My Camino (pt. 7) Conclusion...

At the Cathedral in Santiago at noon each day there is a mass held honoring pilgrims. This cathedral has the largest Botafumeiro in the world. The Botafumeiro is the most famous and popular symbol of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. It is a large incense burner that hangs from the ceiling of the Cathedral and swings back and forth during mass. It takes eight men to swing it using ropes four on one side and four on the other. The men pull on the ropes. You can see the fire burning inside of the Botafumeiro.

 

I decided the night before reaching Santiago that I would need to leave by 4:30am if I was going to reach Santiago in time for the pilgrim's mass. The lady I had been walking with didn't think she wanted to get up that early, so a man that I had met several times in the past week said he would like to go with me if I would wait until 5:30. He thought we could make it by noon. It was 12 miles to Santiago and raining. I said okay.  

 

I woke him at 5:00am and we prepared to leave. He was from Budapest, Hungary and had blisters all over his feet. He had to stop walking for three days and that's when I caught up with him. We left the alburgue at 5:30 as planned. It was dark outside and raining. We arrived at the Cathedral in Santiago at 11:00am. I went immediately inside the church and sat  down on the third row, directly in front. I sat there one hour waiting on the mass to start. I sat there and rested and thought about the walk and how I had actually completed it. My journey was over. I took my shoes off and rested my poor feet. When the mass started and we had to stand up I had to put my shoes back on. I couldn't stand on my feet without my shoes on. They hurt so bad.

 

After the mass I hooked back up with my friend from Australia. For the next week we shopped and enjoyed Santiago. We rode the bus to Finnesterre and saw the ocean. I returned home on May 5, 2015. It took me 44 days to complete my walk. I started on March 14th and reached Santiago on April 26th. It was an experience of a life-time.

 

 You can see the steeple of the Cathedral. This is the first glimpse I got of the Cathedral. I had been walking for 44 days and the site of this steeple was something I can't explain. I had to stop and take this picture. The steeple got larger and larger it was awesome.

These two pilgrims had been walking ahead of me for at least 5 miles.

 The back of the Cathedral.

 I sat down on the third row right in front

 

Cafe' con Leche-coffee with milk

Many pilgrims drank this all a long their walk. I didn't drink it until I reached Santiago.

Cafe' con Leche was good, but nothing like Café Americana.

Café Americana was black coffee.

Everytime my friend and I would order a coke or coffee they would bring a snack with it. This was our table after we had sat for a while. Some of the snacks we had already eaten. It was comical. There is no way we could eat all of the snacks they brought us.

We rode the bus to Finnesterre and saw the ocean.

This is the café across from my room where I ate for the week I stayed in Santiago. Most of the cafes, also called bars, were long and narrow like this one.

 Another tuna salad. They were so good.

 The street my room was on.

My room in Santiago where I spent the week.

Looking out the window of my room to the street below.

 

I hope you enjoyed my walk to Santiago.

It is also called the Way of St. James.

It's an adventure of a life-time.

It's a tremendous challenge, but anyone can do it.

I can tell you, determination is more than half the battle.

Have a great life and remember it's never too late to plan an adventure.

 

 

My Camino...

On March 12th, 2015 my brother and I boarded a plane in Dallas, Texas bound for Paris. We had decided on April 8th, 2014 that we were going to walk the Camino de Santiago, a 500 mile pilgrimage across Northern Spain. I started preparing for my journey that same evening. I began walking almost daily around town or on the treadmill. I bought the best hiking boots I could find, acquired the perfect backpack, and filled it with what I thought to be essential items. Keeping in mind that everything I packed I would be carrying on my back. I researched, researched, and researched. When the day came to leave I was as prepared as I was going to be. I knew it would be the hardest thing I had ever done in my life. I was not fooling myself. Realistically, I knew that determination was the only thing I truly had going for me.

We got off the plane in Paris and took a taxi to the train station. We rode the train to Bayonne, France and then a bus to St. Jean Pied de Port, France, where our journey would begin. We arrived in St. Jean on March 13th and started our walk the morning of the 14th. We walked 7 miles the first day.

We started in the very corner of France and quickly made our way into Spain. At first 7-8 miles was a huge undertaking. Muscles and joints you never knew you had became the only thing you could think about. After the first few days we were walking 9-10 miles per day. As days turned into weeks we found ourselves walking 10 and 12 miles per day and by the end it was 12, 14, 15, and even 16 miles per day. My muscles eventually stopped hurting, but were replaced with blisters. On the 16th day I developed a blister on the ball of my right foot and then on my left foot. I had to bandaged it and keep going. I'm going to show a picture of one of the blisters. I know it's not something you care to see, but I don't think, when I say blister, that you can really grasp the magnitude of it. I had one on both feet.

This picture is after I got back home and it was nearly well.

I don't really know how to describe it. Spain is beautiful, the people were exceptional, the walk was everything I thought it would be. We encountered rain, snow, sleet, and sunshine. The paths that we walked on were always different. They went from rough to smooth to jagged to paved to everything in between. I fell more than once, but only hurt myself twice. I wound up with two scars on my right elbow, a black eye, three damaged toenails, and some gray hair. I didn't start out with gray hair, but the stress on my body was so great that I literally have noticeably gray hair now. I allowed myself to become dehydrated a few times. The last time was severe and after that I was very careful.

 Our maps would show the type of terrain we would be encountering each day and many times it would show it to be flat, but no matter what the map said there was always hills to climb.

At night we stayed in Municipal Alburgues or Hostels. You had to get a stamp at each place you spent the night to prove you were walking. If you weren't walking you weren't allowed to stay in the Alburgues, At the end of the walk you had to show your booklet full of stamps in order to get your Compostella. An Alburgue is a room full of bunk beds that are occupied by men and women. A Compostella is the certificate you receive for completing the walk.

 

Tomorrow night I will put some more pictures up and explain a little more about the walk. From start to finish I walked 546 miles. Beginning in St. Jean Pied de Port, France and ending at the Cathedral in Santiago, Spain.

TO BE CONTINUED...