Day 13, May 10, 2017, Picarana to Santiago de Compostela

Me in front of last of the wayside crosses

I’d told Nicola about the Pilgrim’s mass in Santiago de Compostela at noon every day and she really wants to see it. When the alarm rings at 6:00 the next morning, I ask Nicola to raise the blinds. She says, they're up. The reason for the darkness is two-fold, the sun hasn’t completely risen and the sky is overcast.

We walk along the highway until we reach the first café where we try the door and are pleasantly surprised to find it open. There are no other customers. A young woman with dark hair wearing tights and t-shirt, the uniform preferred by young women all over the globe, asks me to close the door. We order a coffee and croissant and sit at one of the tables.

Souvenirs of the el Camino fill the racks along the one wall of the shop. They include t-shirts with the trademark yellow scallop shell and of course, the patented yellow arrow. No one can take the el Camino without that shell being permanently imprinted in their mind. Plaques with trail logos are also on display and key chains and ball caps and bottle openers.

Path through park

It's still dark when we leave the café into the cold and drizzle. We make a short slog uphill to a really cool looking hostel/hotel with attached café. The front is all glass and looks out on the deep, dark-green forest w're walking through. We think about stopping but we've barely started and, of course, there's the Pilgrims Mass at noon.

We pass the last of the old wayside crosses, the Cruceiro do Francos and Nicola takes my picture in front of it. I take Nicola’s picture as she crosses the last of our many different medieval bridges. Forest and farmland give way to smaller plots of land. Our path joins a narrow road and we pass under a stone archway under the highway. We cross the Rio Ulla on a huge bridge and arrive at the crossroads where the Camino divides.

One follows the preferred route of the city officials. The other takes a path through a local park. We follow that. The forest is thick with trees, the path, wide and gravelled. We pass and are passed by locals on a morning run or a leisurely stroll. Then, we emerge in the city proper.

The buildings are all new, the road wide and paved with stores lining both sides of the street. I take a last picture of the trademark scallop shell direction sign and am surprised by my feelings. Instead of relief that our journey is finally over and I no longer have to endure the throbbing pain in my shoulder after a day of carrying my oversized pack. Or exhaustion after 24 kilometres of continual ups and downs because, although the Portuguese route is very beautiful, it's also very hilly. No, I was already nostalgic and sorry that our adventures were over.

It's 11:00 a.m. when we arrive in the centre of Santiago de Compostela so we decide to drop our

Street leading to the cathedral

bags off at the hostel. Google maps takes us to the location but we can't see a hostel. We search in both directions for a sign that would indicate its location. Nicola checks her reservation and discovers that it's actually on the fifth floor of the building we're standing right in front of. We both squeeze into a tiny elevator, close the cage door and make a slow ascent up five floors. We bang on a bright orange door beside the hostel's plaque but to no avail. With packs on our back, we make a circular descent down five flights of stairs.

The hotel is located close to the Santiago de Compostela cathedral and we know we are getting close when we pass crowds of tourists getting off buses on the edge of the older section of the city. Past this point, the streets are too narrow for vehicles and follow curvy medieval lanes to the cathedral at the centre. (Kind of like they were once contained within protective walls.) We pass a stream of souvenir shops and restaurants and then, there it is, the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, almost completely covered in scaffolding.

Nicola is pissed. I take her picture. She doen't take mine. I should have said something. I’d

Nicola in front of Santiago de Compostela

envisioned myself posing with raised arms in a silent cheer. I don't. Too many mixed feelings. I watched young people take group pictures. One young man punches his leg muscles as a demonstration to friends of their bulk. I’m sure we haven’t been in such good shape for years. 

The entrance to the cathedral is around back, so we circumnavigated the cathedral and are greeted by a sign indicating that backpacks aren't welcome in the church. Shit. What are we going to do? We decide to enter anyway, through one of two doors over which stand saints and monks in sculpted relief. We squeeze through crowds to the pews and find room on a bench at the very back. It doesn't take long for a security guard to tell us that we can't have our packs in the church. We’d seen a few left outside but we don’t want to take a chance of them being stolen. The guard tells us that we can leave them at the nearby post office.

Finding any location in these narrow, curving alleys is easier said than done. Thank goodness for Google maps. The post-office has a super-modern interior even though it's contained within a stone structure hundreds of years old. The drop-off for backpacks is right by the door and, without a lineup, the clerk quickly scans our bags, puts them against the wall and gave us tags for pick-up. We return to the church with about ten minutes to spare.

