June 8 Arcos do Pino to Santiago de Compestela 12 miles

I wrestled a lot with the song of the day.  Should it be about completing the epic journey.  Songs like "I Would Walk 500 miles"  by the Proclaimers or perhaps given that we will be arriving in Santiago, something a little more spiritual like "Tryin' to Get to Heaven" by Bob Dylan (best version is sung by Lucinda Williams) or perhaps in a tribute to Spain  "Boots of Spanish Leather" by Bob Dylan?  When we left the hotel this morning, Linda said, "how about that Steve Earle song "Jerusalem"?

"But I believe there'll come a day when the lion and the lamb 

Will lie down in peace together in Jerusalem 

And there'll be no barricades then 

There'll be no wire or walls 

And we can wash all this blood from our hands 

And all this hatred from our souls"

About 7 miles into our hike today, I came upon a beautiful dog laying down with a black cat resting on it.  See the picture below.  And it dawned on me that Linda's choice for song of the day was absolutely perfect.  The cat and the dog are a great  analog for the lion and the lamb!

When we left the hotel around 8, it was a cool, overcast day.  Perfect hiking weather.  For the first 5 miles or so, we walked through a stunning dense forest of eucalyptus and oak trees.  It was relatively quiet, and we wondered where everybody had gone.  "Did we take a wrong turn?  Are we lost?" Then we turned a corner, and all of a sudden there were probably 100 people behind us!  Turns out, they take bus loads of tourists and drop them off 7 miles from the end so they can experience the walk.   Each group had a different color t-shirt on!

All in all, the walk today was quite a nice way to end our hike.   We arrived at the Cathedral in Santiago around 1:00.  Amazingly, it started raining about 5 minutes after we arrived, and hasn't stopped since.  I think this is more the normal weather for this area, and it makes us appreciate how fortunate we were this past week to experience the sunny weather. 

After an outstanding lunch at an Italian restaurant, we went to get our "Compestela"- basically our graduation certificate for completing the hike.  We waited in line for about 20 minutes and then each of us had to go to a separate desk for the interrogation process. They examined our credentials to make sure we had sufficient stamps, asked a series of question, and then we were issued our Compestela.  So, we are now official!  

On Saturday evening, we attended a mass at the Cathedral.  It was all in Spanish and Latin, so we didn't really understand it that well. They did not do the botafumeiro, which is the large swinging smokey  container over the alter.  Apparently the historical significance of this ceremony is that it was used to fumigate the pestilence of the arriving pilgrims.  If you saw the movie the Way, there was a segment where the monks performed this ceremony.

We are told that they have reduced the number of "official" times this ceremony is performed, as it requires 6 priests.  However, we were also told that for 500 euros (about $700), they will perform the ceremony.  Apparently many tourist groups promise this to their customers and  pay the church to perform this ceremony.  

On  Sunday morning, we went back to Cathedral and were fortunate to witness the Botafueiro Ceremony.  I have included a photo here.  The Cathedral was absolutely jam packed, well in excess of 1000 people.  It was quite an impressive ceremony, even for a religious cynic like me.    Amazingly enough, we ran into so many people from the trail that we haven't seen for weeks.  For example, we ran into a German guy we met in day 2 in Pamplona, and haven't seen since.  We also ran into the 70 year old Polish woman who walked 12 hours per day.  There is a picture here of Linda hugging her at the service.  

We are staying in a truly beautiful 4 star hotel, our best of the trip.  Fittingly for us, it is called the San Francisco Monumento hotel and located on the Rua de San Francisco.   The hotel  is located within a working monastery.  We understand the monks from this monastery perform the Botafueiro ceremony.  

Last night, we slept like a log.  I think there is a certain exhaustion that comes after completing this walk.  However, after "sleeping in" until 7:30, we awoke and went for a long walk around town, including the train station to purchase tickets for the train to Madrid on Monday.  

We also toured the museum at the cathedral.  Over the course of this trip, and many other trips around Europe, we have toured countless Catholic Churches and museums.  The amount of art, architecture, etc owned by the Catholic Church is truly staggering.   This particular museum has a huge library of medieval books.  Incredible to look at these works and realize they were all done by monks by hand!

 By the way, I do know the song of the day for the next few days -  "Holiday in Spain" by Counting Crows.  We will stay in Madrid from Monday to Thursday morning, when we fly back to San Francisco.   We enjoy the art galleries in Madrid, particularly the Prado.  Also, we are looking forward to enjoying some high quality Spanish food while there.

We want to thank all of you for your best wishes and thoughts this past 5 weeks.  This has truly been an outstanding experience for us, and we appreciate your support!  While we are looking forward to getting back to San Francisco and our "normal" life, we will very much miss the utter simplicity of this trip- wake up every morning, prepare your feet for the day, and start walking!  

Lastly, I truly have to thank Linda.  Wow!  What a travel companion!  After 31 years of marriage, you think you know somebody....then you get an opportunity like this to take that relationship to another level.  I can't wait for the next 31 years!

I plan to write a hike summary with Chris Berman and Javier, similar to the halftime report I posted several weeks ago.  But, I will need a few days to think this one through....