katie@camino
Active Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- CF, SJPDP-Finisterre 2016;CP (Central) Porto-SdC 2017;CP (Coastal) Porto-SdC 2018;CF Leon-SdC 2019
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Thanks!In summer 1990 an afternoon in a refugio ("albergue" wasn't the term used then) was usually very quiet - probably half the nights between SJPDP and Santiago I had the refugio to myself. I normally paused for lunch then walked on until 6pm or later. Quite a few places would not open until 3pm or even 5pm anyway. Walking until late afternoon was pretty standard for most people then since there was no bed rush. The few people I did meet usually read a book or wrote up their diaries. Or we might just sit down and chat over a bottle of wine. By 2002 it was a lot busier but the pattern was much the same. Interestingly laptops had begun to make an appearance even though there was no internet to connect them to. Presumably the people using them had some serious writing in mind though I never bothered to ask. A 2002 laptop was a pretty heavy, bulky and fragile beast and I could not understand why people bothered with them but I saw quite a few that year.
Would you say it was more social in 1990/2002? I mean, I find it quite social now, even with the proliferation of mobiles - people are still people and we are ultimately social animals.
What did an afternoon in an albergue look like before mobile phones became a thing?
My experience on the camino does not go back to before cellphones - my first Camino Frances was 2011. Then my friend and I shared one cellphone, and I remember we only used it once - to call my husband when we arrived at the cathedral in Santiago. Occasionally, we did use the few computers available in albergues to check email and write home, and there was always a line of pilgrims waiting to use them. In Santiago, we spent a couple hours at the public library sending emails to let folks know we had finished the camino. I earned the nickname of "photographer of the camino" because the age of the selfie was yet to come. I carried a compact Canon S95 and made a point of taking photos of pilgrims, writing down their email addresses, and then sending them their photos when I returned home. Many pilgrims were delighted because they had not taken many, if any, photos. Similarly, I interacted with many local people as I took their pictures. I photographed what might have been the entire senior population of Las Herrieras (before O Cebriero) and sent a copy to the local albergue - I hope they received it!I've just completed my 3rd wonderful Camino and I have always wondered something....
What did an afternoon in an albergue look like before mobile phones became a thing?
I don't mean this as a "mobile phones = apocalypse" thread - it's a genuine, non-rhetorical question.
Did pilgrims take books to read?
Was it more social?
Did people sleep more in the arvos?
Were they walking for longer into the day?
Were there board games?
In 2016 a young man disturbed the quiet of the dorm in the large and recently refitted albergue in Burgos by yelling "This place is f****** s***" because there was no WiFi. Brand new showers, toilets, beds and mattresses apparently were not enough to justify the 5 euro he had paid to sleep there... Perhaps I am just a grumpy old dinosaur but I do wonder about some people's priorities and sense of entitlement. Many pilgrims would not consider staying at a place without wifi. They needed to blog.
I really appreciate this delineation of the social aspect of the Camino - more people but also bigger bubble. As someone who doesn't speak a lot of Spanish, I appreciate the company of fellow English speakers but also cherish those Spanglish conversations i have had with locals. On future Caminos i will certainly try to be more conscious of the bubble i create attempt to interact more with locals.The experience was very different in 1990 and then in 2002. In 1990 I probably saw no more than 30 other pilgrims on the whole CF. And that included the 9 of us at Roncesvalles at the end of day 1 which was the largest group I encountered anywhere. During the day I rarely saw another pilgrim and spent many nights alone in the albergues. But my contacts with local people were far more frequent and enjoyable than on later caminos. In almost every town I passed through someone would stop me for a chat, to shake my hand and wish me "Buen Camino!". As I was almost invariably the only pilgrim in a bar or restaurant I was often invited to sit with a family or group of friends rather than eat alone. On several occasions bar owners would refuse payment for my food and drink - the bill already quietly paid by another customer or "on the house" as a gift for the pilgrim. Although my lack of Spanish and the general lack of English limited conversation we usually found ways to communicate. English is far more commonly spoken on the Camino now than it was in 1990. By 2002 the number of pilgrims had risen enormously and the whole atmosphere of the Camino had changed. Already it was becoming possible and indeed normal for pilgrims to walk in a self-contained bubble: social contact being mainly with other pilgrims, often those who spoke one's own language. Contact with local people was much reduced as we were no longer a novelty. Most conversations with local people were with bar owners and hospitaleros about the nuts and bolts questions of food and drink and accommodation. Given the vast increase in numbers that is hardly surprising. So in my opinion 2002 was "more social" in that there were more people to talk with but it was more self-absorbed and centred on other pilgrims rather than local people. Sad. I consider myself very fortunate to have experienced both.
