Bienvenido a Santiago

800 kilometers, 35 days, 8 books, 2 lost shirts, 50+ ibuprofens and countless cribbage matches later; we are here, in Santiago de Compostela.

Our last day in was great weather,  warm with blueish skies, not even a little rain. The old town is beautiful,  a complex of old stone buildings surrounding a massive cathedral patinaed with time. I had to pee with furry when we got in, and at last we found the public bathroom in the cathedral square. When I walked out an american couple approached me:
"Did you just finish your hike?" The man asked me. I said yes, and his wife eagerly added "that's so fantastic! Where did you start?" I said France, and their eyes lit up. How far? How long did it take you? Did you just get here? Are you tired? I was surprised they didn't ask for a photograph of me, their authentic pilgrim sighting! I rarely receive so many questions of myself, with pure and honest interest, that I nearly forgot all social formality. They were a few steps away when I asked where they were visting from. And sure enough, because the world is small, they are from San Fransisco. They promise I will love the bay, though it's a lot faster pace than the hike, he says. They left me hoping to meet again, on the streets of Spain or San Fransisco. 

And then Ben and I made our way to the pilgrims office, to get our certificate of completion, an indulgence called the compostela. They have you fill out a form with general info about yourself. The final prompt is why you did this thing, this walking day after day. It's either religious, religious and other, or other. Ben checked other, he had read the wikipedia article that said when you check other your compostela calls you a heathen and not a catholic, and doesn't say much about the indulgence.  When we returned the form, the woman was seemingly shocked by this choice of his and she asked him again. And then she asked if he had spiritual reasons of any kind for walking the road and when he said yes she changed his answer to religious and other, giving us both the more catholic certificate. Ben says at least this sin of the lie he was forced to tell has been forgiven.

We went to mass, and it was a bit boring. We didn't get to see the incense sweep across the cathedral as it was not a holy day and no one forked up the 200 euros to see it done. We ate a real fancy weird sea food lunch, which Ben has been looking forward to for the whole trip basically. Turns out, octopus is delicious. As good as, or better than, lobster.

Photos of mine

So, here are some photos, or a lot of photos as it may be.

There is a photo of the heart cart full of free food, but sadly the barcelonean beauty is not in the frame.

Another photo of a bottle of wine a sweet man named Amador sold us, practically gave us,  for two euros after giving us two glasses and refuge from the rain. His name would translate to 'a person that loves' and he had five cats, a small home brewing set-up and beautifully trellised white grapes. The first white wine we've had was his, and he gave us the answer to our much repeated question: why are half the vineyards trellised and the other half full of ferrel looking bushes? Simple: some harvest by hand, other by machine. And so a new question has been beckoned, what exactly does a grape picking tractor look like and do the Spanish hire migrant workers to pick grapes?

Another photo is of the brassica trees that are really prevalent in this part of the word. We are talking five foot fall woody kale and collard plants. Some have five branches all full of leaves, and did I mention how tall they are? And I guess since it never really frosts here, these plants can live a long and healthy life. The funniest thing to me is, that we have only been able to buy these leaves in the frozen food aisle. Maybe these fields, or forests, are full of fodder?  Answers, or educated guesses, are appreciated.

More photos of the landscape, as always, because it's pretty and I like to share.

We do a lot of walking through ag land as you might surmise. This means lots of fences and often time crucifixes have been woven into them, usually made of twigs or foliage, once I saw a Brazilian flag. But never have I enjoyed a cross as much as this one, made out of half a loaf of bread and it's paper bag.

Over the mountains

Walked a beautiful couple of days through the mountains, crossing from Leon to Galicia (our last province). Rain and chills but walking uphill keeps you warm. Towns of grey stone , chestnut forests , fall colors, and now our last week before Santiago. Hoping for sun and warmth as we go towards the coast, seems like we may be in luck.

We are in rebirth

You may be able to recall an anectodal fact of mine about the camino and its three parts: life, death and rebirth. Well, we have entered into rebirth and i believe i have experienced what the swiss man promised all those days ago in Belorado.

Ben and i were leaving a very small town as we made our way to Astorga, the last stop in "death". I asked Ben what he had learnt about himself, mostly in reference to his injury and how we have dealt with it. He took the question down a spiritual route, on which i admitted i havent really felt anything distinctly spiritual. Ben questioned what i thought would be this distinct experience and i rattled of jibber jabber about real connections and love for the camino.

And then we climbed a hill in a pretty barren landscape and met a beautiful man from barcelona who had a cart covered in hearts and full of juice and food. And it was all free, as the barcelonan beauty walked around with his long hair and skirt reminding us all that this felt like a dream. He was so much that feeling i had just felt a lack of.

