31st of August it seemed like the early birds at dawn were singing at us from the way to Santiago de Compostela, and you could hear the first pilgrims pass already in the dark. There were starlings making their comments on the cable lines while we were packing our bikes for the last leg to the main goal of all pilgrims.
We had a small breakfast at the bar where last night we had the convenience food warmed up from the freezer. The Italian who was also staying at our hostel must have forgotten his walking sticks, because I had seen a pair standing in the hallway and I told him about it, and he ran back to get them. He was a bit nervous about having had caught bed bugs at the place we had stayed last night, but we couldn’t confirm any discoveries like he described.
The village of Castromaior was named after a huge Celtic fort, which had been discovered on a hill top. It reminded me a bit of Bibracte close to Autun in France. Unfortunately a documentary centre must have been close to completion just before Covid stopped any work on it, and now there is just a deserted building left with empty spaces and already hung explanations of the Celtic settlement turned by pilgrims into a toilet. Very sad.
A beautiful sunrise warmed our backs on the hilltop. There were many more pilgrims now on the way than we were used to, and arriving in Ligonde I recognized from a distance Bart from Belgium just being hugged by two girls and a guy with a big “Hola – Buen Camino” like they had become friends a long time ago on the Camino. But it turned out it was just their way of a marketing concept to create this “hi and hello party-ambiance”. They wanted to make people believe that this is part of the Camino and make them stay for coffee.
We were happy to have found Bart again and exchanged some of the latest while this whole excitement of welcoming people with singing and hello continued around us. I finally could give him also his little gift from Vishnu in Triacastela. The silence of the Camino seemed to be gone. We jumped back on our bikes to roll on.
The vegetation got more and more intense and the smell of eucalyptus forests released a strong memory in me from the days when I was a Rotary exchange student at the age of seventeen. I was so lucky to stay with a family in a little village called “La-Selva-Beach”, where the eucalyptus forest surrounded the place and the oil of the leaves left an imprint in my brain which was combined with the most intense memories of being the first time far away from home and discovering Santa Cruz, California.
It’s amazing how much smells are stored somewhere in your brain and they can suddenly pop up as a recall. This one was combined with a positive retrospection which filled my heart with gratitude for having been able to experience all this. While my thoughts were somewhere between California and Galicia we decided to follow the real Camino instead of taking the road.
This made us pass through beautiful villages with their stone houses and granaries out of granite and wood. We had to share the trail with pilgrims and it was a constant “Buen camino” each time we passed. At one point there was a big group of Americans from Iowa, where a lady was so taken by their own chat that she didn’t expect me rolling by on my bike that I nearly made her wet herself as she screamed: “You can’t do that to me!” But I had said my obligatory “Buen Camino” in foresight. We had to laugh so much about her reaction that the whole group gathered around us getting interested in our project.
A sudden rain shower made everyone flee under their raincoats and it looked like I was suddenly talking to Snow-white and the seven dwarfs. With the rain the trail started to turn quickly into little creeks, and the broken Eucalyptus leaves created a kind of black slush spreading the smell even more intense and making the mud stick to our bags and bikes.
In Palas de Rei they had a small Info Point for pilgrims where we could get our stamp. I told them about the sad unfinished museum of the Castromaio and asked if they had any plans to do something about it, but they could just take notice. While we were talking they suddenly played on the radio our song: “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol and I asked if he could turn on the volume. In this song the lyrics were part of our story saying: “… If I lay here, if just lay here, would you lay with me and just forget the world. Forget what we’re told, before we got too old, show me a garden that’s bursting into life.”
It always fascinated me already as a kid to lay on the warm driveway in summer and imagining where the road could lead me too. This was also the inspiration for my movie “Without-you-no-me”. What is all connected by this street with the world around me. As the Camino is just going by my house I know now where it can take you to. And I am very thankful that Robert is sharing this adventure with me.
