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As much as I agree with other things you wrote in your post I don't think that's the rule although some albergues do request official pilgrim passport. As I know you have to present the "line" of sellos from the Camino you walk to stay in albergues. Credencial is a must only to be able (alongside with other requirements) to obtain a Compostela....and if I wish to stay the night in a municipal or parochial Albergue then a credential is required.
The minutes of the meeting held in Jaca in 1987 to re-establish the pilgrimage route to Santiago makes interesting reading. Those present at that meeting became the Spanish Federation of Friends on the Camino (Amigos).
Basically the discussions went like this:
"If 1000s of pilgrims come, where will they sleep? We don't have enough places for them all and not all pilgrims will be able to afford to stay in hotels."
"Perhaps we can establish shelters for those who can't find accommodation in hotels or pensions and for those who can't afford to spend many nights in hotels. We will look for school halls, parish houses etc. "
"Will they be charged?"
"No, we can make it donativo and they can give what they can afford."
" What's to stop tourists from wanting to stay in these donativo places? "
"The shelters must only be for real pilgrims, we can't have tourists staying in our donativo shelters."
"How will we know the difference between tourists and pilgrims?"
"We can devise a type of credencial - like those three guys in Estella used in in 1964 when they walked to Santiago. Pilgrims will have to have one of those."
"A walking pilgrim not travelling by bus or car will have to have a backpack."
(Don Elias Valina Sampedro, father of the modern Camino, of O Cebreiro parish, was put in charge of establishing refugios.)
"We must not compete with the established hospitality industry by taking business away from them. If there are lots of hotels, hostales and pensions in a large town then there is no need for more than one refugio in that town. The tourism offices must supply pilgrims with the names of all the places where they can stay, including rooms in private homes."
@KinkyOne as I understand it, the Credential is a requirement for staying in non-commercial albergues. Local practice may vary, and the rule may be falling into misuse, but it was always the means by which one was admitted into the pilgrim refugios, as they were set up - as set out in Sillydoll's post on another thread:
@Older Guy re: bed bug spray, do you mean you treated your gear and clothes, or you brought some kind of spray with you? I haven't seen anyone list a bed bug spray on their packing lists.Only done it once. I got mine from Ivar.
I wanted to have it ahead of time.
For me it was part of packing and getting ready. One more thing to cross off the list to make sure I forgot nothing. It was one more thing, I made sure I had, just like my ultra light weight gear, my sports drink tablets I took from home with me and my bedbug spray. The very, very few things I didn't take with me were things that the airline banned as carry-on luggage: a pocket knife with cork screw (for that great Spanish wine) and CO2 cartridges to help inflate a bike tire if it got flat. I made sure I got both very quickly, when I got to Spain.
Bed bug spray is like 'Fight Club" - no-one talks about...... I don't think I would list 0.5g of Permethrin residue on my packing list.I haven't seen anyone list a bed bug spray on their packing lists.
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