16 June to Santiago

I know, I know, I wasn’t meant to finish until the 17th – and even though I have made it to Santiago, I haven’t quite completed the walk yet. I still have a couple of kilometres to go to get to the cathedral. But yes, I am much closer than I expected to be.

It’s just that from the very first step it was dismal and drizzly again, and when it’s raining you might as well be walking as sitting in the pokey little room I was heading to.
My legs were working like a machine and so I decided there would be no photos and I would just walk. When I caught up with a lady right at this spot, and seeing as it was no longer pouring, I asked her to take a picture:

When we took off again, although we were keeping pace exactly with each other, we were not walking together. At the end of the path that avoided the last big town, O Pedrouzo, we were in for a shock. We had to make a right turn and a little farther ahead were at least fifty people, including no less than thirty of them toting umbrellas…to the left bearing down on us were even more, the vast majority of them all wearing identical blue ponchos. We both thought the solitude was about to disappear and we were both ready to change gears to fiesta mode. But we were in for another surprise. We got stuck between the two big groups and found ourselves still walking in silence.

Soon after this I started wondering if I might walk all the way to Santiago today. I wouldn’t know until I got closer, because it would depend on how the legs were holding up…I had planned on staying at Monte do Gozo, just 5km out from Santiago at a huge accommodation complex where we stayed on our first camino. I remembered what an exuberant feel the place had as everyone partied and looked forward to finishing the next day. And I realised I was hoping my legs would be ok, because I was feeling contemplative and wanted to be somewhere quieter. As has happened on numerous occasions on this camino, suddenly tears were streaming down my cheeks. All the feels! I’ll probably save the bulk of what I was thinking about for my wee bookish project…but a little bit of it is that now I was feeling intensely grateful – grateful to be here, grateful to be healing, grateful for kids supporting me growing, grateful for older voices giving advice, grateful for friends, grateful to Rob for gifting me this opportunity.

In the past this chapel has been closed when we have passed, but today it was open.

I’m not fond of statues in churches, but something about this one turned the eye taps on again. And a man, who came to stand next to me sobbed as well.

By now I was really hoping I could avoid the party atmosphere at the aptly named Mount of Joy, but there was still 5km to put in before I’d know and anything could happen in that distance.

When I got to the church at Lavacolla it looked like mass was about to begin.

I knelt down (Catholics make kneeling both easy and normalised!) and the tears kept flowing. I sat (and stood and sat and stood and sat – you stand to pray, stand for readings and stand whenever everyone else does too) and listened and participated when I could (I can do the alleluias, the Lord’s Prayer, bits of the apostles’ creed, forever and ever amen, passing the peace, a few of the responses, especially the guided ones – quite a bit more than I used to be able to – oh and the crossing yourself)….and I felt peace wash over me.

The sit-down had rested my feet, but the rain hadn’t stopped and so I set off up the last hill.

It was probably the crowd of people, but there was a palpable sense of being part of something so much bigger than yourself.

I had started wondering if I would stop for a meal at Monte do Gozo and then make a final push in to Santiago, but I just kept walking. I was a bit uncertain about getting to Santiago without a reserved bed, but decided to give it a shot. Give us this day our daily bed, I paraphrased seeing as I already had my daily bread in my backpack. I would turn up and ask if there was a bed for me and I would be told “Tonight there is, but there is nothing tomorrow. In fact, we are full until next Saturday.”
All along the way people were (legitimately) celebrating and stopping to take photos at the SANTIAGO sign and the Templar Pilgrim statue and in front of pretty flowers and the Octopus House…..I just kept walking. I had made my own little pilgrimage to the wall where we have gone each time we have come this way.

28km…just a few more steps to go