After a couple of weeks, you naturally divvy up by people who are walking the same kilometers. You may not walk together because you don’t start at the same time or at the same pace but you would end up in the same village and/or gite. For me, in France, there were about 12/15 people who I saw practically each day who began to feel like family. You would often times find the early ones sitting at the first cafe having a beer. They would greet you as a long lost friend, although you may have seen them the night before and be genuinely excited to see you. You would join them for a beer or coffee and repeat for the hikers that came in after you. You started looking forward to your stop, wondering who you would see. Although less frequent, the same thing would happen sometimes at lunch.
For some reason this was less common in Spain. Probably because there were some many more people. The hike thru Spain was less personal and more commercial, a viewpoint shared with everyone who I talked to who had started in Le Puy or somewhere in France.
