The numbers aren't adding up....

[Anonymous]

Hello Folks...

New to this, have not done the pilgrimage walk yet, so excuse my ignorance because I do not know what I am talking about.
So, I'm trying to do the math here....estimates say 200,000 people a year do the walk...

One question, how many drop out and do not complete?

Assuming that most people walk between April and October because of the nicer weather...

So if we also assume that 3/4 of the pilgrims, about 150,000, walk April - October (inclusive), thats 7 months, or about 21,500 a month, or about 715 a day.

Now, if 715 people set out Monday morning from SJPP, the first town 2/3 of these people aim for would be Roncesvalles...so can 500 people be easily accommodated in the first town?

Accounting for stragglers and the proximity between towns and hostels and inns, every night each pit stop town should expect approximately 600 - 800 pilgrims? :shock:

I have looked at the route, viewed dozens and dozens of photo albums, and just don't see those numbers.

Using the same figures, and accounting for a 35% drop-out rate, but supplemented by many "last 100" pilgrims, there still should be, on any given day, about 600 arrivals at Santiago de Compostela each day, generally in the afternoon as many seem to do the push to finish the last leg in one day.

Again, looking at on-line pictures and videos, I just don't see those numbers...

Your thoughts?

 

[+@^^]

pick another route in case the numbers are right

 

[Deleted member 3000]

You can get exact numbers by month here:

http://peregrinossantiago.es/esp/post-p ... adisticas/

You will need to extrapolate the Camino Frances statistics since the totals are for pilgrims registering with the Santiago Pilgrim Office. Note that a lot of pilgrims start in Sarria, so the numbers are "real" for the last 100 km.

Europeans regularly do the Camino in one- and two-week segments, so the dropout rate is anyone's guess.

 

[hieudovan]

I think the numbers should add up as not everyone starts in St. Jean.
Buen Camino
Hieu

 

[tyrrek]

Ha ha! I was a statistician for years and could not work out the Camino at all!

I believe the published figures are for those who arrive at the pilgrim office and are granted a Compostela. Some may arrive in Santiago and not turn up at the pilgrim office for whatever reason. Many, many other people walk sections along the Way without any intention of arriving in Santiago on that particular trip.

Not everyone walks the Camino Frances, remember.

It was the section from Sarria to Santiago on the Frances that really confused me. Leaving Sarria in May last year it was like a travelling circus, but within a couple of days I was back in solitude and peace in some nice woodland.

Don't even try to understand how it all works. It just seems to.

Buen Camino!

 

[jirit]

Hello Alan

As a fellow Canadian I have done the Camino Frances route twice; first time in 2007 and more recently in 2011. I can tell from my last walk the number of people on the Frances route has increased by 50% in just four short years from approx 114k to 175k. I experienced and witnessed it first hand

The numbers published indicate the number of pilgrims that arrive into Santiago and receive their Compostela. The Camino Frances is just one a more than of dozen routes in Spain out of a network of 35 plus camino trails in Europe, but it is the route that the majority of people walk each year.

More so, the majority of people that receive their Compostela have only walked the last 100 km from Sarria, are Spanish (approx 2/3) and have walked during the month of June through August (again approx 2/3). The distribution of pilgrims arriving into Santiago is much like a standard bell curve and the numbers for the shoulder season (April,May and Sept/Oct) are significantly lower than the high season. This is same shoulder season when most pilgrims from North America tend to tackle the camino too

I will also add that for every person that receives a Compostela in Santiago, it is estimated that another 3 or more are walking one of the routes but either will not arrive in Santiago or will not get one.

So for 2012 we could expect close to 225,000 pilgrims to arrive in Santiago and obtain their Compostela, and another 750,000! to simply walk some section of one of other routes but not get their Compostela.

I would not be surprised to see a sharp increase in English speaking pilgrims from the USA, Canada. UK and Australia for example given the popularity of the movie The Way.

Finally while walking the Camino Frances route, there are always "bubbles of pilgrims" that seem to arrive and end up in the same towns. Walk either faster or slower than these larger groups of pilgrims and you will find yourself surprisingly alone most times of the day. Walk a bit faster and further each day, and you will find your discovering smaller places to stay that are not crowded (until you catch up to the next bubble of pilgrims)

Trust this helps

Neville

 

[Deleted member 3000]

I think that there are some false assumptions and inaccurate conclusions being drawn from the data.

In 2011, there were 183,366 pilgrims receiving certificates from the Pilgrim Office in Santiago.

On the Camino Frances, there were 132,652. Starting in Sarria there were 39,158, and another 10,168 from O Cebreiro, true short-term pilgrims.

Starting in St. Jean Pied de Port were 19,416 pilgrims, who were joined in Roncesvalles by another 9,348, with another 4,237 joining in Pamplona, "full" Camino pilgrims. A much smaller number started somewhere in Europe before St. Jean.

So the bed competition at the beginning of the Camino Frances was among about 33,000 pilgrims. In the last 100 km, the competition was between 132,652 pilgrims.

There might be some information in translating the numbers into a "full camino" equivalent so that one pilgrim walking 35 days was the equivalent of seven pilgrims walking the last five days. That might yield some information on the contention that three walk for every one that gets a certificate because it would standardize the fact that most of those not getting the certificate were weekenders out for a bit of exercise. It would not have any information content on the chances of finding a bed in Arzua in August.

The raw data for August 2011 indicate that 10,251 left Sarria, and 29,810 arrived in Santiago on the Camino Frances. That is 1,000 per day with capacity in Monte do Gozo of 400 beds (Eroski). Before Sarria, only 19,000 were looking for a nightly bed. If they were evenly spread over all 30 stages, it would still be 600+ at each stopping point each night.

The bottom line: it is very crowded at the end of the Camino in the high season!

