Santiago! The Holy Grail.

Walking into Santiago is a feeling I will never forget but let me back up to our start that morning.  We had originally told Ken and Elise that we wanted to leave early and by that I mean around 5:30.  We had all agreed that it would be great to be in Santiago for the pilgrims mass at noon.  After hearing it pour rain all night long, I snuck down to our friends room and tapped on the wrong door. Thankfully no one stirred.  I saw the light on under Ken and Elise's door and figured out in my sleepy haze that it must be the right one.  They were getting ready with worried looks on thier faces that belied what John and I had been thinking too.  It's stupid to walk in the dark in the rain.  Let's wait til light.  Ok another couple hours of sleep on tap.

When we finally left that morning around 8:30 after coffees and the typical Spanish breakfast of toast and pastries, it was still dark and we had to use the headlamps for about 5k or so.  Walked all the way in sheets of rain.  No way to stay dry.  We stopped at most bars on the way and had a coffee in the patient energy of our hosts who put up with our dripping clothing, hats and backpacks.  Despite this, we were energized just knowing this day was the culmination of our long journey across Spain.

As soon as we hit Santiago proper my tears began to fall.  The four of us walked quietly, sometimes hand in hand with our partners but mostly alone each probably contemplating what this experience has meant to each of us.  It took a while to get to the center of the old town where all the pilgrims gather and find the office where we would get our compostella.

Upon arrival through the city gates, our friends John and Debbie were there to greet us. We hadn't seen them in a few weeks and it was an emotional reunion.  They took us straight to the pilgrims office where we we lucky to find no line.  We took off our soaking backpacks and found someone behind the desk who asked for the passports we had been having stamped all along.  She looked at us both with kind eyes and asked if we had walked the whole way.  Yes, John said, every step with my wife of 30 years. She smiled and asked us to fill out a small statistical questionnaire that asking the usual, male/female, age, nationality and the reasons we were doing it, giving us three choices.  Religious, spiritual, or for sport/tourism.  If you chose tourism, you received a small certificate instead of the regular one, I heard.  Could be a rumour, we had heard so many on this trip!  She filled out our lovely frameable certificates which were in Latin with our names in the Latin translation!  Well John's was as there is none for mine!  His was Johannen something latiny like that.

We checked into our hotel for the night, the Monumental San Francisco. I'm not using an adjective to describe it, that was the actual name.  It was very posh.  We left to gather with our friends and have one last vino since John and Debbie were leaving for London that evening and the next leg of their journey.  Somehow we missed meeting up with Greg and Melody and ended up having dinner at La Tarara, where John had recommended. We wouldn't be disappointed.  The best thing I ate was mussels in a sort of gazpacho sauce.

We were not satisfied with our hotel as there was a black mold in the shower and with John a former pool guy, refused to stay another night.  We found the hotel Montenegro, very nice little upscale boutique hotel right in old town for half the price! And no black mold.

Our time in Santiago was spent reuniting with friends met all along the way...literally.  We were so amazed at how we saw everyone!  We were in the right places at the right time in order to see them. And this is not a small place.  Just reminds me at how there must be a bigger plan involved in my view. A woman who we had met the first week in, Bernadette, with her son Frank, both Dutch, with Frank leaving his mom at the end of her first week and asking John to please watch out for his mother, obviously not having the most confidence in her, and us meeting her at the end coming into Santiago by herself at just the moment we were leaving.  Writing in Jack Kerouac style bear with me.  Anyway, wow.

We went to the pilgrims mass at the cathedral. We got there at about 11:00 in order to sit in the pews. I cannot explain the massiveness of these cathedrals and Santiago's
 did not disappoint.  There was a nun whose voice was so amazing it brought tears for sure.  She did a sing along even though it was in Spanish and we didn't know quite what she was singing.  Then they prepared for the bufumeria and we were so excited!  That was another Camino rumour dispelled.  That they would only do it on certain days.  Which is true and they don't tell you when they are performing it since it would inevitably be turned into a tourist attraction and they of course insist that it remain a "mass".  Originally this large incense was swung because the pilgrims smelled so bad they had to diffuse it somehow. I don't really know. May be another ancient Camino rumor. How incredible it was.