There are no empty places on the pews so we stand just outside a barrier beside the pews. A 

Altar with statue of St. James with crypt beneath

young nun is seated just in front of me which I find kind of interesting because I think they are a lost breed, young and a nun. Not unattractive either. So much for stereotypes. 

True to her age group though, she's busy on her phone which she keeps on her lap. In the row behind her, an elderly lady argues with a young man who’s taken a seat next to hers, I'm assuming she'd reserved for her husband. Even with the fuss, the man won't move. Nicola thinks she might suffer from Alzheimer’s. Eventually, the guard escorts her to the side.

The tomb for St. James lies beneath a large golden altar with a giant, golden statue of the apostle, quite the awesome sight. The service begins with a nun leading the congregation in a hymn. We can't even pretend to know the words all spoken in Spanish. Then, about 12 priests arrive to stand by the front of the altar in two straight lines. They take turns performing different parts of the service and a layman does the reading. One priest reads the gospel and another delivers the homily, all in Spanish.

When communion starts, I realize why there are so many priests. They all proceed to different locations in the church with their wafers. Parts of the congregation lines up in front of each. I'm 

Lighting the incense

hesitant to participate because I’m not Catholic but Nicola reminds me of Pastor Allan’s rule for communion. “If you would normally participate in your own religion. . .” Undecided, I let Nicola lines up . My feelings toward religion are mixed but, after a minute of contemplation, I line up too. I don't have to wait long before the priest place a wafer on my tongue and I return to my spot. No wine. Back beside, I discover my place has been taken by what appears to me as a someone by some guy who probably came on a bus which outrages Nicola. I remind her that they can still be pilgrims. I don't really care except that he's take the spot beside my favourite nun. 

We watch eight guys in red cloaks approach the front and the altar and Nicola whispers to me, “You’re going to get your wish.” We’d seen the ritual cleansing of the pilgrims in the movie, “The 

Swing and duck

Way” starring Martin Sheen. It involves the filling a giant thurible with charcoal and incense. It weights 53 kg and looks like a samovar. A hook from the ceiling holds a rope used to swing this giant thing over the crowd. When ready, the guys in red robes, or tiraboleiros, pull the thurible toward the ceiling and then let it drop causing a swinging motion. They repeat this motion until the thurible has reached a height and speed frightening to watch. As it swings, incense floats down over the crowd. 

Pilgrims hang out wondering what to do next. 

We were told not to take photographs during the mass but now, the cameras and phones all come out including the nun's. I spend only a minute trying to capture it on my camera because I want to experience the event. I'm extremely moved.  I can't begin to explain why. Perhaps it's the culmination of all the work required to get there. Maybe, it's because I'm witnessing a tradition that goes
back hundreds of years. Maybe it's part of my own DNA that empathizes with the feelings shared by a crowd and walking for 13 days surrounded by symbols of spirituality and people who get meaning from them. 

After the service, we search for the Tree of Jesse. At one time, pilgrims had placed their hands

Nicola waiting to get her certificate

 on it upon entering the cathedral. Over the decades, holes had worn into the central pillar and so, it's now barricaded. For whatever reason, probably having something to do with the crowds, we never find the tree.

According the guidebook, a series of rituals are followed upon our safe arrival at the cathedral. Besides touching the tree, we're supposed to touch our brow to the kneeling figure of Maestro Mateo, hug the apostle on the high altar and kneel before the casket containing St. James remains in the crypt. We don’t do any of these things. 

Nicola proudly displays her camino passport and certificate

When we started the pilgrimage, we wondered if we even wanted the certificate of completion. Now that we're done, we definitely do. We heard the line to get one can be very long but we're ok with that. We present our passport to one of about 12 clerks. He glances through mine, asks how long we've been travelling, takes money to inscribe my name and I'm done. Really done.

After a lunch of tapas and beer, we go out souvenir shopping and purchase a stylized sculpture of a pilgrim. Kind of cool.

The alleys all lead to the Cathedral however they do not follow any kind of grid so it’s easy to get lost. We we stop at a bar filled with knick knacks; dozens of miniature liquor bottles, multiple versions of Scotch, Rum, Tequilas and craft beers plus pins from a multitude of places. Very cluttered. The result of dozens of years of collection. I like it.  

We spend the better part of an hour searching for the tapas bar we’d spotted earlier in the day. I’m glad we did. Not only are the tapas fantastic but we meet the Dutch couple again. We share our feelings about having been moved by our experience in the church and they encourage us to try a different route for the el camino. We assure them we will. We felt so much in common with this older couple even though we never learned their names nor they, ours.