 

[jirit]

I think that there are some false assumptions and inaccurate conclusions being drawn from the data.

In 2011, there were 183,366 pilgrims receiving certificates from the Pilgrim Office in Santiago.

The bottom line: it is very crowded at the end of the Camino in the high season!

I stand corrected - the number for 2011 was 183k ( I quickly glanced at a chart to get some idea but I knew it was 50% more than 2007)

And I agree anytime and especially in the busy months of July and August competition for beds increases significantly as you get closer to Santiago. It is also a problem in the months of June and September but less so.

What is interesting is that the number of pilgrims walking the Frances route as a percentage of the total has been falling steadily over the past decade as I guess people discover and choose to do other less crowded routes.

 

[micbook]

I walked the Camino Frances in June-July 2011 and was told ahead of time that the path was likely to be very crowded during these months. The path is stretched over such a distance and different people are always busy doing different things (walking, resting, eating, taking a day off, arriving early at their destination, etc.) that somehow I almost always managed to find myself walking in solitude. This changes some the closer you get to Santiago, of course, but my experience was that if you want solitude- you have it, and if you want crowdedness- you have it

Buen Camino!
Michal
--
http://michalrinkevich.wordpress.com/

 

[Bytehoven]

When we received our credencials in SJPP, there was much filling out of forms. I assumed that the information would be passed on to the Pilgrim Office in Santiago de Compostela. If all the offices issuing credencials communicated their numbers to the Pilgrim Office, it would be very easy to determine how many people drop out along the way. The only problem I see with that is the fact that some people do a week or two each summer over a period of years, probably using the same credencial. I suppose that the Pilgrim Office is well aware of this and doesn't release the numbers of "incompletes" for that very reason. Still, they should be able to present a reasonable estimate of the approximate number who do not complete the pilgrimage. I have seen percentages ranging from 15% to 75% for those who do not complete the Camino. Of course, if the number does approach 75% then the Pilgrim Office might justifiably worry that the disclosure of this figure could end up discouraging potential pilgrims.

--Chris and Laura

 

[grayland]

Actually, there is very little connection between the many people who issue Pilgrim Credentials and the Pilgrim Office in Santiago. The SJPdP pilgrim office is in France and issues different credentials than the Santiago Cathedral/Pilgrim Office.
I would take a huge bureaucracy and money to do otherwise.

The whole of the Camino is much less structured than many people seem to believe. There really is no "they" to take care of bookkeeping and otherwise manage any part of the Camino. Each area is on their own. The Pilgrim Office in Santiago simply records the number of Pilgrims who turn up there and request a Compostella.

 

[tyrrek]

Yes, it would be a little more complicated than it appears. There could be many more credencials issued than pilgrims. Consider a pilgrim starting in SJPP who is enthusiastic about collecting sellos, runs out of space in Astorga and gets issued with another. The pilgrim would present both credencials in Santiago and be recorded as starting in SJPP. Unless the number of credencials presented was also recorded (s)he would be counted as departing twice and arriving once.

We also still have those who don't collect a Compostela to consider.

The number of credencials issued would be a useful proxy number to assess the year-on-year rate of increase, as is the number of Compostelas issued. It may even be a better measure if there was any evidence that pilgrims returning for a second or third camino were less inclined to collect another Compostela in Santiago. However marrying the two would be hard, and collecting accurate data could be like herding cats.

Buen Camino!

 

[nc6000]

I completed my Camino at the end of April and in order to get to Santiago for the Pilgrims Mass on a Sunday and to be sure I saw the Botafumeiro I walked about 40Kms from Arzua to Santiago. I wanted to finish on the Saturday so I didn't have to walk anywhere on the Sunday morning and could relax for the whole day.

For the final 10Kms into Santiago I was practically walking on my own and at most I'd say I saw about 10 other pilgrims and I know that some of these stayed in Monte do Gozo.

For the final stretch into Santiago there was one pilgrim ahead of me.

It was about 17.00 when I made it to the Pilgrim's Office and it was absolutely packed with people and the queue was out the door. It was so busy that they ran out of the cardboard tubes for holding the Compostella. Many of the people had large holdalls with them and some even had wheelie suitcases. I only recognised 2 other people in the queue.

I stood there wondering where had all these people come from and how come I hadn't seen any of them before.

I'm not in the slightest bit surprised if the numbers don't add up.

 

[jirit]

It is a challenge trying to reconcile the numbers to what is being witnessed and experienced by those that have recently walked the camino.

I spent some extra time in Santiago after this last camino, even taking to time to enjoy a coffee outside and opposite the pilgrim office from time to time. The range of pilgrims arriving to receive their Compostela varied from the tired worn pilgrim that hobbled into the office to the clean freshly pressed tourist carry no more than a simple handbag. Obviously it was impossible to determine if some of the latter were pilgrims that had arrived earlier, then showered and changed into their tourist street clothes before returning to the office, or the former were bonafide pilgrims struggling to walk the last 100 km into Santiago.

I did see at time entire tour groups show up at once while at other times the office was nearly empty.

Combined with the fact that numerous European pilgrims do the camino in stages of 1-2 weeks over a series of years, it makes it almost impossible to determine what the "real" numbers are.

 

[naplesdon]

Last year I encountered a number of day tripper with chase cars, most of them seem to set out around Leon. They travel by the car load and park discreetly out of sight of the albergues each night and trade turns driving, from time to time I've see some members of these groups walking. Obviously they are moving faster than a normal pilgrim so one rarely sees them more than once or twice. They get there passports stamped at breakfast, lunch, dinner and wherever they stay overnight which is often in a bed a pilgrim was unable to claim. They obviously arrive in Santiago with a passport full of sellos and no one in the Pilgrim Office is the wiser when they claim their Compostela.