I wake too
early and lay fretting that I must trail about Santiago looking for another
room as I was given the only vacancy here, and that for one night only. But something
urges me to go downstairs and ask the night staff ... who proves so much more
accommodating than the crisp Miss of yesterday’s day staff. He can give me a pilgrim room from tonight,
for four nights, at the pilgrim price of €23 including breakfast. I’m so relieved. I can now find a flight, explore and sleep,
sleep, sleep ...
I ask him about
flights to Paris, to retrace my flight path home to Bristol. Ah,
he tells me, but not to Paris, their Air
Traffic is on strike again and all flights are suspended for the next seven days.
Oh. Double Oh.
He books my room for a further two days as a precaution. I’ll sort out flights later today. I dread the return. I want the Camino
Adventure to go on forever even though my body is saying can’t, can’t! and I have promised I won’t make it suffer Ever Again.
Now I am
securely accommodated for the rest of my stay I can relax; I will take over my
Pilgrim’s Cell in the attic at 10 o’clock.
I repack, rest, and go down to breakfast at 7.30, first off the starting
line. A Dutch woman asks to sit at my
table; her story, and why she walked the whole Camino moves me, she is very
teary and with good reason. She lost forty
kilos in weight along the way. I sit
open-mouthed, I had gained a few kilos myself, but I would not want the story she
was telling me in order to hasten such a weight-loss. I cannot remember her story, didn’t commit it
to my journal and it has blown away on the wind; pilgrims have many stories and
pilgrims hear many stories. We hug and
wish each other love and happiness. 
I drift over
to the shop in the cloisters, which sells all manner of religious memorabilia
and I ask a pointless question. All along the Camino are marvellous statues and
references to peregrinos, but I want,
along with the poppy and a scallop shell, an image of a peregrina. Ah, smiles the wise woman behind the
counter, but we have the real Peregrina
not so far from Santiago; la Divina Peregrina.
Instantly I
am alert. I must visit Pontevedra, she
tells me, on the Camino Portugués. Three
and a half days walk south, and three and a half days back – or I can catch a
train, the return journey will take two hours.
I opt for the train, a no-brainer in my state. 140 kms round trip, I can barely believe how only
days ago I happily walked such distances; 700 kms is already disappearing into
the mists of memory. La Divina Peregrina
will be my Adventure for tomorrow. I’m
thrilled, I will be more rested by then, and open for anything.
10 o’clock
and I move up to my attic. It is ideal,
and so suited to a pilgrim. A tiny cell,
a plain single bed with snowy sheets and a thick chocolate coloured wool
blanket, a scallop shell on the iron bed-head, a tiny desk and chair, a
capacious cupboard and a small cubicle with a shower, wash basin and loo. The high attic windows run the width of the
room and the view of turrets and towers is marvellous. I am happy here.
Now I must
book my flight. I feel unaccountably
helpless, as if the effort of strategies needed to survive the last six weeks
has drained me of quotidian functioning.
I, who can organize a trip to Angkor Wat at the drop of a map, am
inexplicably threatened by the mere thought of navigating cyber space for a
flight home, now compromised by the airport strike in Paris, my route plan to
Bristol. I actually send up a prayer for
help.
In the
street between the Seminary and the back of the Cathedral people are milling; I
scan to see if anyone I know is there, yes! there is Ela, and beyond her range
of vision, but I can see from the Seminary steps, is Jüergen! I run across and am hailed by Sister Aileen
from the English prayer group, all my prayers answered at once. I tell Sister Aileen I will be back in two
minutes, call Ela who turns, point out Jüergen, calling his name as I do.
Another grand photo-shoot to mark the moment; Jüergen is about to catch the bus
to the airport to fly home.
I return to
Sister Aileen, tell her my dilemma. She
has the perfect solution, Father John from Ireland is computer savvy and will
help me after English Mass in the Cathedral but English Mass extends to coffee
so we shift our appointment to after Pilgrim Mass at noon.
And ... a nun with the voice of an angel is
singing.
It is a long Mass, the Pilgrim
Mass, and I take the moment to climb the stairs behind the High Altar to thank
Santiago. I am alone. Exactly as I reach the silver statue, Angel
voice sings an Allelujia, her rich soprano pierces the transept, I feel an
upwelling of tears and put both hands and my forehead to rest on Santiago’s
silver back. Tears flow unimpeded; I
thank Santiago, Holy Mary and St Francis and Jeff and Olivia and Caroline and
Tina and Thérèse and Everyone who has made my pilgrimage possible.
And the tears continue. I’m not crying exactly, but the tears are
coming from a place below words, before words were formed, and I suspect many
and many a pilgrim has known their own tears here before me.
I return to
Mass. It is a huge Cathedral and it would
take a search party to find a lost soul; comings and goings are all part of it
and no one bats an eye at my absence or return as I perch on a stone plinth
near the altar. I watch intently as men assemble,
the huge silver thurible is being lowered.
Lo and behold a grateful pilgrim has paid for the Botafumeiro to be
swung and I have a front row view. The
spectacle is awesome and I take a number of blurred photos. A holy moment, and so unexpected.
Then off to
the cyber café with Father John. No
planes going to Paris, no going via Dublin either, Aer Lingus flights one way
are £300. I am getting stressier and
stressier. I would sooner walk another 700
kms than tackle air fares, flights and cyber space right now. Father John finds me a flight to Gatwick from
Santiago with easyJet for €103 and a National Express bus to Bristol. Practicalities over, I buy Father John lunch
and introduce him to hot chocolate Spanish style.
Siesta then,
in my pilgrim room. Up here in the attic
I feel like Gertrude, Countess of Groan, but for the lack of a furlong of white
cats trailing after me! I doze off and surface at four, dress in everything I
have, the weather has turned cold even though it is high summer.
I head off to buy my train ticket to
Pontevedra and to book my trip to Finisterre when I see, coming up the steps of
Plaza Obradoiro, Gene and
Sandy, last met in León three weeks ago.
They have walked the Camino prompted by Martin Sheen’s The Way; began in
Pamplona and have walked enough.
They
accompany me to book the trip to the End of the Known World. And so Endeth the Second Day ...
and still it continues ...
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