We arrived in Santiago de Compostela yesterday morning. Our goal was to walk the last eight miles to arrive in the city for 12:00 mass.
We notified the kitchen the night before so the cute lady could pack us a “picnic,” since we would be missing breakfast. We were staying at a clean, fresh casa rural with a total of about 9 rooms, all run by a Galician superwoman. She packed us each a ziplock with a water, a sandwich with 3/4 inch slices of Bimbo bread holding a slice each of ham and cheese no condiments, an apple and a juice bottle. We got up at 6:00, dressed and did our hygiene, got our lunches out of the fridge, and started out on the Camino with our headlamps. We walked as swiftly as we could in the dark for about an hour and fifteen minutes until the sun came up enough to see clearly. Walking in the dark is a balancing act between trust and suspicion. We have to trust that we will find the yellow arrows and waymarkers, or that other pilgrims will also be looking and we can search together. And we have to suspiciously ask, “When was the last arrow? Did we miss one?” Yesterday we had about eight of us searching around an intersection with headlamps sweeping back and forth like The Berlin Wall. Kathy finally found a waymarker thirty feet down the road and we and the Germans all took off again.
We were without coffee until we entered the city (#severe emergency), then had enough time to stop and use the bagno and drink a quick caffe con leche. We went straight to the cathedral and arrived at 11:15. The pews were already nearly full for 12:00 Pilgrims Mass, and we sat in the left arm where we could not see the altar. The mass is of course in Spanish, but they do announce all the countries represented and say a special prayer for the pilgrims. I am always moved by the collection of pilgrims from all over the world who have been led to all arrive at that mass at that time to pass the peace. This year’s stats show that over 350,000 pilgrims will come to Santiago this year. A third of a million people. 17,000 of them will be Americans. On our walks we met pilgrims from South Africa, Italy, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Denmark, France, Ireland, England, Australia, Japan, Canada, US, and lots from Spain. Each had wonderful stories of how they chose their route and their timing.
Arriving at the square in front of the cathedral has never been as emotional for me as either the first sight of the cathedral spires entering town, or the passing of the peace in the mass. People ask me if I started crying when I saw the cathedral. No. The square is crowded, and everyone is blocking the way and taking pictures. There is a tourist train with about eight cars running right through, some pilgrims lying down to kiss the earth, a twelve-boat fishing boat exposition on one side, and the usual kiosks with walking staffs and t shirts in the corners. A man is playing Galician bagpipes around one corner, young girls are handing out flyers to a Finisterre tour and beggars kneel on the cobblestones with hats out. Altogether it is wildly chaotic, noisy, dangerously crowded, and impersonal, like the Puyallup Fair between the scone booth and the roller coaster. So I do not feel emotional that point. But when I get inside the cathedral, and it is hushed and a little dark, and all the wood is old and carved, and side altars have every Bible story depicted in wood, in granite, in plaster, in paint…. I feel awed and still. I remember my purpose of finding my spirit and God’s spirit on the journey. I can feel my hip aching and knee swelling but I don’t care because I am in the presence of a thousand years of faithful pilgrims all seeking a connection to God by walking and walking and walking. The crypt of Saint James has been there a thousand years, and pilgrims have viewed his coffin and prayed for their sins, for their loved ones, for medical miracles. The magnitude of the faithfulness is stunning.
Who wants to do a Camino? Our guide today said it is like eating French fries—You do one and you can’t stop.
