Pre-Camino Travels | Camino Part 1 | Camino Part 2 | Camino Part 3 | Camino Part 4 | Camino Part 5
Camino Finale
While writing this Camino travelogue, I used a mini-attachable keyboard to an iPad. I have been hauling it all across Spain. It served as my desk to read emails. It was also a nice, if not awkwardly large, camera. It even held my library of ebooks along the way. My fellow pilgrims would lift the iPad in their hands testing out its weight in disbelief that I was carrying that many extra ounces. I believe it was worth it. I have tucked myself into many bunk beds throughout Spain typing in the dark about each day’s events. If I had a good wifi connection (which I often didn’t) I tried uploading photos. Photos usually didn’t work so I only sent my writing these last few times to you. It is painful for me to tell a story without pictures!
To make up for my naked words these past few emails, here is my final installment, from the comforts of my couch in Chicago, on a large laptop screen, with strong delicious internet. It includes my photos, videos, and voice recordings from the first days of the camino to the end. I hope you take the time to read and listen. Turn the volume up to hear our voices. The music is what gets me every time.
Side note from several days ago....
The Legend of Ponferrada
I failed to mention a big point of interest that we visited on day 22 between Molinaseca and Villafranca. We stopped in the large sprawling city called Ponferrada that is famous for its Knights Templar castle. After meeting Tomás in his hut the day before, I thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast with the actual history of real Knights in a real medieval castle. We took some great panoramic photos, looked at more romantic piles of rocks, saw some old books and recreated Templar armor. Okay, but, um, what did the Knights Templar actually do and why did the Vatican dismantle them? In one of my lesser known books I've been reading about the Camino, an amateur author took it upon herself to walk the Camino looking for the hidden symbols of ancient goddess worship and feminine spirituality. She chronicled her exploration of lots of churches noting how the tiniest towns would hold symbols of Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary with hidden symbols of towers and skulls connecting them to hidden goddess worship. The Knights Templar were really keen on Mary so the author takes special attention with any connection to Los Templarios along the Camino. She talks about divine female beings coming to her in her dreams as she walked the Camino and interpreted them as the goddesses through time trying to reach her. She even claims to have seen a white light in Ponferrada that kept her in this mysterious place. She writes that she only later found out that similar beaming white visions of Mary had been found in the oak trees around this town for many centuries and maybe it was connected to the Knights Templar and their secret worship of the Virgin Mary. Somebody call Dan Brown!
I am a little jealous of these dreams. The only dream I remember is one afternoon while napping, I had a vision of two birds escaping from my backpack and flying up into the trees. Seeing how I had a history of carrying unknown species of the insect world in my pack, it is little wonder that I dreamt of the insects' predators. Or maybe I am a horrible cynic and I need to give a little more credit to my subconscious or the powers that be that come to me while I'm sleeping. It was a lovely vision of those birds taking their liberated flight out from my pack and into the trees.
Okay, back to my final days on the Camino. I hope you're still with me.
Day 25 Triacastellas-Molino de Marzan
27km
Our walks continued through small farms and tiny river valleys winding up and down and around rolling hills. We came across lots of farm animals and farm smells. The one thing I did not see though during the entire Camino was pigs. For all the ham that Spain eats, there was not one live pig on my 500 mile walk. Perhaps they are too unsightly or the factory farms are too nauseating for our pure pilgrim hearts. Because thousands of people walk these paths each year, it is difficult to know what is authentic anymore and what is "dressed up" for our nostalgic delight. In the middle of a wheat field, a sign post will advertise pilgrim menus 15km up the road and an otherwise abandoned alley will be dressed up with flowers on all of the window ledges. What do these towns look like a few hundred meters off the track? My legs were not as curious as my mind so I don't really know for sure.
Dog of omens?
A single dog followed us for the last kilometer this day. Maybe an omen? Paulo Coelho writes about dogs being guides and offering signs along the Camino. Patrizia has a huge fear of dogs so she walked closely between me and Ettore while this German Shepard trailed behind us sniffing and panting and occasionally circling around our trio. I assured her in my Spanglo-Italian that he was not aggressive, just probably full of fleas. He eventually just trotted back to whatever farm he calls base, probably waiting to terrorize another petite Sicilian on her way to Santiago. But maybe it had something to say?