And then, on halloween, we climbed the tallest mountain on the road to a fallen apart town called fonceban. It was a creepy little town, and we learned it existed first as a church that pilgrims could stay at as the pass was challenging in the 1600s. I dont remember when it was abandoned but in 1970 it had a population of 2. It wasnt until 2003 that the municipal alburgue opend up and by the time we arrived in 2011, it still felt like a ghost town, but one with three alburgues, a bar and a handful of children that at least suggested a future for the town.

The alburgue was a donativo and jesùs, the volunteer made us all dinner and  breakfast. He taught me to make tortilla espanol and we spoke for a long time in spanish. He told me i am not a typical american, and also that spain gave the us a loan during the revolutionary war that we have still not repaid.

It was as if something heard my words and said "you just havent looked enough." And so, here we are in rebirth, remembering why we are doing this.

296 kilometers to go

Leon has come and gone after a serious haul from Burgos. After one full marathon day and a few other long days, we made it into the city with more than a little swagger. The city was very beautiful, though the cathedral was certainly not as impressive as the one in Burgos. The doors were open to the public and so we were able to wander the stone mammoth, something the entrance fee in Burgos discouraged us from doing. Its so easy to forget that the cathedrals only get better on the inside with the vaults and stained glass and enough gold leaf for God.

We met some Spanish locals over wine and tapes, but our 9:30 pilgrims curfew kept us from really going out. When we left the city at 8AM this morning,  there were stumbling 20-somethings still finding their way home and into an undoubtedly haggard hang-over.

Some interesting meetings have included:

A man who left the UK in late June and has been walking to santiago since. He started in the north of france and walked 300 KM along the pyrennes before cutting into Spain. Once he gets to Santiago he will have walked something like 1500 KM and then he will walk back! He carries a didgeridoo he made, and is a sound healer amount other things. He had ben take is shoe off and proceeded to 'didge' his foot into eventual recovery.

A group of five korean boys fresh out of the army that I call "the korean boy band". They are traveling across the world after finishing their rotations. They carry so many things including laptops, video and digital cameras, bottles of oil and vinegar, a full korean spice cabinet and two full sized acoustic guitars. The tall universally handsome front man has even been the guest musician at two masses recently. (And that is only counting the masses I have been to). We hear about them from other pilgrims because they have already accured quite a bit if camino fame.

1/3 done

We have arrived in burgos and found a great deal on a hostel. 15 euros each for a really firm mattress, a private shower and even a massage table. Its much more for tourists but the owner treats the pilgrims well and takes us walking folk in for a glorious recovery day in a great city.

Walking into the city was fairly grueling. The last ten kilometers were on a sidewalk running next to a highway through a largely industrial wasteland. The camino is interesting like that, and Spain as country in general; one stretch of camino we see fields of wheat for half a day followed by highway n-120s exposed gravel shoulder. A forested mountain pass in brief, opening itself up to rolling hills hiding hamlets spaced by a kilometer and a half. We have walked through desolate feeling vineyard access roads interrupted only by hay stacks the size of mcmansions with bales the size of a volkswagon beetle. I have often felt I am looking at mirages when a small green square appears in these arid and orange moments - a small fenced off garden ladden with brassicas and artichokes and peppers.

Ben has told me on these walks that it is not the american wilderness ideal - the landscape always shows the touch of human hands and the camino is certainly not yellow stones cousin.  He has done a lot of backpacking in the american wildernesses, and has defined the word backpacking with that experience. The camino for us is much more human, a meeting of an international identity based upon this road so well traveled ; this road that exposes so much of the Spanish human culture. 

We get done everyday and stay in hostels that take in only pilgrims, and in that only the people that have also just lived through our day with their aching feet and smelly selves. They are a mixture of nationality (Africa unfortunately excluded). And we all walk different speeds, and so there is this ever revolving door of faces and story and language. All of the sudden, you are in a city as big in Burgos and you run into friends, only recent strangers, that stop you to ask about your day, that toe that was bothering you three days ago, to say goodbye.

Life here is great. The weather is not as great as one might ask god for, but that's okay. After the heat wave and newsworthy forest fires that were ravaging this part of Spain so I think it's a good thing.

Ben has just prepared us dinner on our camp stove perched on the window sill which we will eat up before exploring the Spanish night life. One which, until now, we have only heard of through walls as we feigned sleep at times in a snoring room of our walking friends.

We are alive

Going to Burgos tomorrow, which is the capital of leon-castilla, I think. We are taking the weekend off , resting our sore feet and tired legs.

We stayed last night at an awesome albergue or pilgrims Hostel. It was a donation based hostel as some are and the two volunteers were awesome Swiss men. They made us breakfast and told us camino lore. It comes in three stages, the french way, the younger one said. We ha e finished the first third, life and are moving on to death which is the flat desert middle, and at the end we will climb a second mountain range and go through rebirth.