Charlie: Most of the little towns we walk through seem practically empty. You walk around and don’t see any people and most of the buildings are shuttered. In the last few towns there were lots of buildings that were falling down.
We just got into the Meseta where they use, or used to use, adobe like in NM. The adobe buildings are almost all falling down. Not as durable as stone.
You get the feeling that these towns would go away altogether if they were not on the Camino. You only see pilgrims around and in the restaurants. And they are all having the pilgrims “menu” for 10 euros. I can’t see how they can keep going on that.
Castrojeriz was a sad town. The people seemed sad and defeated. Another pilgrim we meet on the road said the same thing even before we mentioned it.
I don’t know how much of this is due to the five years of recession and how much to just an emptying out of the rural areas. You see similar things in small towns in NM.