We found a sweet and really quiet albergue. It used to be an old mill in a little hamlet right off the Camino. The trick is to walk just beyond the main town or stop right before the next main stop to keep away from the crowds of obnoxious school groups and old retired snorers from Belgium. But the other trick is to make sure the albergue is either going to feed you or there is a bar in town serving food. One albergue advertised dinner 1.5km up the road. I will walk 500 miles across Spain but walking 1.5km to get dinner was an impossible task.
Just as we were about to settle into our lovely hamlet and relax, Ettore realized he left a little bag with his wallet in the last town. There were panicked phone calls in English, Italian, and Spanish but the last restaurant we were at was holding it. Phew! We just had to get back to that town. We called a rural taxi and I offered to accompany him just to experience the inside of a car (and because he was understandably a nervous wreck.) It took the taxi 10 minutes to drive through our one hour of walking. The taxi driver, amazingly, spoke Italian and explained that Ettore's money would all be there because this was a great town and this is Galicia. In Barcelona? In Rome? He wouldn't have that bag anymore.
Driving quickly over dirt roads we had just been walking was like rewinding a movie you had just lived in. I also had not been inside of a moving vehicle (or had even seen a movie) in almost a month. Let me repeat: I had not been in any vehicle that propelled me faster than my own body for over 3 weeks. I don't think that has ever happened in my entire life. It is almost as shocking as that one time I went camping in the U.P. in Michigan. I realized I was 8 miles away from coffee. When are you 8 miles away from coffee in your life? That one stretch on La Meseta where there was no cafe for 17km was probably the other time I got away from hot caffeine in a cup. But, I mean, we knew there would be a few hours without espresso and were mentally prepared.
Why I am talking about coffee??
Anyway, sure enough, Ettore had every single thing still in his bag and we took an exhilarating ride in an air conditioned car back to the old mill to eat tortilla con tomate and vino with the other Italians.
Because we were only a group of seven Peregrinos, we slept in near silence in a cool, clean, newly renovated space where the pillows aren't moldy yet and the bathroom doors still close. It was bliss and I fell asleep at 8:30 pm clocking ten full hours of sleep. Camino record.
Day 26: Molina de Marzan-Hospitalero de la Cruz
24.5km
The scenery today was more rolling farmland hills like the day before.
We had been taking breaks in towns like Portomarín for a short lunch. As usual, we pledged to take short breaks today but, as usual, we went slower. First, one of us would get distracted by the supermercado and need something, then someone else would remember they needed something else at la farmacia, then one of us would need to change their socks at a park bench, or stop to look for something in their pack...the heat of the afternoon was approaching and my tan Italians didn’t seem phased.
“Gina, you are not Italian and need to get out of the sun," I told myself. "Gina is.not.Italian." I was getting so frustrated at the group. There is a reason anger is associated with heat. I had time to walk it off because that's all I do, of course, is walk...for hours...everyday. I walked 50 meters behind Patrizia and Ettore for a good while sulking, swearing, sweating and spitting out bugs flying into my mouth. Historically, people were sentenced to walk the Camino instead of serving prison time and today was a good day to ponder that fact.
As the temperature rose, the thoughts started racing: We could have covered more ground during cool morning hours and now we’re sweating at the peak heat of the day. This is so stupid. I hate everything. I hate this stupid heavy backpack. I hate that the waiter didn't bring us the check until 30 minutes later and I was trying to be too polite and didn’t say anything. I hate that I have to wash my same socks every night in the sink and hang them to dry. I hate hanging clean clothes on the line and dropping half of them in the dirt. I hate when I have to take a shower and there's nowhere to put your soap and you drop your semi-clean change of clothes on the wet cement floor. I'm sick of my same 3 sets of clothes I've been wearing for the month. I'm sick of speaking English slowly. I don't want to tell people where I've from anymore and drink warm water out of a 2 week old plastic bottle. I don't want to wake up and check what bit me every morning. I hate my hyper-sensitive skin and the heat rashes that appear all over. I don't care how beautiful and amazing anything is anymore, I just want to watch YouTube and eat potato chips.
Ok, I see an espresso bar approaching over that hill and Patricia just bought a bag of Chupa Chups for the group. Everything is going to be ok.
You can tell what language someone speaks by the guidebook they are holding. English speakers carry an orange covered book written by a guy named John Brierly. He offers much in the way of practical and mystical guidance. One thoughtful sentence stood out to me: "The tourist will look for the stone altar - the pilgrim an altered state." Today was not the altered state that I was expecting...but I gained new ground for sure.
