Chuck's News: Day 22 - Thursday, September 19, 2019 - O Pedrouzo to santiago - Arrival at St. James Resting Place - 11.91 miles - Total Miles to Date

Today is the day we walked into Santiago and to the cathedral that holds the remains of Saint James. As Sally and I walked the last 11 miles, we talked about the significance of our walk. We enjoyed the first 240 miles immensely. We met new people each day, and were surrounded by friends we met on previous days. The number of people was not overwhelming, and we felt we had a chance to say hello and introduce ourselves to nearly everyone we met. The route took us through the Meseta, the flat farm country that stretches from Burgos over 100 miles to Astorga. It was exciting to hike through a landscape I had not visited before. From Astorga we entered the “mountains”, the hills of western Spain. Here again, the route was new and interesting.

Once we reached Sarria, the 100Km distance run to Santiago, the crowds grew in size 5 fold or more. It became overwhelming. You could not begin to meet all the people, let alone remember names or get to know them. We still had our circle of acquaintances, but now we were surrounded by crowds of unknowns. We both felt like lemmings marching to the sea instead of two people out for an adventure.

However, our friends did not feel the same. They were emotionally touched by their arrival to Santiago and the cathedral. D’Anne described doing a Facebook live recording of her arrival and having to stop recording and wipe her eyes and steady her voice, overcome with the emotion of the moment. She had walked 500 miles with this as her goal and she had done it and done it well. Between the thrill of accomplishing her physical goal and the spiritual aspect of performing a pilgrimage that has been followed for over a 1000 years, she was emotionally overrun. What a wonderful thing!!

Talking with other friends, they too felt a powerful significance to their accomplishment on all levels. And looking around the plaza in front of the church where hundreds and hundreds of pilgrims high fived, knelt in prayer, snapped photos and selfies, hugged, raised their backpacks above their heads in triumph and sung celebratory songs we could see many, many shared this moment of joy.

So how did Sally and I fit into this spectrum? I can’t speak for Sally. For myself I can say it was a hoot to walk down the final ancient cobblestone street, lined with souvenir shops, through the tunnel where the bagpiper plays and into the square where hundreds gathered. I have finished many, many hikes and a few much longer in distance than this one. But, I have never had a hike where the ending was so profound. Usually, you end up at a dusty trailhead in the middle of nowhere, get in a car and drive home. Here we had bagpipes, a huge plaza, a massive cathedral, a certificate of completion and 1000’s of people celebrating. That is one heck of a trailhead!!

These past 22 days have been great. Great scenery. Great walking. Great people. Great experiences. I am so glad we came here and did this. Would I do it again? Not the same section, but I feel that way about any long trail. I don’t want to repeat trails. I like the experience of seeing country for the first time, not knowing what is up ahead and discovering as I go. I would come back and hike the first part of the “way” that we skipped, St. Jean in France to Burgos, about 150 miles. Or walk one of the other Camino’s, such as the Portugal or Northern or the Primitive. But my first love is wilderness walking on a trail carrying my supplies. Walking from cafe to cafe is fun and I would enjoy doing it again, but given the option of wilderness vs Camino . . . .

We were up and out a few minutes before 6. We snuck out of the sleeping room where 12 others slept and moved to the kitchen, hoping not to disturb anyone. When we got to the kitchen, we found a man sleeping on one of the couches. What? We tried to stay quiet, but 4 or 5 other people soon joined us and the combined noise did not wake the sleeper as his snoring indicated. Breakfast of yogurt, crackers and cheese then taping sally’s toes and we were on our way.

It was strange this morning. We walked nearly half an hour without seeing another person. We expected the trail to be crowded with pilgrims anxious to reach Santiago, but apparently all the anxious ones spent the night closer to Santiago so they could arrive there earlier. About 7:00 we started to get overtaken with people, their headlamps lighting up the trail behind us. It didn’t get light enough to turn off the headlamps until about 8:10. By this time we were in a steady stream of people flowing toward the cathedral square. We stepped out of the flow now and then to get a treat at a way side cafe. As we approached the first cafe we saw D’Anne enjoying a pastry and beverage and we stopped in to sit a minute and say good morning. We got up and left before she finished, but 20 minutes later she passed us; being the speed walker she is. We stopped at a campground along the route and sat with Nancy and Maggie from Ireland for a bit, enjoying a Coke as they had tea and a pastry.

The landscape was changing. We were now in suburbia, walking by houses and such. We crested a hill to find a monument to John Paul II commemorating his visit to Santiago and a first glimpse of the city below, about 2.8 miles distant. From this point on we were in the city-house lined streets and then into the business district complete with traffic, crosswalks, stop lights and freeway overpasses. Pilgrims in front as far as you could see and pilgrims behind as far as you could see.

Eventually, we left the business district of the newer part of the town and entered the old part of town. The buildings were now stone, the streets stone. As the streets narrowed, the mass of pilgrims consolidated, not the shoulder to shoulder press of a mob, but close quarters nonetheless. A group of about 8 kids in front of us decided to walk the last distance barefoot and were carrying their shoes. The road started to slope downhill past many souvenir shops and the faint strains of bag pipe music could be heard in the distance. We had been walking the last 3/4 mile with Bridget of Germany, blocky woman with a hearty laugh that we had seen everyday, four or five times a day, for the past week. She was with us as we entered the square on the back side of the cathedral. We stopped for a photo, the bagpipes sounding louder, then walked down the sloping, cobblestone street under the arc where the bagpiper played, his sound echoing off the stones. The sound made me think of Robert Service’s poem about an enthusiastic bagpiper called, “How MacPhearson Held the Floor”. Through the arch and around the corner and we were in the plaza in front of the church. We were here!

