Sunrises to Santiago: Searching for Purpose on the Camino de Santiago (26 page)

We
have been in the serene, silent, natural beauty of Galicia for days
and the bustle of the city is overwhelming. It is like spending a few
hours inside of a dark room and walking outside into the bright light
of midday. Your
senses
are overwhelmed
,
and it is hard to handle. People speed by, busy with the business of
living their lives. Horns honk, and we blend into the sea of
humanity.

We
do
eventually
make our way to the city center, round the corner and just like that,
find ourselves in front of The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.
This massive structure was finished and blessed in the year 1211 and
has seen thousands upon thousands of pilgrims over the years.
¹
Today, it welcomes us.

There
are weary pilgrims lying in the
Praza
do Obradoiro
using
their backpacks as pillows, staring up at the cathedral, much like
me, in disbelief. Some are crying. Many are hugging each other. Still
others look on with no emotion at all. Much like me, I wonder what
exactly I am supposed to feel. There is a little tourist train slowly
making its way into the center of the square. It looks like it is
straight from Disneyland, chugging around us on small rubber tires
over the old cobblestones. Tourists in the train are snapping
pictures of the pilgrims like they are on safari, and we are the
animals on display in our native setting.

I
gaze up at the giant cathedral as the stone carving of St. James
stares down from its perch up above, and I try to think of nothing at
all. I focus on being completely here, in the moment, experiencing
this with Amy. I feel relaxed and relieved to have made it this far.
In total, we have traveled 788 kilometers, or 490 miles, in 29 days.
We walked 655.8 kilometers, or 408 miles, and the rest we completed
by taxi, train, and bus.

We
see many of the people we have met along the Way in the square and
say hello, but everyone seems to be lost in thought. No
one
seems elated as I would have expected. Maybe it is a sort of sadness
that this is all over, and we have to go back to the real
world.
If nothing
else,
this has been a true adventure that I am truly grateful to have had.

“
Well,”
I say, turning to Amy. We are both seated on the stone ground,
staring up at the scene. “How ya feelin?”

“
Good.
I guess,” Amy replies. She seems to be in the same state as I am.
“Should I be crying? There are lots of people crying.”

“
I
don
’
t
think you
should
be anything,” I reply.

“
Are
we dead inside?” she jokes.

“
I
don
’
t
think so,” I laugh. We both stare back up at the giant old
cathedral.

The
building is undergoing a restoration. There is scaffolding covering
much of the front of the building with a giant picture of what you
should
be seeing. It seems somehow appropriate. I feel I
should
be wearing a sign myself that reads, “Restoration in progress
thanks to the Camino de Santiago.” I have not yet grasped the
restoration, and it may take months to finally understand it all.

“
Well,
I know what I am feeling. I am feeling like I need to eat a big plate
of
Jamón,
” I tell Amy. “You hungry?”

“
Now
you
’
re
talkin,” she replies.

We
sit in the square for a while more, taking it all in before deciding
to find a hotel and then dinner. What a day and what an adventure
this has been.
We
have arrived a day earlier than we had planned so have to wait until
tomorrow to check in to our five star hotel. It is 6 p.m. We decide
we have had enough of albergues and choose
a
pensión,
which is basically one step above a hostel and one below a hotel. The
pensión
is glorious.
I
have spent the last month drying myself with the little
travel
shammy towel I got from REI, and the giant white hotel towel seems
like an extraordinary gift fit for a king.

The
next day, we sleep in, enjoying the pillow top bed.

“
Our
last day in Spain
,”
I
tell Amy. My few words loaded with mixed emotions. It seems somehow
unnatural waking up and not walking.

We
will spend our last day attending the Pilgrim Mass, which takes place
at noon inside the giant cathedral. I plan on using today
to
try and reflect on what has happened over the past 30 days. I
also
plan on eating every food that I love here in Spain before we leave
tomorrow.
That
means
Churros
con Chocolate
for breakfast.
One thing I am not worried about right now is calories!

After
a delicious breakfast, we make our way to the
Praza
de Obradoiro,
the
golden square of Santiago
,
to
observe the new pilgrim arrivals and do some thinking. As we sit and
take in the scene, I spot a familiar face in the crowd.
The
Barista and the Hungarian crew
whom
we met the first few days on the trail! We rush over to them to say
hello, and I am so happy to see them.

“
Still
wearing my knee brace I see,” The Barista jokes.

I
smile and reply, “Did you find your answers on the trail?”

“
I
did. I will open the best coffee shop in the world when I get home,”
he replies with a look of excitement in his eyes.