When we finally arrived at a tiny albergue in the countryside, we found about 4 other people in the giant dorm room. This meant quiet, peaceful sleeping but it also meant another dinner of fried eggs and lettuce at the bar for us isolated souls. A lonesome rural bar does not get too creative with the pilgrim dinner menu. Before we turned in for the night, Ettore and I went hunting for salt water for our feet. Making our agua con sal mixture for our feet was a little more difficult tonight. This was not really a town. It was two rural roads meeting at an expressway and only 4 other mercifully quiet non-snoring peregrinos were sleeping in the albergue that night. The hospitalera wasn't around either. We couldn't find salt in the practically unused kitchen and there were no laundry bins lying around like there usually are to fill with water. I'm an art teacher. I'm supposed to be resourceful...so I marched across the road to the bar asking for salt from the bartender. I also pressed my luck by asking for a container. She said that salt was all she could offer us. Fair enough. I wouldn't lend my greasy, limping self a dish for my feet either. I thanked the bartender profusely and complimented her lovely bar (I had already had my fried eggs and wine there an hour ago)...and then took the plastic grocery bag of salt back to the albergue and found two cooking pans in the pilgrims’ kitchen. One was too small to fit both feet so I filled two separate pans. It worked. No one will ever know that at the albergue in Hospital de la Cruz, a converted old school building on highway N-540, has cooking pans that were used to soak the feet of an American and an Italian on Sunday, the 17th of July, 2016. No one. Ever.
Late note on my anger issues today. It was 40 degrees Celsius as we were walking this afternoon. That's 104 Fahrenheit. All parties excused.
Day 27 Hospital de la Cruz-Melide
28km
Ok, you guys, we made a commitment to wake up at 6 and be walking by 6:30...Patrizia is ready, Gina is ready, Ettore...Ettore...
Later in the day Ettore said that we would have started earlier but Gina likes to sleep. Mamma Mia, I was waiting for you outside! We had a schedule! I walked a few meters behind for a while again today. This was not our most musical day.
We had one point of interest on the map today that we kept our eyes out for...it is the Cemeterio de Peregrinos. Ettore and I already waxed poetic a few days ago about beautiful cemeteries so we were all set to see a cemetery dedicated to Peregrinos. Can you imagine walking hundreds of miles and dying just two days short of Santiago? And this is a few days after the town of Villafranca, or mini-Santiago, where they gave you a Reader's Digest version of the compostella, if you couldn't make it. Or maybe they died on the way back home? We saw a young Hungarian guy on the side of the road, looking very much like a seasoned pilgrim asking for money. He was walking BACK to Hungary. We gave him bread and a handful of change. There are many generous people on the Camino...but the roads after Spain back to his Hungarian hometown???
So that cemetery we were looking for ended up being an ancient stone cross on the side of the path and that was about it. The image in my head was far more exciting and that's why I'm grateful for books and imagination. I can see a rock and get excited.
Each day as we got closer to Santiago, we noticed bigger towns with more people on the road and in the albergues.
Every morning we promised each other that we were going to find a good albergue and every afternoon our feet and brains were completely toast. We would stumble into doorways hoping there was a flat surface to lie on and maybe running water. By 3pm, we decided we would sleep in whatever shelter that appears on the horizon next.
Checking into a pilgrim shelter goes as follows:
I hand a sweaty passport and my pilgrim credentials over the counter to a volunteer hospitalero and I’m assigned a bunk. I pay 6-10 euros or give a donation in the morning. I hobble over to a moldy mattress hoping it’s not a mat on the floor this time but an actual bed. I collapse in a heap of dried sweat on my sleeping bag for a few hours during the afternoon heat. I wake up to new pilgrims laying out their sleeping bags around me. If I’m lucky, I might have a leftover cheese bocadillo in my pack or a bag of almonds that I didn’t finish from earlier and I devour it half-asleep. I wash my socks and whatever else that I need to use the next day in the sink and I hang them to dry. Sometimes they dry on the edge of my bunk bed and sometimes on a rack outside the albergue. I carry my passport, money, my soap and toothbrush in a mesh bag, and a change of clothes to the shower. There is no curtain on the shower so I choose the last stall. The shower stall has a window of the cows chewing grass outside your window and I marvel at the mountains and notice a new bug bite. I drop everything 3 times on the wet dirty floor. I put on the clothes that I’m going to wear the next day, check in with any Italians that are awake, and make a plan for dinner.