We spent a little time in front of the church, then quickly scurried down the steep street and to the right to get our number to get us in line to get our Compostela. We followed a steady line of backpack laden souls into a building, down some stairs and into a room where a woman stood in front of a machine, pushing its button at each pilgrims request that caused the machine to print and eject a numbered ticket. The tickets could be held under a smartphone camera. Doing so launched a website showing which number you had and what number they were on. We were numbers 886 and 887. They were seeing number 358. At about 100 interviews an hour, we had about 5 hours to wait to get our certificates of completion.

Back up to the plaza for photos. While there we saw nearly everyone we had been hiking with. It was hard to fathom that they were all coming in within a few hours of us. Eventually, after many photos and lots of hugging, smiles and goodbyes, we found our way to Hospedale Mera. We checked in and crashed on the bed for a minute to rest, then got up to shower. Cleaned up, we headed out to tour the cathedral and then go for a late lunch. We knew we were having dinner with D’Anne, Regina and Sandy, but it wasn’t until 7:00pm.

We felt like Chevy Chase in “Vacation”. We had walked all the way across Spain to the Cathedral in Santiago and it was closed!! Well, not completely, but there was major renovations going on and the inside was filled with scaffolding. Still we could get in and see part of the inside. The highlight was seeing the holy door that is only opened on Holy Years (2021 is the next holy year). We also go to walk up through the alter where we could hug the statue of St. James and then travel down into the crypt and see his silver coffin(?). If interested, google St. James for his whole story. After our walk through the cathedral, we stopped at a gift shop, then headed up the street to an Italian Restaurant for pizza, something we were both hungry for.

I always am surprised at the serendipity that happens on the PCT, but this next event rivals the PCTs best. As we sat there, on a side street 4 blocks from the cathedral square finishing our pizza who should walk by but Ferrari! We met Ferrari our first day on the “way”, just outside Burgos. As we walked in the dark we heard someone’s rapid clicking of walking sticks coming up behind us. It was two fairly short older men briskly walking and overtaking us. One spoke very broken English and said his amigo walked very quickly, like a Ferrari, even though he was 69 years old. We quickly applied our PCT training and named him Ferrari. We asked his name and he said he was slow, like a Renault. This started the friendship between us and Renault and Ferrari. We saw them every morning as they passed us in the pre dawn light, and we laughed at their names and our good fortune in see each other everyday. Well, we had not seen them for about 2 weeks. We knew they had moved ahead of us and we lamented seeing them again. And here was Ferrari walking past our table! We shouted “Ferrari!!” He immediately turned, his face turning into a broad, delighted grin and came to our table. We stood to embrace him. With my very poor Spanish and his totally absent English a 20 minute conversation ensued. Believe it or not, we communicated. We typed our names, phone numbers and addresses into each other’s phones, used WhatsApp to test messages back and forth, hugged and again parted company. What fun!

We had to hustle to the Compostela office to get our certificates. My phone showed they were on number 820. Earlier, I had noticed the phone app was usually 20 or so behind the actual number, so we scurried to the office to find they were indeed on about 830. Waiting in the hallway for our number to come up we were surrounded by the people we had walked with. Michael and his wife from Ireland, Nancy and Maggie from Ireland, and about a dozen others that we cannot recall their names. While we watched the numbers slowly count up to ours we talked about the trip, each other’s homes and plans after the trip. Sally had number 885. I had 886. 884 came up. Sally got ready to go and 886 showed up first. In I went, wondering what was going to happen. Would they question my faith, my devotion, my beliefs? Would I have to answer ecclesiastical questions? I walked to my appointed point at the counter, handed over my number and my Credential.

The credential is the pamphlet each pilgrim must carry with them to be admitted to an albergue. At each one your credential is stamped and dated. Most businesses and all cathedrals along the route can also stamp your credential. You must have two separate stamps per day during the last 100 kilometers.

The woman seated at desk carefully scanned my credential, inspecting dates and names on the stamps. Finally, she grabbed a blank certificate and filled it out with my name. No questions. No quizzes. I asked if I could have the distance certificate as well, certifying how far I had walked. She said yes and filled that one out as well. I paid my 3€ for the distance certificate, 3€ for Sally’s and 2€ for a tube to help them survive until we got home and exited the building. It was now 6:15. We had enough time to walk to our room, leave our stuff and head for dinner.

We arrived at the plaza in front of the cathedral to meet D’Anne, Regina and Sandy for dinner. We found D’Anne waiting. Regina and Sandy showed up a few minutes later. We headed up the restaurant filled street, looking for a place that suited us, jabbering and sharing stories of the “way”. We had a great dinner, each ordering something different off the menu and sharing it family style. During dinner Anna Marie (from Denmark) showed up out of nowhere to say hi and 5 minutes later Jen (from Germany) appeared and stayed, eating his dinner with us. About 9:30pm we moved across the street to a bar where D’Anne bought shots of something for everyone. Then it was time to break our fellowship. With promises to stay in touch we gave our last hugs and each went our ways. What a way to end a hike!!

The way

Red chair

Santiago in the background

The crowd

The crowd gets bigger

Crossing the freeway. Something ancient pilgrims did not have to encounter