On the way to Melide I recognised by the way he was walking Kai from Taiwan, who we got to know at the monastery of Santa Cruz in Sahagún. He had taken the bus to resume the part of the Camino he had missed due to the forest fires, and this gave us the chance to meet him again. Maybe we will meet him again in Taipei for the Rotary International Convention?
Melide was known for its “pulpo” restaurants. They were able to handle huge amounts of people and the crowd was even standing outside on the road to get in. This time we were locking our bikes and took for the first time our camera bag and navigation with us inside. Since the beginning of our tour we had rarely done this and we never had anything stolen. It reminded me of our priest Andreas Jall saying that with the Saint James shell no one would dare stealing from pilgrims. Somehow he was right.
There were more rain showers and beautiful forest trails to come until we finally reached the airport of Santiago de Compostela, which reminded us of our project’s idea to travel through ten countries within Europe without using an airplane to minimalize our carbon footprint. Here we were having travelled all the way by bike, and while an airplane was taking off above our heads I imagined how the people were sitting in their rows thinking of their experiences they made on the Camino while looking out the window. There will be one row of seats missing due to superstitious minds excluding the number 13. But by serendipity Saint James took care of this number not getting lost because exactly at the airport of Santiago de Compostela the Camino reaches the distance of 13km to the cathedral.
It would take only two more hills to climb to be finally able to see the cathedral at the horizon from the top of Monte do Gozo. We made it! There we stood on the hill and couldn’t believe that we really had reached Santiago de Compostela after 8 weeks and biking 3.000 km through six countries. It was our moment for us, completely alone, where we could look into our eyes and allow some tears to roll, being full of happiness and gratitude.
The way through Santiago to reach the cathedral was not easy to find for bikers as there were no real bike paths and the pedestrian area didn’t allow us to go directly. Once you came close there were stairways keeping you from getting closer. I had lost Robert in the jungle of roads as I still tried to be at the pilgrim’s office before it closed at 19:00 o’clock, but I just missed it by a few minutes. It would have been great to have our arrival still read out in the cathedral during the pilgrims mass. We met a German couple on bikes who we passed shortly after the airport. They hadn’t done the Camino, but were just enjoying the atmosphere and we told them that at 19:30 the pilgrims mass started. We locked our bikes with all the luggage in front of the south entrance of the cathedral and were lucky to still get in.
It was so full that we had to get to the opposite side at the northern entrance to find some stairs at the door to sit down. As the mass started and the priest was reading the arrivals from today the sun was exactly shining on him on the altar through the rose window. It looked like the architects had everything arranged right for this moment. During the mass one of a group of autistic pilgrims had the courage to read his acknowledgements in front of all the people. It took him all the effort and he needed his time to finish. But although the attendants of the church started to get nervous the priest kept his patience and gave him time to finish the text he had written. When he achieved his performance applause suddenly filled the cathedral and it was the most touching moment. The pilgrims got their blessings and after that we went down into the crypt to see the shrine with relics of Saint James and climb behind the altar figure to put our arms around his silver cape.
Leaving the church I congratulated Juan who was still completely exited with what he just had achieved as an autistic person, and he was allowed to talk to the priest in the sacristy. You could tell how much this meant to him and I was so glad for him in what a beautiful way he could finish his Camino.
Robert and I had also to come to an end with this exiting day and had to find our way to the Seminario Menor, where he had booked a room for three nights. It was located on an opposite hill and was a huge building complex of which a part had been turned into a pilgrim’s hostel. Robert had booked a room just for us two to get some rest and it turned out to be the number 13. Greetings from Saint James reminding us of our luck.
We still needed something to eat and there we were not very lucky with our choice, because there was nothing around and we ended up at a cheap fast food pizza place which turned out to be anything but fast and we had to wait nearly an hour to get something to eat in a noisy place, where we were sitting numbed by all the impressions we had to digest.
Buenos noches Santiago de Compostela
