Camino: day 12

A late sleep in a comfortable bed. Aircon all night has left me feeling slightly on the verge of illness. Which is really ironic as we couldn’t leave the window open due to the loud industrial air conditioning unit outside.

Plundered the buffet table. There was an orange juice squeezer machine: had like five glasses just to watch the oranges get squeezed - forever a child, long may it stay that way. Many sick people at breakfast coughing and spluttering. The receptionist asks if I want to do a late checkout, then sees the Camino passports and insists that I leave immediately for Santiago.

We grab a coffee to go from the machine downstairs and start the walk. With only 6.7km to go today, it’s nothing like the previous days. A distance that we walked by accident last week looking for a beach. So it’s easy going, chatting and gazing around.

Mostly passing through small streets and occasionally a little green belt with some shade. The roads are full of pilgrims. One with an army backpack and boots comes running past us and off into the distance. We stop for a stamp and he comes running back in the opposite direction to join his friends. There’s a cat at this store which picks me out, gets a few scratches, some attention from me and then leaves.

We walk a little further on and find a little of kittens playing in the grass with a whole flock of pilgrims taking photos. An obligatory stop.

The end of the walk is immanent now, and the feeling washes over us. We talk about the pilgrimage - to Santiago, and towards ourselves. The feeling of self knowing that grows as you walk on and away from thought and habit. We’ve gained a lot of clarity on the things that we want, care for, believe to be morally worth fighting for and a deeper understanding of one another in relationship.

We catch sights of the cathedral spire (spirit) in the distance from time to time. And suddenly we’re in the city. Throngs of people and pilgrims all seem to be walking towards the cathedral. An old man stops to let us pass - after we stopped to let him pass - he gives us a clap and a “muy bueno” as we pass with a little clap.

There’s a spire there if you look carefully

There’s a massive group ahead of us, dressed in pink shirts. They’re lying on the pavement all over the place. Their young leader is dressed head to toe in black cassock (gown), he gives us the classic priest wave with thumb perpendicular to the fingers and head slightly bowed. They are all very quiet and peaceful.

We see the spire close now, get a few whoops and claps from people and break out in the square in front of the cathedral. All around us are pilgrims lying against their bags gazing up at the cathedral. Balloons are floating around and there’s an air of elation in the crowd. We drop bags and do the same, they make for a good pillow. We’ve made it.

We kind of just sit there for about 45 minutes, the odd balloon popping. It’s blissful and peaceful. Then we hear what could only be called a horde of British football fans singing in the distance. A moment later the pink church group comes into the square, singing, waving flags and everyone looks at them.

They assemble into a circle. Do another war cry and then sprint at one another into the most intense religious mosh pit I’ve ever seen. This continues for some time. And after a break resumes. It’s all quite surreal.

Cait has methodically, with scientific precision, calculated how many stamps we should be getting every day - and ensured that we stayed on track. We had one more stamp to get, at the place which gives us our certificate of completion. We head over there to ensure that we beat the pink group, for fear of life while waiting in the line with them.

We arrive at what feels like home affairs. Get a ticket (Cait gets the number 666), wait in line for our number to appear and go to a desk. A sweet woman gives me my last stamp in the place that Cait has demarcated. I get my certificate and head over to Cait. Cait’s assistant has a son that lives in Milnerton, Cape Town - and they’re having a chat. When Cait asks for a stamp in the last spot she says no, with an explaination something along the lines of the book already being completed. Then we get our certificates and leave.

Cait’s frustrated and has to settle for a stamp from the restaurant that we go to for lunch to finish off her masterpiece. A beer, some NYT puzzles and we can check in to our accommodation for the night. A small hotel-ish place, with old school touches of wood. It’s quiet and peaceful and lovely. I begin the task of unpacking everything and swapping bags, I’m taking the fast pack to France tomorrow and Cait will be regaining ownership of her backpack.

A trip down to the laundromat to do some washing and I find a moment to write this. We’re going to try go to the pilgrims mass at the cathedral this evening.

Walking back to the towering cathedral we see the square more empty than earlier. A few pilgrims rest on their backpacks, but things are mostly quiet. Maybe it was just the contrast to the pink shirt group.

This might be one of the most impressive buildings I’ve ever seen: just in terms of scale and detail. It’s enormous, yet whereever you look there are beautiful figures carved into the stone, towing spires and intricate details everywhere.

We follow a crowd into the cathedral for the evening pilgrim mass. There must be thousands of people inside. Pews stretch back many many rows in three directions, we find two chairs free near the back - but looking directly at the enormous golden interior. Words fail here, pictures help - but nothing does it justice.

The sermon is mostly in Spanish. Which holds so much weight to it. Even though the words are lost on me, the ritual and space created is so powerful. I’ve been to only a handful of sermons or masses in my life, so understand the rough flow of proceedings - but nothing really prepared me for the scale of this one. The organ was enormous, on either side of the main hall and was beautiful. Various priests spoke.

The crowd was fairly restless throughout it. There were two babies that (probably hadn’t done the Camino) were too excited to keep quiet - but provided endless entertainment. It was rather funny to see so many technical items of clothing in a place of worship such as this.

After the sermon closed, we headed back out into the street. Floated around for a while then ate at a Korean restaurant (craving). It was exactly what we needed. Exhausted now. Packed (kind of) and ready for sleepy.