Santiago de Compostela

We´re here. =)

It´s so hard to go all the way back to this morning, YEARS ago, and try to tell the story of our arrival. There´s not much to tell, it seems. It was our last day walking and we were very quiet. Julia came with us at first, but then walked ahead...far ahead...and got here long before we did. So Christa and I were able to do a lot of thinking and a lot of reminiscing. She said she was going back to the day she left her apartment and try to remember each night and each thing that happened, so she was very quiet for a long time. I tried to do the same, but found my thoughts too jumpy, and after all, I have my BLOG!!! So I´ll do the trek back when I get home and can have some peace and quiet for a little while.

(Peace and quiet...and solitude...OH how I crave it....)

Last night, on the way back to the gym, we suddenly heard symphony music! It was 11:30pm and we thought we were passing a late concert. We could see instruments (THREE FRENCH HORNS! YAY! [my instrument from childhood]) and I finally was able to figure out the song was Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera...then we realized the players were CHILDREN. They looked about 12. At almost MIDNIGHT, they were having a band practice!! I don´t get this country. This was after we passed a family with small children having dinner at the same time of night. And we see that all the time. Weird country. But I digress.

When we got back to the gym, it was PITCH black and hard not to step on people...we could see the rows of sleeping bags when someone opened a door to the bathroom for a moment or two. When I went to brush my teeth, I knew we were one row up from the bathrooms, and could see Christa waving her phone for me to get back to our mats, but couldn´t see the people and was afraid to step on someone!! There must have been something like 250 people...and you should have SEEN the MASSIVE TANGLE of cell phone charging cords on the power strips!! My brother the electrician would have gone into fits. You can´t imagine how many phones.

We got up this morning in the gym after what was a decent night´s sleep. The Thermarest mattress was worth every penny, as has been the sleeping bag. Anyway...slept, woke up slow to the rummaging of countless pilgrims anxious to get on the way. I was not. Christa and I (again) were among the last to leave...big surprise, huh? Had breakfast with Julia and hit the road. Like I said, quiet morning and we walked SLOW. I didn´t want the Camino to end, I think...I really kinda dragged it out today. We had 21km to go. There isn´t a whole lot to say that´s different from the previous several days in Galicia, except today we had to walk around an airport runway in Lavacolla. It was SO jarring and strange to hear a plane taking off and to watch it rise above the eucalyptus trees.

Road choked with pilgrims today, several of them on bicycles. (I want to start a Camino rule that states that the leader of a bike pack needs to call out the number in the group as he passes people, and the last person calls out ¨Ultimo!¨ or something so you know when they´ve all passed. I´ve spent four weeks in constant fear of being run over by bikers.) Several others have been in large groups with matching shirts...something I thanked God for today, not making me part of a pilgrim group with matching shirts. Sigh.

We had a sort of brunch just before Monte de Gozo and dragged that out, too...for about an hour. When we finally ambled our way to Monte de Gozo, I was keen to be the ¨pilgrim king¨ of the two of us...the first person to spot the spires of the Santiago cathedral. I got to the top of Monte de Gozo first, but Christa was the one to point out the one spire we could see...very difficult to spot behind a ridgeline of pines far in the distance. Monte de Gozo is a pretty cool spot, with a huge monument commemorating the Pope´s visit in 2002(?).

We descended and headed into the city, stopping to take pictures by the road signs announcing SANTIAGO. We kept looking at each other with excited smiles as we walked into the city, and I had butterflies in my stomach, but it was still a very pensive experience. We saw spires at one point within the city, but then it took forever to actually find the part of the city where the cathedral is located.

We were almost there...had just left the Plaza de Cervantes with its tall pillar with the bust of Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quixote author) when we got accosted by a tiny little old lady asking us if we needed a place to stay. It was a bit strange. She gave us a price of €35 for the both of us, and it seemed as though she was saying she didn´t mind if we stayed one night or two for that price. The conversation got complicated, and we were around the corner from the cathedral...a very sensitive moment for a pilgrim who has just completed an 800km trek...so we disentangled ourselves and walked on, hand in hand, waiting for the view....

And there it was. We´d come from behind, so we had the view of the back of the facade first. When we came around the corner, it was just like I´d imagined. We stood and stared and just breathed. We´ve been waiting 30 days...30 long, hard, blister-filled, sore, exhausting days to see this sight. To me, it felt like I´d been looking at this cathedral every day of my life. Strange.

I was scanning the square for familiar faces, but saw none...and then this battle cry rang out and I didn´t even have to turn around. Skip came charging across the square towards me and we collided...it was awesome. He told us later he´d given us about four or five minutes before he pounced, but saw me looking for him and had to come out of hiding. It was great to see him again. He´d arrived yesterday at 8am on 8/8/08 and said he cried like a baby. Julia was with him, waiting for her mother.