In the middle of the night, I wake up to snoring or mosquitos or sometimes both. When it is finally quiet, someone gets up at 4am and starts unwrapping every plastic bag in their pack and making their headlamp dance across the floor and into my eyes. I wake up cold and in the dark, wiping diaper cream on my feet and putting on one thin layer of silk socks and then thicker athletic smartwool socks. Then I walk outside the dorm room and find my walking shoes on the shelf and wiggle my swollen feet into them. The Italians and I walk to the next espresso bar as the sun rises. Our underwear that didn’t dry last night is tied to the outside of our packs flapping in the morning breeze.
Day 28 Melide-Pedrouzo
22.8+15.6...37.4km
We collapsed a stage and a half from the guidebook together so that we were all set for the last big haul of the Camino. This gets us as close to Santiago as possible so that we only have a short walk the final day and arrive in time for the noon pilgrim mass. We were noticeably stronger this time around and we were on relatively flat terrain so 37km felt like nothing!
You can definitely feel the difference in the atmosphere these last few days on the trail. You only need to walk the final 100km to receive a compostela so it has been more crowded since the town of Sarria 5 or 6 days out from Santiago. Some people just walk the last day after a tour bus drops them off a few kilometers outside of Santiago. The trail is also full of high school students who don't know how to use walking sticks. It is strange to think that this is the last long day.
It was just as humid as yesterday and I was getting nervous about the heat setting in but the clouds and fog rolled in like the unpredictable Galicia we came to expect. I was drunk on cool misty fog. I think I started running once, breaking into a healthy trot down a steep decline in the cool air with my heavy pack strapped so tightly to my pack, it didn’t jostle a centimeter. I was made for overcast days.
I got an email from Rosa learning that Camilla, my walking companion for the first 10 days or so of the Camino, had stopped walking. Her swollen ankle had forced her to return to Sweden. I always thought I would see her again.
The scenery today included old stone farmhouses and wooden carts decaying in front. There were apparently several wooden carts in use, rolling through these roads in the 70s but I saw zero on my walk. They say families would recognize their cart by just the sound of it. I love that. That time was gone though and I just heard packs of Spanish teens playing music from their portable stereos.
Final Albergue
This was to be my last night in an Albergue Xunta (municipal), the large government run shelters that are your cheapest, most bare-bones lodging option as a pilgrim.This meant the last night with someone crumpling a plastic bag within inches of my face. This last night in one of the huge pilgrim shelters was particularly brutal. I actually sat up in my bunk recording the sounds of snoring all around me.
I also climbed down from my bunk at midnight because there were teenagers talking and laughing on the other side of a partition. My cranky feet stepped down clumsily on the metal ladder. (Those things hurt when you've been walking hundreds of miles!) My inner-teacher woke up and walked around to the other side of the partition and, in Spanish, scolded the teenagers and told them it was time to go to bed. They apologized half-heartedly and I turned off the light on them like a cranky old pilgrim. Where was their chaperone?
Day 29 Pedrouzo-SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELLA
19km
The FINAL DAY had arrived and we woke before dawn scrambling to get our packs together and to get on the trail. We could see packs of walkers with their flashlights bobbing down the road towards the woods. We walked through Eucalyptus trees on this final day and I read later that several species of Australian Eucalyptus were imported in 1865 for use as building material. They proved unsuitable so now they just grow like weeds and mess with my medieval fantasies of what it would have looked like walking through these trails.
In the last couple of hours of my final walk, I felt myself pulling away from the Italians and I told them I had to walk the end alone. I started this crazy walk by myself and I wanted to finish by myself. I surged ahead falling deeply into the swirling images of the last 29 days coming down to its final kilometers.
I passed through the blip of a village called Lavacolla without stopping my feet but definitely shifting my mind to the medieval pilgrims that were ordered to stop here and wash themselves before entering Santiago. So Lavacolla must have been where all the Graduate students in Public Health did their case studies. "Lava" means to wash and "colla" in medieval Romance means scrotum -yes, scrotum- so I'll let your imagination take over from here. Interestingly, Christians weren't into being so clean so this was an important moment on the Camino. Being sure to lava your colla is also associated with pre-Christian purification rites. The pagans did it first!
