• For 2024 Pilgrims: €50,- donation = 1 year with no ads on the forum + 90% off any 2024 Guide. More here.
    (Discount code sent to you by Private Message after your donation)

Search 69,459 Camino Questions

Pilgrims to Santiago battle "lice" hazard

ivar

Administrator
Staff member
Link to article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international ... 71,00.html

The article itself:

Pilgrims to Santiago battle lice hazard

Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Tuesday October 10, 2006
The Guardian

It has survived storms, famines and droughts over the past 12 centuries, but now the Road to Santiago, one of the oldest pilgrimage routes in Europe, is buckling under the weight of a new threat - the common louse.

Convents and hostels along the route to the north-western Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela are closing their doors as the tiny beasts bury themselves deep inside mattresses, sheets and pillows. Carried by the 100,000 sweating and not always well-washed pilgrims who travel to the shrine of St James in the city's cathedral every year, the lice have found a perfect environment in which to live and reproduce.

Article continues
"They say that many pilgrims are turning up with lice and that some are falling ill because they can cause very high temperatures," a spokeswoman at the Federation of Friends of the Road to Santiago told Spain's ABC newspaper.

The tiny creatures inhabit the seams of sleeping bags, rucksacks and clothes, and survive the journey from one warm, comfortable guesthouse to the next. Pilgrims complain that some hostels along the route will now only give a bed to those who can prove their clothes are louse-free.

The Convent of the Benedictine Mothers in León, northern Spain, is one of the latest to close its doors while it fumigates the premises. "But that is no use unless everyone does it," said Fernando Imaz, of the friends' federation.

Lice have reintroduced an element of genuine mortification into a once arduous pilgrimage that has increasingly become cosseted by modern luxuries. Whereas pilgrims once carried little more than a staff, a cloak and a gourd, today's pilgrims are equipped with navigation systems and water-resistant jackets.

To gain admittance to the hostels along the road to Santiago de Compostela, pilgrims must present a credential to prove that they are hiking or biking the road. Each day, as pilgrims pass through towns, they receive one, sometimes two, stamps in the credential. At the end of the journey in Santiago, pilgrims present the stamped credential to confirm that they have hiked at least the last 100km (62miles), or cycled the last 200km of the road), and receive a Compostela, proof of having made the pilgrimage.
 
A selection of Camino Jewellery
The article above has now been updated with the following text:

The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Wednesday October 11 2006

In the article below we identified the wrong culprit. The creatures concerned are bedbugs (clinches in Spanish, family Cimicidae) - not lice (piojos in Spanish, family Pediculidae).

See link above for the update and the full article.
 
A selection of Camino Jewellery

Most read last week in this forum

Could I ask what may be naive question. This will be my 1st Camino and I will be mostly staying in alberques. Could you please explain the bathroom/shower etiquette to me? I have no idea what...
Do i need both these apps? I want to spend as little time my device as possible so if one app will do fine that’s my preference.
I was planning to document my journey through my blog (or Vlog, as I would probably take lots of videos). I was thinking of using my iPhone, and I ordered a foldable keyboard to facilitate typing...
I did the Norte in 2017. This set off a wild ride of changes in life - shifting many things. I am now at a new plateau and it feels like the right time to do Camino #2, this time the...
Hi to all, I'm looking for a really, really good place (an artist) to get a Tattoo in Santiago, it could be before Santiago but I presume in Santiago I will be ready to have my first one. The...
My daughter and I will be on the Portuguese on June and July starting in Lisbon. We will arrive in Porto about the 27th of June. We want to stay for three nights. Can we stay in an albergue for...

❓How to ask a question

How to post a new question on the Camino Forum.

Forum Rules

Forum Rules

Camino Updates on YouTube

Camino Conversations

Most downloaded Resources

This site is run by Ivar at

in Santiago de Compostela.
This site participates in the Amazon Affiliate program, designed to provide a means for Ivar to earn fees by linking to Amazon
Official Camino Passport (Credential) | 2024 Camino Guides
Back
Top