After
this, we see John from New Orleans and the woman from Boulder,
Colorado, who carried 7 pounds of oatmeal with her along the Way! It
is like a little Camino reunion right in the square. The Hungarians
are planning to walk to Finisterre, the end of the earth, and I wish
we had time to join them.

We
then see Cole, the young priest in training we met on the hardest day
of my journey. He enters the square with a big grin on his face.

“
Hey!
How are you guys?” he asks, surprised to see us. “You made it!
Man, when I saw you, you had just learned you had tendinitis right? I
didn’t think you guys stood a chance!”

“
You
were pretty ill, too, right? From the bad soup the sisters fed you?
Did the charcoal pills we gave you work?” Amy asks.

“
You
know that is a really funny story actually. Oh! Hold on a sec,” he
reaches into his pack and pulls out a folded piece of paper. “We
wrote a poem about the charcoal pills. Can I read it to you?”

Amy
and I look at each other with amusement. “Of course! Let’s hear
your poem.”

“
OK,
here goes. Don’t laugh. I am a budding poet and, well, your gift of
charcoal pills inspired me. You wouldn’t believe how much we talked
about this,” he clears his throat. The cathedral towers above him
as more pilgrims pile into the square. His big grin leaves his face
and he begins in a serious tone:

“
The
feast of the birth, the forerunner of Christ. With the sisters full
of mirth, we were being led by the Geist. At Carrion de los Condes,
we feasted on the soup. The stomach then asked, donde estas?
Groans,
rumblings and grumblings filled the group. In Terradillos the first
pilgrim dropped. Oh sisters’ soup, oh sisters’ soup, of what were
you made, with what were you topped? Oh sisters’ soup, oh sisters’
soup. In Camino wrong turns are none, what is a pilgrim without pain?
So we arrived with another stomach undone. Oh sisters’ soup, could
we have refrained? Calzadilla de los Hermanillos. Did we find a cure?
Yes, a pilgrims’ pain is known by Dios, so he took the pills, black
and pure. Oh sisters’ soup, oh charcoal pills. Across las Mesetas
brown, burnt, sun and shade, flats and hills. One pilgrim to another,
trust is learnt. What is a pilgrim without pain? Songs and laughs. Oh
little black pills. At Villa Franca they raised cain. Vomited up.
Victory. Only despair kills. So onward we go pilgrims. Oh sisters’
soup, oh charcoal pills. We remember, we forget, singing hymns. Oh
sisters’ soup, oh charcoal pills. So important are our pains? No
Lord, let us not think so. With you we pilgrim even in the rains. Oh
sisters’ soup. Oh charcoal pills. To Santiago we go.”

“
Bravo!”
Amy says as we clap enthusiastically. We are both grinning from ear
to ear.

“
Well
done!” I say.

“
Thanks,
guys,” Cole says with a shy grin. His face has turned red.

Seeing
so many people that we met these past 30 days now here in Santiago
brings me a sense of closure. All of them contributed, in some small
way, to the lessons I will be taking home with me.

We
say
our final goodbyes and head to the Pilgrim Office to get
our
Compostela
.
The official certificate of completion for the Camino de Santiago.
The criterion of a bona fide pilgrim is that you have walked at least
100 kilometers. We clearly qualify for ours and get there early
before the lines start to form.

We
check the boxes on a quick survey that asks questions like
Where
did you begin? Where are you from? What are your reason
s
for walking the Camino?

“
Passports?”
T
he
friendly person behind the counter interrupts my scribbling on the
form.

I
show her
my
pilgrim passport, now full of colorful stamps collected along the
Way, and they hand me my
C
ompostela
.
It
is a small official-looking scroll stating that I have completed the
journey. After we leave, Amy notices that they spelled her name
wrong.
“Do
you want to go back and get a new on
e?”
I
ask.

“
No,
it
’
s
fine,
”
she
replies.
“
It
’
s
only a piece of paper!
”

I
know what she means. The piece of paper seems empty and receiving it
an anticlimactic experience. It feels as if we just went to the DMV
and got a new driver’s license.

We
make our way to the cathedral at about 11:30 a.m. and take our time
as we enter. The cathedral is immaculate, and the first thing you see
at the front door is the
Tree
of Jesse
.
This ornate carved stone column is the work of the Master Mateo.
Thousands of years of tradition has had pilgrims touch the stone
column and send up a prayer of thanks for safe arrival. You can see
where fingers have worn holes into the stone over the centuries. This
work of art has been here since 1188.
²