Santiago

(9/27/14)

Well, we finally made it to Santiago!! We spent our last night on the trail just outside of the city, leaving only a 6 mile walk to end the "official Camino."  

With the sound of bagpipes in the background, we marched on into town, finally ending at the Santiago Cathedral. Unfortunately, they are doing some work on the Cathedral, but here are a few shots of us enjoying our arrival moment. 

We checked into our hotel (just a small room above a cafe- but in a great location). It was SUCH a treat to be staying in the same location for two nights. 

View from our room (Cathedral in the distance). 

We enjoyed a leisurely afternoon walking around town, snacking, napping, and taking care of business. 

That business included getting our official compestela or certificate of completion, more or less. The joke is that to some Spaniards, having a compestela is your get into heaven for free pass:)

Throughout the trip you collect stamps in a passport-like book called your credential. It's pretty neat as most cafés and shops and all albuergues have specialized stamps. Many are quite unique, and you can tell the locations take pride in their "sello." It is also a nice( lightweight) souvenir for pilgrims, and a good reminder of where you stayed and patronized. Additionally, the official reason for having a credential is so that when you get to Santiago they have proof you completed the Camino and you can receive your compestela.  As I mentioned in my last blog, to receive an official compestela you just needed to walk the last 100k. (Which explains the throngs of people this past week!)

We waited until almost closing time to go get our compestela, and despite the late hour, it still took almost an hour to wait it out. These pilgrims are pumped about their compestelas! We met a nice guy from Hungary in line and luckily talking to him made the time go fast. (Keeping my patience while waiting in line was harder  than walking 500 miles...maybe that's a learning moment for me :)

Another thing we did was collect our excess luggage we had sent ahead. Adding more weight back in the pack was tough. (But I was happy to see my purple shirt- which you will now see in all pictures. Haha)

Other than that, we really enjoyed our days in Santiago. The town is just full of life! So many performers (from bands to bagpipes to steel drums to saxophones). It was a great city to just enjoy, relax, and regroup in. 

We also ran into a lot of our trail friends. It was pretty magical, as some of the people we hadn't seen for days! Somehow, it seemed a big group of us ended in Santiago all around the same time. It was fun to all relax together and share stories and memories. 

Some of the friends we met up with. 

The final highlight of Santiago was the church service at the Cathedral. We've actually attended mass quite a bit on our journey (especially for people who are not Catholic). We've always enjoyed them. This service we were especially looking forward to, as it is know for the swinging of the "botafumerio." Back in the day, this 175 pounds swinging incense burner was used to fumigate "sweaty and possibly disease-ridden pilgrims." Now it is just done more for entertainment. It's quite incredible to watch it FLY through the air (pretty Disney world-esque for a church service). 

The botafumerio is only swung on certain days at certain times. Our one friend went to mass three times and never saw it swing. Somehow we saw it twice (and only went to mass once...we stumbled upon the first swinging). Really neat to see, but other than that, a less than inspiring service. (People are just there to see the botafumerio swing and there was a lot of pushing and shoving for viewing space and it seemed more like a wrestling match than a spiritual event). I didn't get any good action shots, but I have a great video (just can't upload it to here :( 

The fun was short lived, as we had to (well, we decided to, awhile back) hike on to the official-official end to the Camino, Finnistere. We wanted to do this so we could say we walked the whole length of Spain, dip our feet in the ocean, and relax a few days on the beach. It seemed like a good idea...except after a day and a half of rest, 55 miles extra seemed like a lot.