Today I arrived in Santiago de Compostela.
I left at six and walked through a dark eucalyptus forest with my headlamp on. I climbed over two big hills and started to drop down into the city of Santiago. The closer I got the more people I saw on the path, all streaming towards the Cathedral and the end of their journies.
I came upon a German man carving a heart in the soft path with his walking stick. People often leave messages for those who are behind--writing in the dirt, arranging stones to spell out a message, writing on a piece of bark, using nail polish on a rock, or sometimes simply pinning down a piece of paper with rocks or sticks. There´s actually also a lot cellphone texting and calling, but that seems less interesting.
The suburbs of Santiago were not promising, but eventually I passed through the Portico de Camino and into the Old City, which was much more handsome. Narrow streets, rain-stained stone buildings, many churches and plazas, and finally the massive cathedral itself. Inside I wanted to put my hand on the marble column, the Tree of Jesse, where millions of pilgrims have worn down the stone, but it was fenced off for some reason. Too many pilgrims, I suppose. Behind the massive altar ("held up" by huge and almost Asian-looking angels) one ducks through a small passage and up several steps to the back of the head of St. James--a golden idol looking out over the congregation. Traditionally people hug him around his shoulders and kiss the back of his neck. I settled for a touch of the silver scallop shell (symbol of the Camino) protruding from his back.
In the cathedral I came upon Mandy, and we went to the nearby Pilgrim´s Office to get our compostelas--a certificate of Camino completion. A long line wound up a stairway into a small room. I recognized most of the people on the stairs; everyone was excited and hugging, and some were crying. At the counter I had to fill in my name and age and nationality on a sheet of paper, then choose one of three reasons for walking the Camino: "religiosas," "religiosas y otras," or "no religiosas." I put an x in the last column. The young woman quizzed me on this choice, as if I might have made a mistake. I repeated "no religiosas," and so she got out an alternative certifcate--one plainer, in Spanish rather than Latin. A sort of half-hearted congratulations. Yes, I had done it--or so my credencial said--but I had not done it for a reason that the Oficina de Pergrinos considered worthy of full approbation.
At noon I attended he Pilgrim´s Mass in the cathedral. Afterwards I sat with my people out on the steps in the sun--no rain for the first day in a week--and we basked in the glory of arrival. Eight hundred kilometers from St. Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela. Twenty-seven days walking, twenty-seven different beds, hundreds of villages and cities, many different people from all over the world....
In the evening a large group of peregrinos from my cadre met in the vast plaza before the Cathedral, and we all sat in a circle and showed our bare feet. No one was unmarked. Later we went out to dinner together, and afterwards I had to say good-bye to many of the people, including Ben and Yasko and Bart (whom I had come to have a grudging affection for). At the end Bart asked if he could say a blessing, and then he did, the first time he had invoked God in all the evenings I spent in his company.
Salima had arrived too in the morning, and she and Mandy and Rachael and I went to a hotel (one star) rather than an albergue. Tomorrow Rachael leaves for England, but along with the other two women I´ll be setting off for Finisterre and the sea.
