The 'credencial'

The 'credencial' otherwise know as the pilgrim's passport is a document purchased for a couple of euros that gives you access to the inexpensive albergues along the Camino as well as cheap 'pilgrim's menus' in restaurants, discount to tickets for accessing cathedrals and museums and even discounts on some more traditional hotels. It is also a record of your travels. Every hostel stamps and dates your 'credencial' when you arrive but all along the route cafes and bars, churches and museums all have their own stamps so you can stamp your credencial as you travel leaving you a comprehensive history of your journey along the Camino. I even got a stamp from a man in a car in the middle of nowhere on the Meseta, parked by the roadside selling nick-nicks and water to passing walkers. Each and every stamp is different in size and shape and colour giving quite a colourful document after a few days.

The other purpose of the 'credencial' is to provide evidence of your journey at the Pilgrim office in Santiago de Compostela and thereby earn your 'Compostela' or certificate of having completed the Camino. You need only compete the last 100 kilometres to gain a Compostela, a fact that leads to the last part of the Camino apparently getting very busy as people join for this final leg. When you arrive at the Pilgrim's Office in Santiago de Compostela your credencial is checked for stamps and dates to check you have done the necessary distance and you are asked to state your motive for doing the Camino: 'religious', 'religious and other' or simply 'other'. When I first started thinking about the Camino some time ago I understood that the first two options would earn you your 'Compostella' whereas the third would earn you a 'Compostella' with a stapled addendum in Spanish along the lines of 'forgive this miserable sinner, he knows not what he does'. No guesses then which one I would have gone for. I now understand the third option gets you a totally different certificate and no 'Compostela' so I guess that deciding my motive and what I get will be my moral dilema for my Camino....