I took the last three pictures of the 1000 on my 1G card in the square in front of the Cathedral...then took off the medical tape, put in a new one, taped it back down, and kept firing off. =)

I couldn´t really take it all in. Seeing Brad again after a week or so of being apart...I forgot how much energy he had, what a social butterfly he is. It was a bit overwhelming. I kept trying to catch my breath and look at the cathedral, but there was so much noise and motion, it took a while for me to start taking in details.

There were busquers near the walls...dressed up as pilgrims or saints or Jesus or witches...and I haven´t really gotten a good look at the figures on the facade yet. That´s for tomorrow.

We went and had a beer and waited for the woman who owns Skip´s hotel to come back...he wasn´t sure if the reservation he´d made for us was still good. It turns out it wasn´t, so we got a different room around the corner from the cathedral...it´s not very nice, but it´s a bed, and tomorrow morning we´ll find a different place for tomorrow night.

I went to get my compostela, and stood in line with one of the Canadian ladies for about two hours as the line crawled forward. When we finally reached the top, I presented my credencials, and the guy scanned them carefully and then began to write my name on my compostela. He said it had to be written in its Latin form...so it says ¨Christinam Mariam Engelen.¨ The date is 8/9/08...30 days from when we started. It´s beautiful. I paid him €1 for a donation and another for a tube to put it in, and walked out feeling like I´d just been handed my firstborn child. (And it might well be...the labor was certainly long enough!!)

We started running into people everywhere. The Napoli boys, the Hungarians, Gregor from Poland, José from Barcelona, Agnes from Hungary...we kept hoping to catch sight of Al or Hank or Mimi and Jocelyn, but they´re probably still a few days out. No sight of the German boys...I think they must have gone home, which makes me sad. We spent so much time together on the Camino, it would´ve been perfect to be here with them for at least a few hours.

I still have not gone inside the cathedral...just put my hand on its wall when we arrived and again about an hour ago, as we walked back from dinner. (It´s past midnight now.) I put my forehead against the limestone wall and thought about how far I had walked just to experience that moment. It was powerful and I finally was near tears. As we walked back down through the arch to the front of the facade, a street busquer with a guitar and a harmonica was singing ¨Knockin´ on Heaven´s Door¨ by GNR...I gave him some of my best ¨Ay, ay, ay-ay-ay¨ Axl Rose backup as I passed. Knocking on heaven´s door, indeed.

But I think more of that is coming tomorrow. Skip was collecting people all evening, making a big group of people to have dinner and drink with, and I found it a bit much, so I´m looking forward to vanishing a bit tomorrow and carving out some quiet time for myself in front of the cathedral. We´re going to mass together at noon, and I´ll finally get a chance to finish my pilgrimage...do all the rituals...hug and kiss St. James, hit my head against Maestro Mateo´s head (to get a bit of his genius) and touch the column (if they still let us...the book said they might not anymore). I want to go to the pilgrim´s museum and see what that´s like. I got to do a little bit of shopping tonight, to find a dress to wear to mass. I have one, and I like it, but it´s not my long flowy white one I was so hoping for. I had to get a pashmina to cover my shoulders, too!! But it was late in the evening and shops were closing and I was afraid I wouldn´t have time in the morning...and I was not setting foot in that cathedral without a new dress to wear.

So there´s a lot we left for tomorrow. I believe the plan is to stay tomorrow night in Santiago, then leave Monday morning for the coast. We´ll stop about 10km from Finisterre, hike up the packs, and walk to the ocean for one last Camino day. We´ll be there Monday and Tuesday, and then Wednesday will be about getting back to Madrid (for me, at least).

Part of me wishes I were going to Finisterre on my own, that the others had other plans. I love them all, but it´s been really hard on me to be surrounded by people and sound and motion and plans for 30 straight days. I need some solitude, and BAD, and when I imagine sitting on the beach in Finisterre by myself, just thinking, it sounds like the perfect capstone to my trip. Especially since Skip is talking about MASSES of people he knows in Finisterre right now. I told him not to be surprised if I vanish quite a bit while we´re there...it´ll have to be done.

It feels so strange not to have anywhere to walk to tomorrow. I don´t quite know what to do with myself.

And nothing is clean. Not even me. Ha ha. Tomorrow.

I think that´s the best I can do right now. I have to go back and meet Christa with the hotel room key, and this keyboard is kinda gummy anyway. So I will hopefully have more to say tomorrow. I will be doing some shopping with the two nickels I have left in my cash supply (ha ha), and hopefully getting a lot of time to myself.



So, we made it. =)



It feels good.