The pilgrimage-to-santiago.com website is often dominated by those who have slept on the floor and taken cold showers, not because they could not afford another place but they make one feel that it is not a Camino if you do not have the taste of a cold floor and a cold or no shower. To each their own
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Hi NaKwendaSafari, I don't think that this forum is dominated by those who have slept on the floor or taken cold showers. I am a 'basic refuge' convert and think that we are still in the minority! Nobody should make you feel that your choice in how you do your camino is any less worthy than their way. el camino caters for all different kinds of pilgrims and always has done.
When I travel, I like to stay in 'nice' places, 'up-market' places. Places with all the mod-cons. I like home-from-home comforts with en suite bathroom, hot water, clean sheets and, perhaps, room service.
There are some journeys, however, that are and should be different. Teahouse trekking in Tibet, on safari in Africa, or the camino - where one has an opportunity to leave 'self' behind (take a leap of faith out of the comfort zone) and experience the rare offerings of that journey.
In Tibet one can stay at the best lodges (built for the Western tourist) or sleep on the floor in the humble homes of the mountain people.
On safari in Africa, you can stay in 5 star tented camps with servants, generators and porta-toilets -or camp wild in small groups (no toilet, no running water, no electricty). The choice is yours.
On el camino you can stay in hotels, paradors, inns and smart albergues or in the most basic refuges on the floor in the bell tower of a church or a 400 year-old converted barn. (By the way, these places always offer mattresses - you don't have to sleep on the cold floor!)
I don't know of any other trail in the world where the local people provide free or donativo accommodation, spiritual and pysical care and cook a dinner for pilgrims as they do on el camino. And, their service is unconditional. They practise the words of the 12th c Latin hymn, the La Pretiosa:
Its doors are open to the sick and well; to Catholics as well as to pagans; Jews, Heretics, beggars and the indigent, and it embraces all like brothers.
If we can't open ourselves to this very unique kind of hospitality here, on el camino (even in one or two places) where and when will we ever be able to experience it?
bendigáis,