On the Camino, the subject of distance is not one that is discussed with the kind of scientific precision that you would expect the metric system to support. Distance is, in fact, a political topic for many, an article of faith for others, and an indicator of pain for an unfortunate few. The politics of distance is rooted in the platforms of the different guide books for the Camino. None of them seem to agree and they can disagree by 4 or 5 km on a day's journey. This could be the result of what a particular guide book is measuring, outskirts to outskirts or centre to centre. The road signs also provide conflicting distances, depending on who put them up. Albergues and restaurants from the next town always underestimate the distance to entice you to go an extra 3 km, when it is 5.5 on our gps. There is also word of mouth estimates that vary in accuracy depending on the source or the pain threshold of the provider. ("I don't understand it, the guidebook says the walk to Los Arcos was only 24 km, but my feet definitely confirm it to be 31! I believe my feet more than some satellite out in space!")
We have decided to use RunKeeper, a gps cell phone app, to record how far we walk from albergue to hostel each day. So our distance includes all of the intended and unintended alternate routes that we end up on, but the distances are accurate. Once we arrive at our bed for the night I shut it off. Exploring villages after siestas and all rest day treks are not logged. The distance from Santiago de Compostela is calculated by eCamino, an app that takes gps locations and computes the quickest way to the end, via a pilgrim route.
So now you understand the math and how, on some days, we can walk 24 km to cover a 19 km journey and at the end of the day be only 15 km closer to Santiago. It involves math, science, and a whole lot of faith!
Love the math explanation. I totally get it. The West Coast Trail was similar. We measured the diatance and we had completed 100 km on the 75 trek.
ReplyDeleteI hit post to quickly ... how did you like the eCamino app?
DeleteThe eCamino app was great for telling us exactly how much closer we were to our destination. It followed the Brierley Guide. We also used a couple of other apps. Camino Places was a forum app that gave us real-time updates on the Camino, for example, where the bottle necks are, etc. We notified the forum, via a post, the name and location of the albergue in Reliegos with bedbugs. We also used the Wise Pilgrim app to plan our next stop and to book albergues.
DeleteYou have got me excited just thinking about how fantastic your trek will be in 2019. Good luck and Buen Camino!
We are starting to get excited for it as well. I checked out the eCamino and it looks a lot like the Brierley Guide. We also found out that the Canadian Company of Pilgrims has a chapter here and is having a meeting in March so we are hoping to attend to get some tips. There seems to be no shortage of info out there. I am sure I will have a few more questions and will post them on the pages in your blog where they best fit. Really enjoying reading through it.
DeleteWe joined the Canadian Company of Pilgrims and bought our Pilgrims passports and Scallop shells from them. Just a note, one passport was not enough for all of the stamps we collected and so we had to get a second passport along the way.
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