I try not to make too many judgements (on here at least!) about people's reported behaviour - but this young man needs to get his priorities straight. Give me fresh clean amenities over wifi anyday!In 2016 a young man disturbed the quiet of the dorm in the large and recently refitted albergue in Burgos by yelling "This place is f****** s***" because there was no WiFi. Brand new showers, toilets, beds and mattresses apparently were not enough to justify the 5 euro he had paid to sleep there... Perhaps I am just a grumpy old dinosaur but I do wonder about some people's priorities and sense of entitlement
I don't often see discarded books in albergues these days...I don't remember anyone having a laptop or electronic device in 2001. There were internet cafes in large towns. And phone cards, to be used in public telephone booths to ring home and assuage the worries of loved ones.
My memory is that most refugios did not open until 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and there was no pre-booking. Private refugios were the exception - they were almost all run by associations (Gaucelmo in Rabenaul) or religious organisations including the local parish, or by village or town councils. The only private ones I recall was the one just outside Pamplona operated by the Roncal family, and in Villafranca del Bierzo by Jesus Gato.
What did we do? Attend first of all to the usual chores - showering (and being very grateful when the water was hot), hand washing (no such thing as a washing machine in a refugio!), then talking to other pilgrims and organising dinner. It was pretty sociable. Less accommodation so even though there were fewer pilgrims we all tended to stay in the same places. I also carried books (or my husband carried them for me) - leaving them in refugios as I finished them, picking up ones left by others, and always buying if I was lucky enough to find a bookshop that stocked books in English. When Kindles first came out my husband was a very early adopter - I recall him standing beside me at the airport in Sydney saying "download some more, download some more"!
Incredible to think about being on the Camino during such world-changing events!I started my first Camino on 13th September 2001 (think about it).
I don't recall seeing a single mobile phone the whole trip. Cibercafes were few and far between and the only thing you saw on TV in bars and cafes was football (the one where they kick the ball), telenovellas and Hermano Grand. People read and swapped paperbacks.
We were pretty much in a bubble (or perhaps that transparent tube they had on ET) of get up, walk, shower, launder, siesta (not THAT much of a change then) until 7th October when somebody walked into the refugio and said there was a war on and everybody was asking what the heck was happening "out there"?
I have a few friends who were with the US forces in Vietnam and they apparently had an expression about leaving Vietnam and going back to the "World". Not as extreme as that obviously but there was a definite difference between Us on the Camino and Them out in the World, even lasted a few days after I got back home and was exposed to TV and newspapers.
In some ways a much more meditative, much less material experience than today.
Hard to believe it was just 17 years ago.
Thankyou! I'll check it out.@katie@camino, in addition to these really interesting first-person accounts being posted (please keep them coming, everyone!), you might want to take a look at a talk given by Nancy Frey at the Confraternity of St. James convention in London last year.
It's called Pilgrimage in the Internet Age, and examines how social media has changed the pilgrim experience. It's based on 8 years of research and her 25 years on and studying the Camino. It's posted on YouTube, but I don't know how to link it. (Maybe someone can help?)
It may sound academic, but she's an engaging speaker and I found it quite interesting. As is her book, "Pilgrim Stories, On and Off the Road to Santiago," published in 1998. Different world 20 years ago. Yet some things still timeless and universal.
This is an excellent reminder to me to consistently greet bar/restaurant owners with "buenos tardes".My 2002 experience was much as Bradypus and Kanga and Jeff Crawley have described. There was much more bookreading (I carried Oxford pocket classics of Anthony Trollope novels, as each chapter was pretty well a self-contained episode), with stacks of discarded or completed Paulo Coelho and Shirley MacLaine, and fervent journal-keeping. As albergues (the refugio term was dying out around then) were rarely open before 5, people would be found stretched out on benches and lawns dozing, sitting in cafes with a drink and socializing, particularly with speculation on how many showers there might be in the pueblo's single albergue--- a lot more gulag-like than the palatial establishments we have now. Small groups would huddle together in hunger for the opening of the village's single peregrino-menu restaurant at 7pm, or would sprint there after the village mass for an 8pm dinner so that they could get back before the albergue doors were nailed shut at 10pm. We would examine with tolerant curiosity the slice of carne served up with chips.
A few people were using cellphones, but they were mainly Spaniards engaged in their perpetual conversations with each other ("we like to talk," I was told). It was 2005 when a hairdresser from Manresa taught me how to text on a cellphone and this seemed to me to be a great improvement on trying to contact other pilgrims by leaving messages on albergue noticeboards.
I used the computers in public libraries/casas culturales for email and always found a few other pilgrims diligently typing away. Every now and then, I saw someone trying to upload photographs for their blogs (remember those?) and weeping with frustration as the bandwith failed. Public computers outside the casa cultural have almost disappeared, with perhaps the exception of urban locutorios which rely on Latin American and African customers keeping in touch with home.