Lava your colla
Apparently, Lavacolla was also known for 12th century "Compostellans" advertising about their taverns in Santiago. They would even show off wine skins for tasting and demand money there on the spot since all the rooms would be full If they didn't secure a room right there and then. Nine hundred years later, things have not changed that much. A man in a suit--a suit, you guys-- on a dirt path in the woods, was handing out phone numbers to a good hotel in Santiago. Luckily, he was selling his luxury discounted habitaciones to a small pack of Spanish people as I approached. I slipped around the well-dressed man hustling in the Eucalyptus trees and kept going. I imagine he returns to town each night on a galloping horse with pilgrims’ euros spilling out of his dress pants.
Arriving in Santiago:
There are markers on the path that not only tell you which direction to walk in but in Galicia, they also tell you how many kilometers left to Santiago. Seeing the numbers go down into the single digits started to make the end of the walk actually feel real. I read that many pilgrims feel everything from pure bliss and elation to disappointment on arrival. I just liked the thought of completing a task. It--whatever "it" was-- was almost here! There was an hour of walking through the city streets before actually seeing the Cathedral. This means I was actually entering a decent size town which is exciting by itself.
Traditionally, pilgrims would see the cathedral towering in the distance as they climbed a hill and would fall to their knees and weep. Now an apartment complex and sprawling hotels line the path and block the view. I think I was weeping at the sight of another bar only offering tortillas (the ubiquitous potato egg omelette) to my vegetarian stomach. I just want hummus, you guys.
There was an old chapel, one of the last of hundreds that I had passed in the past month and there was a modern park complex under construction. Just a few decades ago when pilgrims were reviving the path, it was just some cabbage fields.
As I walked past industrial buildings and hit the city streets, I saw the same father and son from Oregon, Hector and Simon, from my very first day in St. Jean, 29 days ago. They appeared along the road like a foggy memory of my existence just before I had begun walking.
I think I took a wrong turn and approached the cathedral from behind and stood around for a while thinking this can't be it...I remember a big plaza in the movies and books. As I often do in life, I never take the direct route and eventually found my way to the front and joined the droves of sweaty pilgrims sitting on the stone ground in the middle of the plaza in front of the Cathedral. I didn't cry. I didn't get emotional or see white lights. I did, however, immediately take off my shoes. I sat on my pack watching others take photos and sit in front of our long-awaited prize. I sat for about 20 minutes wiggling my toes, noticing a few familiar faces and many faces that I'd never seen before that must have arrived from other routes. The father and his two young sons from Madrid found me and we all hugged and I met their mother (who the father had met on the camino years before).
I stored my pack at a little corner facility next to the cathedral, used a wifi signal to let Ettore and Patrizia know where I was, and raced into the Pilgrim's mass at noon...without ever cleaning my scrotum.
Pilgrim's Mass
There are so many pilgrims and tourists that try to attend the pilgrim's mass these days because the cathedral has become famous for a tradition of waving smoke through the air.
This ritual of flying a giant urn through the church during mass is called "botofumeiro." They call the guys who manage the amazing pully system "tirafumeiros." They need at least 6 men in maroon cloaks (no other color will do) to make the flying smoke on a rope sway through the transepts of the cathedral. It was quite dramatic to see the team in maroon light the urn, bless it, hoist it up high into the heights of the church and swing the massive silver object over our heads for a few disorienting minutes. I loved it when an old lady peeked from outside her cell phone while she was recording the swinging to exclaim, "Mamma Mia!" I refrained from recording because I was sure there were hundreds of recordings of it on YouTube. Update: there are!https://youtu.be/S_s2Rf0Z0eE
The incense-flying tradition has been attributed to the atrocious scent in the church from all of the sweaty pilgrims packed into the church---despite Lavacolla's best efforts. The "incense show" happened sometime after communion which is far too long to endure body odor if you ask me...and I’m a middle school teacher. Thanks to modern hygiene and what I imagine to be the church's creative efforts to get people to actually sit through an entire mass, the incense ritual at the end was just fine.
After the mass, I had to find the Italians. It was the first time I did not have them immediately in my sight. I hovered by my backpack storage area where I could get a wifi signal and tried giving directions in whatsapp to Ettore to find me. I had been by their sides...never leaving more than a few meters between us for several weeks and now I had to use a cheesy app to find my fellow pilgrims.
