Day 55 and 56, We're here and Saint James gets a hug

Our Compostellas
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July 11^th and July 12^th, Arco do Pino to Santiago, Day in Santiago

0km to Santiago, 952km from start

Distance: 22km

Wednesday, July 11^th was our last day on the Camino. We got a very early start to get to the cathedral in time for the noon Mass. We ended with the weather we started with seven weeks ago. Cloudy and wet. Most of the day, we were in nice countryside and it seemed like any other day on the Camino.

At the Cathedral
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At about 10:30 we climbed to the top of Mount Gozo, the Mount of Joy. It’s a high hill overlooking Santiago and gives pilgrims their first view of the cathedral. Not us though . . . too much fog. Okay then, down the hill into the city. As we headed in, the yellow arrows and signs that were everywhere on the Camino for the last 950km disappeared. I half-thought there’d be a big wide boulevard guiding us in as all the paths to Santiago converged. Instead, we ended up picking our way through to the center of the city more rudderless than we had been for the whole trip. We had a sketchy map and eventually got onto a small street leading to the cathedral.

Celebrating with our German friends
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At 11:15 we were at the cathedral square. We made it!!

However, our ‘To Do’ list was long and time was short. We headed for the Pilgrim office to get our Compostella before Mass. The office was on the second floor of a nearby building and the line of long-haul pilgrims and short-time Spanish youth groups pilgrims ran down the stairs and out the door. We settled in for a long wait and gave up on Mass for the day.

After an hour we were at the office entrance. A large bulletin board near the door had hundreds of messages from folks who had arrived earlier. Marie gave the board a quick look . . . and surprise . . . one was addressed to us! The Canadian family we met a few weeks earlier (Fred, Suzanne, and Ella) left a note to rib us ‘pikers’ for getting to Santiago later than them and to congratulate us on making it. What a nice thing to do!

A few minutes later, a fellow in the Pilgrim office waved us to his desk. He inspected the stamps on our Credencias to ensure we had met the Compostella requirements. He got comfortable pretty quickly . . . hey we’d gone over nine times further than the minimum requirement. He gave us our final stamp, pulled out two Compostellas, signed our names in Latin, and certified and dated it. Done!

We checked into the hotel and headed back to the cathedral. We ran into the German couple who we had dinner with yesterday. We turned that into some celebration toasts and promised to attend mass together the next day.. While we were enjoying the company, the weather turned sunny and warm.

It was time to go to the Cathedral. On completing the Camino, Pilgrims follow four steps:

(1) Touch the Tree of Jesse (the family tree of Jesus by way of Joseph). Part of a pillar at the entrance.

(2) Butt heads with a statue of Maestro Matteo (the builder of the church). It’s supposed to have some of his wisdom rub off on you.

(3) Hug the statue of Saint James (Santiago) from behind at the high altar

(4) Kneel at the reliquary of St James (his bones) in the crypt.

The first two were roped off and under repair but we gave St. James a good big hug and did our kneeling. Hugging isn’t something I normally like to do . . . but I was very grateful for making it and thankful for many things. For me, it was the big moment of completion.

We rested in the afternoon and had a good ‘well done’ dinner that evening.

The next day was noon Mass. We got there an hour early and met Jurgen and Gudrun. Good thing too because shortly after we sat down several youth groups came in and jammed the place. Two big parts of the Mass were the reading of the pilgrims who had completed the Camino the day before and the swinging of the Botafumeiro. The Botafumeiro is a four foot tall incense urn suspended from the ceiling by a large rope. Near the end of Mass, the incense is lit, and six priests grab a rope and start swinging the urn back and forth across the church. They get the thing swinging in an arc nearly up to the ceiling on both sides and only a few feet off the ground at the center. I never thought they could get it going that well.

We enjoyed lunch with our new German friends and spent the rest of the day relaxing and sightseeing.

The Camino was done. We came a long way and got here safely and happy and mostly healthy. We had a lot to be grateful for and I’m sure we’ll have other thoughts later . . . but for now that was enough.