Hello - introduction

[duncan pm]

Hello - I'm Duncan.
A linguist and former teacher, I first cycled much of the Camino 20 years ago. I walked the Camino with my wife and then cycled it with a friend 14 years ago.
After 10 years of illnes I am once more finding my mind drawn back to the Camino.
Quite possibly late winter in the first few months of 2012.
I hace appreciated what I have read thus far on this forum - it sounds like much has changed, most especially numbers, on the Camino in the long years since I last travelled the route.

 

[methodist.pilgrim.98]

Greetings Duncan.

Be prepared for culture shock. My first Camino was in 1998 and then I didn't back till 2004. The changes in those 6 years were enormous.

Since then I have walked a section of the Camino every year and subtle changes are always there.

It is a bit like returning to a distant relative's house every summer for a short holiday and noticing the changes in the house. It's still the same four walls and roof, but it is not quite the same house.

As someone who is chronically ill with diabetes the developments have not been unwelcome. Distances between albergues have in many places shortened and the quality of them has, genereally, improved. There seem to be more shops which supply food and drink and some of the villages which previosul didn't have bars now have them.

If you already know this please forgive me for saying what you already know, but many of the private albergues and many of the shops mentioned above will be shut over the winter months. Have you taken that into account? Ditto the cold and wet weather and the effect of the lack of warm bodies in cold albergues, some of which may be damp? (Though in December 2010 the municpal albergues between Sarria and SDC had so much heating on they were too warm for my liking!)

Do tell us more.

I was born in Doncaster and returned to live there between 1983-1990 so I know bits of South Yorkshire very well indeed.