Revisiting the Camino - Statistics and my book

I'm in the process of writing a children's book - well one aimed at the tweens 8 - 11 yrs as well as a picture book for under 6's about our trek on the Camino.  I'll not say too much just yet, but I have a wonderful artist on board and have written the bare bones of chapters and pages. My plan is to have it presented to a publisher by Christmas this year.

In checking some of the stages and town names, I came across a blog which reports on the statistics of trekkers on the Camino. Check out the full analysis here

I was interested to see that there is an increase in numbers over the years, particularly for Australians.

Spanish pilgrims hold the highest number of people walking ( just under 50%), with Aussies nestled amongst the top ten at 1.5%; but taking it a bit further - if you looked at the numbers as a percentage of population, Australians are right up there.

Incredible to think that this year there were just under 3000 Aussies walking at some point between January and now; and we met soooo many while we were walking.

All the pilgrims numbers for the first 9 months of 2014,1 January - 30 September  

  

The total number of pilgrims who registered at the Pilgrims´ Office in the period 1 January – 30 September 2014 was 208,007.  Compared to the same period in 2013 this represents an increase of 9.6%.

How are the English speaking countries doing?

Country	2012	2013	2014	Growth %
Australia	1362	2253	2828	28%
Canada	2121	2372	2578	6%
Ireland	3542	4407	4358	-1.6%%
South Africa	593	615	509	-19%
United Kingdom	3170	3435	3687	8%
USA	5549	8165	9257	12%
New Zealand	274	390	485	40%

Pretzels

I am afraid I have a new obsession. Freshly baked pretzels.. Oh my goodness! And.. for those following my detox and juicing journey.. what a way to break it..

I have to admit that for this baking session, we bought frozen dough which is specially for pretzels. Our next challenge is to make it from scratch.. perhaps next week?

The kids had fun rolling out the sausages and making the special shape a pretzel comes in. Morgan says he read that they are that shape to symbolise the Pope crossing his arms. This is in fact true, but not true; as there are a number of claims for the origin of the shape of the pretzel.

It is generally believed that the pretzel that the first pretzel was made in 610 by monks. Some believe it was a reaction toward the pagan breads eaten at festivals and other support that it was a bread made with out eggs or milk and could be consumed during lent. Others suggest that a monk invested it to give to children as a reward for learning their prayers. 

No matter what the origin is, this is a delicious treat, and I am embarrassed to say - we ate the lot - straight out of the oven.. mmmmmm