I was glad to have walked ahead of them because they didn't make it in time for the pilgrim mass. Eventually we reunited and took on the task of finding accommodations that weren't several hundred euros and weren't bunk beds in a dorm hall. After walking in delirium, we eventually landed at a small hotel. We tucked ourselves into our 3 person room with real beds and bed sheets and large white towels that had long lost their fluff. It was the ugliest hotel room but it was all ours!
Getting your Compostella
We also walked to the “pilgrim office” to officially register ourselves and receive our Compostelas. Medieval pilgrims would seek indulgences from the church for having reached Santiago. Modern pilgrims today often don’t talk about this but essentially, this compostela, my certificate of completion, is my official VIP pass to heaven. The “internet points” on Facebook don’t hurt either. The pioneering pilgrims reviving the Camino in the 70s had to find a priest in town and convince the authorities extensively about what they were doing and that they deserved a compostela. Now in 2016, there was a long wait in an office that resembled the DMV. A TV screen blinks the number for which counter is ready to take the next pilgrim and you approach the volunteer on the other side of the counter with your credencial.
I greeted a nice Australian lady volunteering to review pilgrim credencials. I proudly unfolded my credencial showing a stamp for every shelter I stayed at for the past month. She glanced quickly over my last several days noting that I didn’t get at least 2 stamps for the last 100km. I explained that I stopped getting more than one stamp in the last few days because I was running out of room on the credencial and I told her I was more than willing to show her photos and blisters. I just walked here from France, lady, give me my ticket to heaven!
She consulted her “compostela manager” (Jesus?) and quickly said, ok, I believe you! She then went to task looking up my name in Latin. If you state that you are walking the Camino for religious purposes, they write your certificate in Latin. If you state you are doing it for tourist reasons, they give you one in Spanish. You better believe I wanted my four years of high school Latin finally put to use! The nice Australian lady had a stapled photocopied pages of Latin names and we talked briefly about how the Latin name for Jean was only listed for the male French name so we looked up Jeanne and Joan and Jane and settled on Giovanna. Dominam (Lady/Miss) Giovanna Fitzgerald had the official blessings from the office and I skipped out of the office a few inches closer to heaven.
Later that evening, after eating a long dinner and not thinking about washing our socks and drying them for the next day, we headed back to the Cathedral plaza to find that a huge concert was underway. The feast of St. James, Santiago’s big annual festival, was kicking off and how else to celebrate than a Chicago blues musician crooning to a sea of weary pilgrims in front of the Cathedral. It was surreal. I often think that the word surreal is a lazy, overused word, like “interesting” and “awesome” but having a black guy from Chicago sing Sweet Home Chicago with back up Italians on base and drums after what I’ve just been through? Yes, surreal is exactly the word to use.
Day 30: Santiago to Finisterre
2.5 km on foot from the bus stop, 80+km by bus
The next day, I walked over to the cathedral to do the thing that most pilgrims do the moment they arrive. I finally saw the crypt of St. James. This is, afterall, what pilgrims walk hundreds of miles to see. I was too tired and it was too crowded the day before but it was quiet when I went early in the morning. I entered through the roped-off side entrance and proceeded up a set of stairs to the high altar. There, peeking out from behind a bust of St. James, you could see the whole church. Following the ritual of the pilgrims walking before me, I hugged the statue of St. James and rested my forehead on his shoulders. Like an overly self-conscious teenager, I just thought, “this is weird and probably full of germs” and let go of my embrace with the statue. Then, I proceeded down the stairs on the other side and followed close behind a French group getting a personal tour. We then entered the sanctuary with several plates of glass keeping me and the casket several feet apart...that’s the casket of St. James the Apostle...the Apostle to Jesus. Whatever your thoughts on Jesus and his apostles, that’s an old set of bones far away from its home on the Sea of Galilee.
Behind the glass and directly in front of the casket when I approached the crypt at the bottom of the stairs, a priest was preparing and blessing the eucharist for the mass that was about to begin. The casket was small and beautiful and I floated away thinking about what was actually inside of that gilded ornate box that millions had come to see. What was inside the casket, of course, might be far less interesting than what we all see or imagine in our mind. Many books have given me plenty to imagine about this spot I had spent the past month moving towards.
There is archaeological evidence of Roman ruins and what is believed to be a temple dedicated to Jupiter under the cathedral. Santiago was an economically advantageous city and placing St. James remains at the edge of Spain for relic-crazed Medieval Europe was a great economic move.
