29th May Passport

One of the 'must do's' whenever setting off on a foreign advanture is to make sure you have packed your passport. Or in the case of my camino jolly that should read passports. Confused, don't worry that will be a theme that runs through the next 5 weeks. 

Each 'pilgrim' who walks the Camino, wherever they start their particular journey, is encouraged to pick up a Pilgrim passport  which serves several functions. First it introduces a sense of fun as people collect stamps at various points on their journey. This can be churches, monuments, town halls even cafes have their own stamps but normally it is at the places where they stay overnight. Each stamp is unique and by the end of your journey your pilgrim passport will be a myriad of multicoloured stamps tracing your steps.

Secondly it identifies those who are actually walking the pilgrimage route rather than just visiting a place for a day or two and thereby acts as an unofficial entry into the municipal albergues (think youth hostels) that the majorinty of walkers stay in each night.

Thirdly the pilgrim passport also serves a practical purpose. If your goal is to receive the Compostela, the official certificate of pilgrimage, then you need to show evidence of having walked at least the final 100km (or if you have cycled the last 200km) into Santiago. Your stamped pilgrim passport is that evidence.

The Camino Pilgrim Passport is more than just a memento. It’s a modern echo of the medieval “letters of safe conduct” once issued to pilgrims travelling to Santiago de Compostella. Thankfully it hasn't yet evolved to be something that is done digitally but acts as a physical paper copy recording an official record of a pilgrims progress and experience.

I still have mine from 2017 framed at home, a tangible and visible memory of the experience when I walked from the Camino Frances from St Jean de Piedport.

Finally printed on the back of the Pilgrims Passport there is a prayer to act as a reminder of why many people, althought not all by any means, undetake such an undertaking. The prayer reads...

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, receive this rucksack, the habit of your pilgrimage, so that, having atoned, you hasten to prostrate yourself at Saint James’ feet, where you yearn to arrive and, after having completed your journey, you come to us joyful with the help of God, who rules over the world without end. Amen.