One barkeeper told me that, in days gone by, the pilgrim with enter with a cheerful if tired "Buenos tardes," but now the greeting was "¿Hai wifi aquí?"
I have a recollection that English was not as universally used then as it is now, but that could be faulty memory. One of the reasons why I trudge the more obscure Caminos is that I find more of that pre-deluge experience, chatting with gardeners working on their roses (nothing like a carnation in one's buttonhole to elevate the tone of the pilgrimage), gifts of fruit from African farmworkers on behalf of their employers, drinks bought for me by Guardia Civil at the next table in a bar, requests by truckdrivers to remember their aunt Pilar for them when I got to Santiago, invitations outside ayuntamientos to come and kiss the bride, and being dragged off the Camino to join birthday picnics and toast the birthday boy/girl; my horrifically bad castellano no impediment to hearing extraordinary tales of childhood under the dictatorship, or complaints about the government.
But things change. Many more people are on the Francese and, one hopes, getting something from their Camino, even with their moviles.
Mybe off topic, but I love this, Katie!"Don't Postpone Your Yes"
In some ways a much more meditative, much less material experience than today. Hard to believe it was just 17 years ago.
Time flies and change can happen fast. But there are still plenty of places to walk alone and away from the hordes on the Frances. Caminos where the locals wish you a heartfelt "Buen Camino," as opposed to being overwhelmed but the crowds of walkers tat-tatting through their towns: the Madrid, the Invierno, the Ebro...for starters.I really wish I'd experienced a Camino when it was still quiet...contemplative...solitudinous.
Good manners do not age. And entitlement always stinks.Perhaps I am just a grumpy old dinosaur but I do wonder about some people's priorities and sense of entitlement
It’s the problem with the whole world both young and old ... plugged in but tuned out!I recall listening to a few owners say how much they miss the days (and nights) when pilgrims actually interacted and socialized with them and with each other...rather than everyone individually gazing into their screens.
@Bala, I don't know whether you have seen this, I don't think the link has been posted on the forum yet:a talk given by Nancy Frey at the Confraternity of St. James convention in London last year. It's called Pilgrimage in the Internet Age, and examines how social media has changed the pilgrim experience. It's based on 8 years of research and her 25 years on and studying the Camino. It's posted on YouTube, but I don't know how to link it. (Maybe someone can help?)
@Bala, I don't know whether you have seen this, I don't think the link has been posted on the forum yet:
15 Tips for Keeping your Head out of the Cloud: Pilgrimage in Body AND Mind
By Nancy L. Frey, PhD
23 March 2018
Recommended! Deserves perhaps its own thread?
PS: Links to Nancy Frey's talks on video can be found on the same website: https://www.walkingtopresence.com
Oh i LOVE this - thankyou so much for posting! I love the before-after pics. I want to be a "before" photo on my next Camino!@Bala, I don't know whether you have seen this, I don't think the link has been posted on the forum yet:
15 Tips for Keeping your Head out of the Cloud: Pilgrimage in Body AND Mind
By Nancy L. Frey, PhD
23 March 2018
Recommended! Deserves perhaps its own thread?
PS: Links to Nancy Frey's talks on video can be found on the same website: https://www.walkingtopresence.com
This is an excellent reminder to me to consistently greet bar/restaurant owners with "buenos tardes".
Of course. Those photos were not random photos taken on the camino. They were selected for effect, to illustrate a particular point of view.Dare I say that I was shocked by the photographs enclosed in the above mentioned article? I started counting, how many pilgrims on these photos were distracted by their mobiles. Guess it is nine out of ten.
Yes, the Swiss Mail has an app which allow to send postcards directly from your smartphone.I still send postcards to my grand-children. They love them. Something arriving in the post is special.
Of course. Those photos were not random photos taken on the camino. They were selected for effect, to illustrate a particular point of view.
Just FYI, it’s buenas tardes (tarde is feminine).
Thankyou
Here's the link for N Frey's talk!
@katie@camino, in addition to these really interesting first-person accounts being posted (please keep them coming, everyone!), you might want to take a look at a talk given by Nancy Frey at the Confraternity of St. James convention in London last year.
It's called Pilgrimage in the Internet Age, and examines how social media has changed the pilgrim experience. It's based on 8 years of research and her 25 years on and studying the Camino. It's posted on YouTube, but I don't know how to link it. (Maybe someone can help?)
It may sound academic, but she's an engaging speaker and I found it quite interesting. As is her book, "Pilgrim Stories, On and Off the Road to Santiago," published in 1998. Different world 20 years ago. Yet some things still timeless and universal.
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