Story of James the Apostle and Santiago
The story goes that when James the Apostle came back from evangelizing in Iberia, he was beheaded in Jerusalem in 44 A.D. His friends (the word used in one of my books) sneaked his body onto a boat that sailed itself through the Mediterranean and around the Iberian coast up to Galicia. Santiago’s disciples somehow magically got word of the arrival (probably because they were piloting the first deployments of whatsapp) and took his body from the boat and buried him in the hills. Seven hundred peaceful resting years later, after Spain had been Christianized, a hermit found some bones in the hills and well, a bishop made it official, this was CLEARLY St. James’ body.
Many centuries and wars later, the relics have been shifted around and hidden and repositioned. I imagine moving around the relics of a saint is like sweeping dust across a dirt floor. Some of the remains are going to just, well, blend in and get lost and you’re going to pick up the wrong patch of dirt and claim it as just as holy.
I don’t mean to sound irreverent here which I know is a bit impossible at this point. I think that second bit of dirt they scooped up holds just as much power. There are even some legends that the crypt holds the remainings of an ancient pagan queen. Radical.
In keeping with medieval tendencies, the closer you get to relics, the closer we are to its holy powers. I think this is what makes us human. As an artist and believer in the power of all stories real and imagined, I can’t help but love everything about this magical box of bones.
Power of the Image
This reminds me of a very popular stool in my art classroom. Stay with me here on this tangent. Many students race into the art room at the beginning of my class to sit on the “batman stool” painted by a student many years ago. The thing about this stool is that the batman logo has completely faded away. The image is no longer there. I have seen students pulling the stool out from under each other so that they can get closer to an image only present in their minds. They don't know that they are proving to their art teacher right then and there that the image-making bart of their brains is active and well. It’s also worth mentioning that the ritual for revering the batman logo is by sitting on it, covering up your prize with your butt. Illogical, imaginations alive!
I think that my fellow peregrinos and I have been walking with lots of beautiful images in our minds and it’s true: by walking we somehow get closer to our images. I walked with drawings and imagery for writing dancing across my head for miles and miles that I couldn't get to if I had not walked to Santiago. I had hoped more of these images were put to paper on this trip but the physical demands of the camino trumped my physical manifestation of my drawings. In my head, I get an A+ for this walking art class. If I were my own art teacher, I'd demand of myself to "show me your work." It's coming, everybody.
Finisterre
On this day after Santiago, many pilgrims choose to continue for about 4 more days to Fistere (or Finisterra, the end of the earth.) Pagans long considered this to be the Western most edge of the world and it has been associated with Pagan rituals and pilgrimages. The Christian Camino was, after all, built over ancient pagan trails to Finisterre. The original burial of dear Santiago was probably closer to Finisterre anyway.
Having loved the Galician part of the Camino and my desire to “complete a task,” I really longed to continue walking. There was something special about this part of Spain. Because I had committed to flying to Milan with my Italians, we were pressed for time and we took a bus to the edge of the earth instead. Compressing a 4 day walk into a 2 hour bus ride was bittersweet.
The bus drops you off in this seaside town but to get to the unofficial end of the camino where the last arrow and seashell marker is left, we had to walk 3km more. The tradition for many pilgrims is to ceremoniously burn some items of clothing at the ocean cliffs. Ettore, Patrizia, and I talked at length about what we were going to burn. As we approached the end that day, we climbed into complete fog and I only saw bits and pieces of the ocean from the path.
Sitting on the rocks above the sea, we drank wine out of plastic cups from the supermercado and made cheese sandwiches. But we didn’t burn our clothes. It was too much of a hassle and the burnt marks on the rocks from where other pilgrims had burned items just looked kind of, well, careless.
Ettore and I, did however, leave our well-worn shoes as an offering to the ocean spirits at the 0 kilometer marker. As we took photos and hugged, two pilgrims approached and collapsed on the ground crying. They hugged in the fog and the Italians and I slipped into the adjacent bar for a celebratory drink. I had a beer, they had orange juice. The bar was playing some Galician Celtic music and it felt like the end credits to a really dramatic movie.
We then walked in the dark back into town with our phone’s flashlights lighting the path a few feet ahead of us. We sang the potato song one last time.
Pre-Camino Travels | Camino Part 1 | Camino Part 2 | Camino Part 3 | Camino Part 4 | Camino Part 5
