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Can it do worse?

By José Almeida (President AZACS) | 25/08/2020

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Generally, this is a topic that we resort to on certain occasions, when we try to assert that something is not doing well. What is already worrying is when, instead of being sporadic, we are repeating it all too often, and in the case at hand, the Camino a Santiago in the province of Zamora, unfortunately, is so common that we are hardly surprised.

When we observe the progressive regression that is undergoing the flow of pilgrims traveling through the Vía de la Plata, we have no doubt that it is as a consequence of the mismanagement carried out, heritage dragged from too long ago: that in 2004 this route of pilgrimage contributed 5.17% of the pilgrims coming to Santiago, occupying the third place in the ranking of the historical and traditional roads, has resulted in We assume that from 2018 to the present time, August 2020, the descent will have been progressive – increased, of course, by the state of health alarm this year – although the official data have not yet been published by the Pilgrim’s Office of Compostela.

We thought it could not be made worse, but recently we have seen it; proof of this is the anger expressed by some populations through which this route of pilgrimage and the Jacobean associations of Zamora and León takes place.

In 2018, the Zamorana Association of the Roads of Santiago (AZACS) was invited to participate in a conference held in Fuenteroak de Salvatierra (Salamanca), together with all the associations of pilgrims from Andalusia, Extremadura, Castilla y León and Galicia, with the objective of creating a higher associative body – a federation was proposed – to energize the roads that come from Galicia.

We were delegates to this first meeting to contact the associations of Castilla y León, but we noticed that this project, in which the Xunta de Galicia manifested a special interest, only sought to establish a unique and exclusive itinerary: the Sanabrés Road.

Faced with this more than suspicion, certainty, and with the approval of the associations we represented (Rionegro del Puente, La Bañeza, Astorga and Zamora), we agreed that, at the next meeting – held in 2019 – we would express our disagreement with the proposal if it was to be exclusive to other roads, as it was intended.

In that meeting, the opinion of the Zamorana Association of the Roads of Santiago and its representatives was ignored, and since sections of the itineraries of our province were excluded (Moreruela Farm to Astorga, Benavente a Santa Marta de Tera and Zamora to San Martín del Pedroso), we decided not to participate in this exclusive project.

Curiously, just under a month ago, the Minister of Culture and Tourism of the Junta de Castilla y León reinvented with his support a new route of the Vía de la Plata – which now only reaches Granja de Moreruela – ignoring the other localities that, since immemorial time, have marked the traditional route of the Roman bimillennium.

At no point has we taken into account those who are on the road, who are the ones who know their problems and that of the pilgrims, because we have not even been consulted about this project, in which we could have advised him about what the associations of Castilla y León think about it.

We thought we could not do worse, but unfortunately the facts confirm that we were wrong. Initiatives and actions emerge that show that public managers often ignore managers.

In 2017, specifically on February 17, the then Minister of Culture and Tourism of the Junta de Castilla y León, Mrs. María Josefa García Cirac, accompanied by all the general directors of her department, gathered at the Museo Etnográfico de Zamora the social, cultural and touristic agents of the province – among the attendees was AZACS – to expose the Zamoranos what was intended.

The central issue of the meeting was to unravel the different proposals in which the Junta de Castilla y León worked, among them the projects focused next year Xacobeo 21, and where the dynamization of the Zamorano-Portuguese road was discussed.

At that time, our association was already immersed in a series of actions in this Jacobean itinerary, whose main and most ambitious project was the commissioning of a reception point in Almendra del Pan, essential to unblock the situation in which this route was found, since a road that does not offer the pilgrims minimum conditions to guarantee their rest after each day is doomed to failure.

Projects financed from European funds have already opened up the shelters of Fonfries, Alcañices and Trabazos, but, surprisingly, the first days were not taken into account, in which no place for the pilgrim was available. From Zamora to Fonfrio there is, following the Jacobean route, a distance of about 52 km, in which the pilgrims did not find any place to stay overnight until the establishment of the hostel of Ricobayo de Alba. As it is easy to assume, this road would always be discarded by the walker, since in the first days there were no places of reception.

We were pleased with the proposals made by the Council, and we expressed our interest in cooperating in everything necessary to relaunch this road, being the interlocutor for this the Director of Tourism, present there.

It was 2017, 2018 came and 2019 passed. We are in 2020 and from the Ministry no one has contacted our association, which is something we are already accustomed to and therefore we are not surprised. Not only were they not interested in the project (essential for the viability of this road) but three years later they told us that our request for economic aid had been rejected, despite bringing all the links of the development agency “Adri Palomares”.

But what is most striking and striking in this case is that, without even consulting with those who are working with pilgrims, and in order to advertise and promote the Jacobean paths before the arrival of the next Xacobeo 2021, we have seen a guide a few days ago with all the itineraries within our Community, including the Zamorano-Portuguese road.

It establishes the first stage between Zamora and Campillo, with an affordable distance for pilgrims, but with the drawback that in Campillo pilgrims will not find any service to meet the needs of that day, as they will be able to do from 2021, a few kilometers earlier in Almendra del Pan.

The second stage runs between Campillo and Fonfrio, without informing that there is currently a municipal hostel for pilgrims in Ricobayo de Alba. Nor does it mention that years ago a space was opened in Trabazos; it is not a shelter for use, but a reception point for cases of need.

The guide recommends the following steps:

Zamora a Campillo; 28 km (no hostel for pilgrims)

Campillo to Fonfria; 34 km

Our proposal, considering the reception points for the pilgrim, checking the distance after traveling the road is as follows:

Zamora a Almendra del Pan; 23.6 km

Almendra del Pan a Ricobayo de Alba; 18.2 km.

Ricobaye from Alba to Fonfria; 20.1 km.

It is a nonsense, but it makes us understand why we are in the situation we are in, and in the case of our roads, why we have this setback each year in the province of Zamora. As the wording of the article states, it cannot be made worse.

I assume that what would happen in these cases as responsible people, is that those who have made such a stumbling block with this edition (which will have cost public coffers a considerable amount of money), assume the cost of their pockets and do not have to pay for it among all, but as this will not happen, unless one has the dignity of assuming the error made and renounces a position for which he is not trained, as the result shows.

Surely, before all the fastos of the Xacobeo of 2021 arrive, we will see another series of dismantles that will cause some of us to blush and even cause shame, even if those who commit them continue to flourish in the posts they do not deserve to occupy. They are the consequences of this pride of believing above others and not taking into account those who live, day by day, each of the problems we have on this earth.

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