Camino de Santiago Day 35: Santiago, The Day After
There's a whole different atmosphere in the plaza the next day, one which shows the power of meaning in shaping your environment
I’m coming to the end of my Camino de Santiago odyssey (it’s not quite over yet). It’s ended up being not just a physical but a creative journey. Sign up to keep in touch with weekly stories, essays and blog posts about travel, the outdoors and all kinds of journeys.
Not Over Yet
It’s not over yet. Although I’ve reached Santiago, and although it’s taking longer than I’d planned in the beginning, my pilgrimage has some bonus content. Approximately 90km west of Santiago de Compostela is the town of Finisterre – or Fisterra in Galician, a divergence in naming I only learned the source of long after I’d left the place, assuming the former to be the French name when it is in fact the Spanish one; to me the Spanish name is more aesthetically pleasing than the local one – which lies on the narrow cape of the same name.
To many pilgrims, it is the final destination of their Camino de Santiago walk. Santiago is the supposed burial place of St. James the apostle, giving the route a Christian origin story, though it is said (or known) that this religious ritual was adopted and co-opted from an earlier pagan one, like most of the others.
Pilgrims have been travelling to Finisterre – which of course means ‘The End of the World’ – for millennia in order that they might see the sun setting on what was the edge of the known world. They would bathe in the ocean in order to be reborn – another Christian ritual.
I heard of Finisterre during the first couple of weeks of the Camino, and when I realised I wasn’t going to make it to Santiago in four weeks, found myself in for a pound and subconsciously fixing Finisterre as my destination – a further three days of walking from Santiago, though I was no longer in such a rush.
I was raised at least as much in a swimming pool and the ocean as in the church, and by the same people, and so it seemed to make spiritual sense that going for a swim in the ocean would be the perfect ritual for me, the perfect destination for my journey to conclude with. Whether I chose it or not, Finisterre became my destination, Santiago of course being an exciting place to reach along the way, but if there were to be any sort of spiritual fireworks I imagined that the cold autumn Atlantic Ocean would trigger them more than any mass or kneeling prayer at an altar.
But that wouldn’t be for another few days yet.
The Day Of
Regardless of what my own personal fixation and destination were (and there were many more with the same idea as I) it couldn’t be escaped that reaching Santiago was a major event and release of so much pent up excitement. Meeting everyone at the plaza was emotional but in a pleasant rather than euphoric sense; after an hour or so spent savouring it all and saying all the things we were supposed to say in such a situation: “We made it” and “We’ve come so far” and “I can’t believe it” and all those sorts of things we gathered us up and continued about our day, but in that manner that the Zen Buddhists strive for: floating a foot off the ground. The feeling was a paradox of minor elation, of neither relief nor satisfaction yet of there being a residual hum or after glow.
As I’d felt while sitting cross-legged in my own space gazing up at the force of the cathedral, in an honest sense that was beyond trying to sum up the experience with a pithy or glib soundbite or something I could scribble in my journal for later uploading here to the hivemind of things written about the Camino, of travel and of life, I didn’t really feel any need to say or think anything, to label the experience, or even to feel particularly good or any other emotion about the situation. I was content to just sit the there, not even content to just be, because even that would be trying too hard.
The rest of the day was much like the rest of the Camino, entirely focused on the day itself, the following day a point of fact in the back of my mind, though not of pressing concern. With the destination having been reached, and knowing that tomorrow would be a day of rest before beginning to walk towards the Atlantic, the hum in the periphery of my mind was neither satisfaction nor anticipation, but one of presence, where everything was enjoyed for what it was.
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The Day After
It’s a different energy at the plaza – like arriving to Santiago is already old news. I’m out for a stroll and temptation can’t keep me from revisiting the Praza do Obrodeiro in front of the cathedral – the finish line – to see the whole scene of the arrival being re-enacted once again, as it must be every day, perhaps less in winter but still an occurrence nonetheless. At times such is the connection between those who began the same day as you that it feels like you’re all part of a large organised endurance event, which begins on the day you started - this of course isn’t true, as there is no set starting or finish day (sticking to the guidebook for a rough schedule probably adds to this feeling) and people start and finish the Camino every day, and have been doing so for a long time. I’ll find it difficult to shake the feeling that the Camino must commence on the third Friday of September; I even imagine that doing it at another time of year must be a massively different experience, for more reasons that just the trivial matter of the weather.
As I walk out from the opposite end from the curiously-named Rua do Franco I feel like a wedding crasher, knowing that this isn’t my big day and I’m intruding on a party I’m not invited to.
There’s the same scenes as yesterday; under a bright sun and surrounded in ancient stone, it’s only when I squint that I make out the faces of strangers rather than pilgrims I know beneath the typical, uniforms-in-spirit of hiking trousers and boots, walking poles and technical shirts. Well, same same but different, as the atmosphere of the place is entirely unlike what it was yesterday – in fact, it feels more like a vacuum than an atmosphere: there is none.
Friends hug each other and congratulate and pose for photos, others wander in content silence or make phone calls home. There is elation and euphoria and relief and floods of emotions.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. It’s old news, already. There is no emotion in the scene whatsoever, as my day has come and gone. Intriguing to see the difference that meaning can make to something, to a place that I’d fond memories of myself, when it was not the right time. I’ve revisited old haunts years on, it already felt like years had passed since I’d reached the plaza at Santiago, and that caring about it or even the Camino was a childish thing, a pleasant but immature memory from my youth.
Been there, done that.
As with every other day on the Camino, everything comes one day at a time, and that is always the right time. A few days again I hadn’t felt ‘ready’ for the walk to finish; I was ready when I was about to finish, and when I finished, I savoured the whole day. I wasn’t ready for the day to end until it did, and now I could see, with a detached predictability that I’d learned along the way, that the day off after the Big Day serves its purpose too – to allow the pilgrim to see the place he’d attached so much meaning to for over a month and 800km in the cold light of day, to see it for what it is: a place with no meaning, an emperor with no clothes, an ordinary stroll about town.
I know that tomorrow I’ll be ready to leave.
If you’ve done the Camino, are thinking of doing it, or are just interested in discussing the Camino or travel in general - then please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.