There is a figure that has transformed the modern Camino de Santiago more than many promotional campaigns: 100 kilometers. It is the minimum walking distance that allows you to qualify for the Compostela and has turned towns like Sarria into great gateways to Santiago. But it has also opened a debate that seems to never end: can the Camino really be experienced in just five or six days?
There was a time when the Camino began practically when you closed the door of your house. Today, for many future pilgrims, it begins with a somewhat more practical question: «Where do I have to leave from to get the Compostela?»
And then the magic number appears.
100 kilometers.
Not 99, not "more or less a hundred."
A figure that has changed starting points, filled certain stages, transformed towns and created an expression that any fan of the Jacobean world immediately recognizes: "do the last 100 kilometers."
Sarria: here it starts… a lot of people
If there was a capital of the last hundred kilometers, it would probably be Sarria.
Not because a gigantic yellow arrow indicates there "START YOUR WAY", but for a much more practical matter: Sarria is located a few 114 kilometers from Santiago, sufficient distance to exceed the minimum required to obtain the Compostela by completing the route on foot.
The result is visible every season.
Pilgrims who have been walking hundreds of kilometers arrive in Sarria with worn-out boots, old-fashioned backpacks and some blister with its own name.
The next morning they go out again and discover something curious.
Suddenly there are a lot more people.
Brand new backpacks. Suspiciously clean boots. T-shirts still ironed.
Welcome to the last hundred.
Why precisely 100 kilometers?
Here we leave the jokes for a moment.
The Pilgrim's Office establishes that to obtain the Compostela The pilgrimage must have been made for religious or spiritual reasons - or at least with an attitude of search - and completed at least 100 continuous kilometers on foot or on horseback, o 200 kilometers by bicycle, following a recognized route towards Santiago.
Furthermore, during the last hundred kilometers the journey must be accredited through the Pilgrim's Credential, collecting the corresponding stamps.
Therefore, the hundred kilometers are not an idea of travel agencies or a tourist campaign invented by Sarria.
What's interesting is what happened next.
When a rule changes the map of the Camino
The minimum distance ended up creating authentic strategic exit points.
Sarria It is the most obvious example on the French Way, but there are other places used by those who have approximately a week and want to walk to Compostela.
The phenomenon has had an important consequence: many people no longer necessarily organize their pilgrimage by asking themselves:
«From where do I want to do the Camino?»
The question can become:
«Where do I have to start from to reach one hundred?»
They seem like similar questions.
They are not.
Pilgrim or tourist?
And we arrive at dangerous ground.
The debate capable of transforming a quiet hostel dinner into a television talk show:
Is someone who travels 800 kilometers just as much of a pilgrim as someone who does 100?
The answer probably depends on who we ask.
But the Camino has a peculiarity: It does not have a spiritual taximeter.
There may be someone who walks 800 kilometers and lives the experience like a long sports vacation. And there may be another person who only has six days, travels one hundred kilometers and arrives at Obradoiro deeply excited.
There are also elderly people, families, pilgrims with physical limitations or workers who simply cannot disappear for an entire month.
Kilometers can be measured.
What happens within each pilgrim is much more complicated.
Of course: if you have just started in Sarria, there is no need to tell in Portomarín that you are walking from Paris.
The boots can testify as witnesses.
The 100 kilometers democratized the Camino
There is another side to this phenomenon that deserves attention.
The last hundred kilometers have allowed thousands of people to experience the Camino who would never have four or five weeks to travel a complete route from France.
Five, six or seven days fit into a normal vacation.
This allows groups of friends, families, older people and first-time pilgrims to discover the experience.
And some come back.
First they make a hundred.
Then two hundred.
And one day they find themselves looking at a map of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port while wondering how the hell they got there.
The Camino has those things.
There is also a price for success
The concentration of pilgrims in the last kilometers, however, poses obvious challenges.
Full accommodation, services under great pressure, very busy stages and a very different experience to what can be found hundreds of kilometers before.
The debate, therefore, should not be limited to deciding who is "more pilgrim."
The really interesting question is how to manage a Camino capable of receiving people with such different ways of living it without losing what makes it special.
In the end you still have to walk
Because there is something that neither hundred kilometers, nor mobile applications, nor backpack transportation, nor online reservations have managed to eliminate.
You have to walk.
When a slope appears, the slope does not ask where you started.
When it rains, it rains on everyone.
And the blisters also don't ask for the Credential before deciding who to attack.
You can start in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.
You can start in León.
You can start in Sarria.
You can even leave from the door of your house.
When the towers of Santiago finally appear, each person knows how much it meant to get there.
Although, yes...
If you start in Sarria, try to get your boots a little dirty before the first photo. 😂
