However you view it Santiago will always be a challenge. It is of course
a marvellous, bustling and attractive city blessed with so many significant
architectural treasures. But it is also the end point of the various 'caminos'.
These are by definition pilgrim routes that require planning, perseverance and
above all strong feet! So it is a challenge to get here and then after days or weeks
on the road alone or in limited company out in the country, it is a challenge to retain focus amidst the crowds of sightseers, tourists, locals and fellow
pilgrims, who, now freed from the routine discipline of the road, are keen to
seize the day and the night as soon as they arrive!
In the seven weeks that we have taken to make our way from Seville, we
have learned to value the cool, stillness of the early morning. Sunrise and
filtered, soft early morning sunlight have created some of our most special
memories. The ´Milagros Aqueduct` in Merida is recommended for a sunset
photo, but at sunrise with its reflection among the reeds of the Rio Albarregas it is simply spellbinding. So it was that we began each of our final days from
Orense to Santiago in predawn darkness. We had the best of walking conditions,
albeit sometimes along the road, the delight of early morning birdsong, in which
the chaffinches stood out, the clarity of the various shades of green from the
oaks, birches, bracken and brambles, all set off against the purple foxgloves and
remaining yellow daisies. These last 110 kms in four days still meant time on the
´road`, for no day ends until you get there, however much you long for the early
mark! Even with an early start the heat is already building before your seven
hours walking are done; so when new road building upsets the camino markers,
you need all the memories of the early morning to support you through those
extra unexpected, if not infuriating, kms of a detour. Santiago is never an easy
place to reach on foot.
The first challenge is to arrive, to complete your journey; the second is to
adapt to the throng of others more or less dusty, limping more or limping less,
but all keen to seek a 'compostella' and to celebrate. In a flash a personal journey
becomes a public one. The change is so sudden that you can feel lost and time on
the road seems to have been more meaningful that the arrival. Our night at
Oseira with a monastery tour and the opportunity to attend vespers with twelve
of the remaining fourteen monks made an impression more lasting than our
feelings on reaching the Plaza del Obradoiro and gazing on the Portico de la
Gloria amidst the tour groups, the traders, the travellers and the exhausted. At
that moment it was a challenge not to see Santiago as just another tourist
destination and a very popular one. That was until a pilgrim mass that
culminated in the swinging of the ´Botafumeiro´, courtesy of pilgrims from
Santander, perfumed the world and clarified our thoughts and in doing so
reconfirmed the city of St James as the goal and focus of our journey along the
Via de la Plata and the Camino Sanabrese.
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