creds

Staying in albergues run especially for pilgrims requires having a “credencial”, a pilgrim’s passport, in which you collect stamps from places you’ve been, supposedly to prove your authenticity in case you want to receive a compostela at the end of your walk, which I don’t, because I already have almost enough of these admittedly good-looking certificates to wallpaper our toilet, but we don’t want to do that, so I see little sense in collecting another thing that the kids will one day need to throw away. You can buy credencials easily enough in Spain, but when I’ve walked longish routes I’ve made my own. This time I’ve opted for a journal….

Each day I’ll include a little elevation profile, km covered, cumulative distance, weather details and a record of what I’ve eaten (just for the fun of writing en español). There will also be some room for a wee sketch or two – and the daily stamp.

Of course, there is every chance this wee document will also be biffed by the kids one day in the hopefully distant future, but I’m going to enjoy making it, and it will serve the practical purpose of permitting me to bunk down at pilgrims’ lodgings as I walk. Besides, snapping a photo of the completed page each day might be a quick way of blogging if I run out of creative juice.