Santiago de Compostela!

We completed our Camino de Santiago yesterday morning, arriving at the cathedral around 10AM. We had the benefit of the tour bus from Wilderness Travel to take us from our hotel in Castaneda  – Paza de Sedro  – to Santiago.  We walked the last mile into the old part of Santiago to the cathedral. The cathedral is enormous with a large plaza where pilgrims were gathering to meet friends and go to the morning mass at 12PM.

We had a great tour of the plaza and area surrounding the cathedral with Margareina – a local guide. We saw some highlights in the Museo Cathedral – beautiful tapestries and relics. Then Margareina showed us the best place in the cathedral to with the Mass since we were getting the special privilege of seeing el botafumeiro at the end of the service. This is a large silver center that is filled with incense and swung by a pulley system suspended from the dome of the cathedral. This takes 8 men, called tiraboleiros, to swing the botafumeiro and it can move up to 62KM/Hr.   The public never knows when the botafumeiro will be used so it was a very special day for us to be able to see this. It’s very moving.  Although the service was in Spanish and I understood very little, it was moving to sit there with all the pilgrims and think about my experiences from the Camino.  It is definitely something I would do again, although I would like to do the way from Sarria where you walk 60 Km rather than the full Camino from France. The important thing I think from walking the Camino is that everyone has their own “way” to walk  – there are actually many physical ways you can choose depending on where you want to start. And the experience of accomplishing your own Camino and sharing the experience with friends and other pilgrims is very fulfilling. Learning the history by living it and seeing the places along the Camino is person is truly amazing.

Since internet access was very limited during the Camino – we are walking most of the day, then visiting over lunch and dinners with fellow pilgrims and staying often in old parasols or building with thick stone walls and limited internet – I wasn’t able to post every day like I wanted. I will go back to share stories from the specific days and more pictures but here are a few pictures from the last day.