some places won’t update their websites. And most Camino guides will be way out of date. I purchased a 2016...
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