Days 35-36: Arrival in Santiago!

On Saturday (Day 35), I only hiked fifteen kilometers because I wanted to walk the final five kilometers and enter Santiago on Sunday morning when I was fresh and able to attend the worship service. That night, I stayed in a hostel that reminded me and my friends of the concentration camps from WWII.  There were about thirty stone block buildings with numerous small rooms that provided beds for eight people in each room.  This albergue (hostel) can house five hundred pilgrims at one time! I was thrilled on Sunday morning not only to leave this albergue behind, but to FINALLY arrive in Santiago!

Thus, having started The Camino Frances on September 23rd in St. Jean Pied de Port, France, and after walking eight hundred kilometers (which is five hundred miles), I entered the city of Santiago de Compostela, Spain on October 28 (Day 36) to pay homage to this saint but most especially to give glory and praise to God for His watchcare over me during these challenging weeks. I thank Him for walking with me through beautiful sunshine; I thank Him for keeping me strong through torrential rain storms; I praise him for keeping me cool during blistering heat; and I am grateful for his warmth during the mornings when it was freezing cold.  I stayed in a different place every single night except one, and that place didn´t even have a sheet, blanket or paper mattress cover for the bed.  I fought off painful blisters and possibly even a Morton´s neuroma (my toes are numb on one foot!) to the point where I finally got rid of my hiking shoes and started wearing sandles and wool socks that I had bought in Leon to complete the journey.  The truth is that I was actually one of the lucky ones...I know people who were hospitalized for GI problems, several who saw the doctor for infected blisters, others who were hospitalized for dehydration and kidney problems, numerous others who were almost incapacited by tendonitis, and one person who saw the doctor for veritgo (dizzy spells).

I finally arrived around 10:15am at the Cathedral in the center of Santiago.  I bumped into three women from Maine-Roberta, Deb and Holly-as I entered the city, and we walked to the Cathedral together.  It was sweet to move towards the culmination of my journey with people I had met along the Way.  Upon our arrival, we learned that the priests were going to swing the botafumeiro during this service, not the later service like we had originally heard.  Incense is sometimes used in worship services to symbolize the worshippers´prayers rising forth to heaven. The botafumeiro is a large incense burner that was also used in historic times to fumigate the sweaty and sometimes disease-ridden pilgrims who had just arrived in the city.  Eight attendants swing long ropes that are connected to the transepts at the very top of the vaulted cathedral ceiling.  These long ropes control the large, incense burner with it´s burning coals inside.  As the botafumeiro swings back and forth, back and forth like a trapese artist across the horizontal crossbeams of the sanctuary, the scented incense streams out and leisurely wafts to and fro - some rising towards the heavens and some falling gently like autumn leaves to the ground.