Former Columbus Public Library Director Bob Trautwein recently completed a 30-day walking trip across northern Spain. The desire to walk the El Camino in northern Spain dates back to his college days. He fulfilled the dream after his retirement this fall. Santiago, the patron saint of Spain and first Christian martyr, is buried in Santiago de Compostella in northwest Spain. Pilgrimages to his tomb began in the ninth century. This is his final dispatch.
Santiago and the Cathedral of St. James were all and more than I had expected. The city surrounds the cathedral mound and is in part a commercial hub for the area as well as a tourist mecca. The cathedral, a magnificent piece of stonework, houses in its bowels a silver casket. There in which contains the supposed bones of St. James, one of the 12 apostles.
When I left the albergue that morning, I had no intention of making it to the cathedral for the noon pilgrim’s mass, but as I walked that last 12 miles, I realized that I might possibly make it on time. Unfortunately, my walking speed was slowed a lot once I got to the suburbs and all the busy intersections. I arrived around 12:30 instead.
Once inside the huge cobblestone cathedral square, I was immediately reunited with a number of the fellow pilgrims I had met along the way. Simon, from England; Erich and his daughter, Katherina, from Austria; Father John Michael from Africa; Denny and Rachael from Colorado Springs; and Laurs from Sweden.
I had read in my travel guide that this would happen. We had been criss-crossing one another’s paths for more than 30 days. Now we met for the final time in the brilliant sunlight gracing the square. They had just attended the mass and had congregated in the square. My arrival timing couldn’t have been better planned.
Laurs showed me the way to the church office to get my certificate of completing the El Camino. We then went to another square for beers and Spanish omelets. The omelets usually included only potatoes and were about 1 1/2 inches thick and served in wedges. The omelets are cooked on one side and then flipped over, unlike omelets in the United States.
Following the meal, I once again saddled myself with my weighty backpack and went in search of a hotel. Earlier, I had learned that the downtown albergue was closed for the season. In short order I found a room in a pension above a restaurant in the most touristy area of the city ” the area with the narrow and winding streets, the restaurants and bars, and the shops selling a multitude of keepsakes for visitors. For the second time in a month, I had a room to myself and even a spare bed and a closet to arrange my long-packed clothing.
As I had missed the noon pilgrim’s mass, I spent the afternoon touring the building and did the three things that all pilgrims are to do when they first visit. I took some very narrow stone steps down into the crypt to kneel and pray in front of the silver casket; I stood in line to ascend another flight of stairs behind the altar to place my hands on the brass mantle that cloaks the shoulders of the image of St. James and pray; and thirdly, I went to the inner entrance of the cathedral and viewed the statue of St. James carved into the center post of the original 12th century front entrance.
That evening at a sidewalk cafe, I met up with several of my previous month’s walking companions. During the early days of our trek we had talked about continuing our walk past Santiago to Finisterre, the western most part of Spain. For centuries, many pilgrims had walked the extra three days to see “the end of the earth.”
Now that we were in Santiago, not a one of us wanted to continue walking. However, we all wanted to see this well-known piece of land jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean.
A German lady, Evelyn, said that she had her driver’s license and would rent a car if we all shared the expenses. Four of us agreed, so the next morning we met at a prearranged cafe near the train station and waited for Evelyn to arrive with the car. After a cafe con leche wait, Evelyn arrived, and we got into a new black Fiat four-door sedan.
Evelyn, well-acquainted with driving the German autobahns, raced the car through the city and onto the open countryside. I sat next to the passenger-side back door and held on to the armrest while the car careened around corners and accelerated to pass other vehicles on the road.
After driving through a number of seaport villages and across several bridges, we arrived at the parking area near the Finisterre lighthouse. It was windy and cold, and the air had a salty smell.
From where we were on the side of a mountain facing the ocean, there was no way we could make it to the rocky shoreline to dip our hands into the water as I had assumed. It was beautiful, however, with the choppy ocean below and the dark clouds moving quickly across the skyline.
Several pilgrims arrived by foot. One was dragging a long, dead branch from a tree. It was then that I noticed all of the bonfire pits dotting the mountain side. Many pilgrims over the centuries had made pledges somewhere along their routes that once at Finisterre, they would burn their boots or some other troublesome article of their pilgrimage in gratitude for having completed the walk.
Oh, why hadn’t I brought my backpack along on this drive?
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