Day 49 - 4.5 Kilometres

We made it to Santiago! Within minutes of leaving the albergue, we were officially in Santiago. Granted it was the modern outskirts, but still, SANTIAGO! After just an hour of walking, we were skirting a high, high wall in the old quarter of town. It was so tall that when we looked up, we could not see the top of it. So we looked ahead, and there was an arch into what looked like a wide plaza. We aimed for the plaza. We looked up again. That high wall - It was the West wall of the cathedral! We spilled out onto the square and stood, awed into stillness for a moment. Then we dropped our packs and lay back, still looking up, still awed. We had just walked nearly 800 kilometres, and here we were lying on the nearly empty plaza gazing up at the massive cathedral. It was huge, but really no more impressive than the cathedrals of Leon or of London or Paris. What makes this church special is the way one reaches Santiago. The other cathedrals of Europe are reached by plane or auto or underground. They are lovely, but the sites of tourist pilgrimage. This cathedral is reached mostly on foot, with blisters, shin splints, cold nights, rain and bedbugs. Also with memories of warm Spanish locals, trail families, communal cooking and nearly 800 kilometres (approx 500 miles) of slowly unfolding landscapes and stories. The tourist cathedrals have a history of their own. Santiago has a history, but more so, one brings one´s OWN history TO it. It is a cathdral of the interior as much as it is a stunning landmark. For each pilgrim, I´m sure the arrival moment is special and unique, but every pilgrim that we watched coming into the square had the same outside reaction as we did. Stop, stare, drop pack, and drop self onto the plaza.

After our ten minutes lying on the plaza, we went through the massive portals and into the church itself. The morning mass was just coming up to communion, and the hymns and incence drifted over us like a benediction for having completed the journey. I stood, still, at the end of the aisle, raised in the belief that one does not partake in communion unless one has attended the whole of the service. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for Cz to walk up to the altar, with pack on back and staff in hand to take communion and receive his blessing with the handful of locals gathered in the church at that early hour. The Irish Boys slowly made circuit of the soaring columns, and The German sat in a back pew, hands folded. Each our own way, we acknowleged that we had arrived and each felt reverence in our own way. This is a Catholic pilgrimage, but it is not necessary to be a Catholic to feel that spirit of something larger, to feel a part of some grand mystery at this point of the journey. That feeling, I believe, is simply a blessing of being human.

After our moment of reverence, it was time for our moment of celebration. Remember that champagne I carried the last 25Km? The time had finally arrived to pop the cork! The Irish Boys bought a Tarte de Santiago - one of the almond cakes marked with Santiago´s cross - and we meandered our way to a lovely green park. Sprawled on the steps above the fountain, with packs lined neatly beside us, we popped champagne, feasted on almond cake, and in general, congratulated ourselves. Nearly 500 Kilometres back, when we were passing through Irache, we stopped at the wine fountain. In case you don´t remember, this is a fountain that has a tap for water and a tap for wine. One of the Irish boys had filled a small water bottle with wine from that fountain and carried it all the way to Santiago. We were expecting vinegar. Surprisingly, it was no worse for its long journey and unconventional bottling. It seemed just the thing for another round of toasting. Mind you, we had neither cups nor plates, so we were just passing hunks of cake, a champagne bottle, and a water bottle with a strange purple-black liquid. We probably looked (and smelled) like hobos, but I´m sure the locals of Santiago are used to the strange behaviour of pilgrims.

We followed our celebration with noon mass at the Cathedral. We arived too late for a seat in the pews, but it seemed almost more appropriate to settle ourlelves on the pile of packs around a rear pillar. Noon is the pilgrim´s mass, when the priest announces who arrived from where into Santiago that day. When the priest intoned "2 Americans from St Jean Pied De Port", there was much squirming and elbowing at the back of the church. In retrospect, we were not sure if he really meant us, as the three American girls had also arrived that morning, and in theory should have been announced also for a total of five. In any case, it was very exciting, though our private moment in the early morning was far more moving.

After church, we went to the nearest cafe bar to have drinks with more of our trail family. Actually, that was another really nice aspect of arriving into the city early - we kept running into family that we had met and walked with, or perhaps lost until this moment. In one sense, it was like the best family reunions, where you see some people you hardly know, some you know as well as yourself, but from all feel love and welcome. It was, in another a sense, as if the camino had come full circle. We met each other at the beginning and along the road with optimism, enthusiasm and trepidation for what lay ahead, and here we were again, in the city we had travelled so far to reach, feeling the same optimism, enthusiasm, and trepidation for the future.

By 3:30, we were ready check into our 3-star hotel. We felt we had earned it after 34 nights of sleeping in group dorms with all manner of smells and sounds. It was a treat, and to help defray the cost, we shared it with The Irish Boys - seriously, I´m not sure what we will do when we have to be alone with each other! In addition to our lovely hotel, we (The Irish Boys and us two)decided that we needed to sample some Galician seafood. In a pamphlet I had picked up somewhere, there was a restaurant described as "so hidden away that not even many locals know about it". It took us over an hour to find, but was well worth the search. We feasted on pulpo (octopus), mussels, 3 kinds of bacalao (cod prepared various ways), roasted fish, and whole sardines. The best seasonings were the company and the view, as our table was perched on a patio overlooking the old quarter as the church bells tolled the hours.

We watched the sun set over the city, toasted once more, and headed in for some well-deserved rest.