El Fin del Camino de Santiago | Education Abroad GeoBlog

Ok well sorry for the delay in the end of the story, but here goes:

Our last day of walking was the shortest, as we had intentionally covered most of the distance beforehand so we could arrive in Santiago fairly early that day. We all stayed together walking as a group, meaning the pace was somewhat slower than what I had been used to (I’m a strangely fast walker). Just before we got to Santiago (about a mile outside the city) we arrived at the albergue we would be spending the night at – where the autobus was waiting with our extra bag we had packed for after completing the Camino (we would be spending a day and a half in Santiago, so this way we could have some nicer stuff to get cleaned up and be more comfortable). We decided to keep on walking and ignore all of that until we had gotten to the cathedral and officially completed the pilgrimage as true pilgrims (walking, dirty/smelly, with our backpacks, and tired). That was a valiant thought, but we were deceivingly far away from our destination – we could see the city from the albergue so we figured it wasn’t that far away…

…wrong! The cathedral was actually on the complete other side of town, and Santiago is actually a very big town (we walked at least 2-3 km through the city itself), so by the time we finished we were kind of regretting our decision. Walking through Santiago was really cool – the Camino route was an interesting mix of old Camino history and modern Santiago city stuff. We walked past pilgrim protection statues, old churches, and Camino markers, and Burger Kings, office buildings, and traffic jams. At the end when we finally got close to the cathedral, our guide had us get in a line, look down at the ground, and follow him into the main square where the main entrance to the cathedral and “kilometer 0” were located, and then at the same time we all looked up at the cathedral for the first time.

It was a pretty impressive sight and an awe-inspiring moment. I don’t think any of us cried (like we had heard was fairly common for pilgrims completing the Camino), but we were all flooded with a combination of relief and joy (for having finished) and regret and sadness (for knowing our journey was over). We kind of just hung out in the plaza for a bit, just soaking in the moment.

After that, we headed off for lunch (in probably the nicest restaurant we had been in, yet it still cost the same), and then the autobus took us back to the albergue so we could get cleaned up (now that the Camino was technically over we didn’t have to walk back – thank God!). After showering and putting on some nicer clothes to look respectable, we went back to Santiago to tour the cathedral, see more of the city, and register the completion of our Camino to receive our Compostela. Now is a good time to mention one thing I forgot before – when we started our Camino we received a small notebook called “Credenciales del Peregrino” (Pilgrim Credentials). We kept this with us the whole time, as proof that we were pilgrims, but more importantly we had to collect unique stamps from every place we stopped along the way to prove that we were actually doing the Camino and didn’t just drive to Santiago. Here’s a few of us with our completed credentials and Compostelas:

The cathedral was very impressive, inside and out. I had also studied it in my art history class, so it was cool to have something I studied come to life.

^Santiago (Saint James) as a pilgrim

That night we went to our first normal restaurant (that we could order off of the regular menu) – a place that specialized in cheeseburgers! In Galicia, meet is a big industry so they were going to be good, too. The guys were all pumped and got two burgers (with cheese, ham, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and a fried egg) and fries, with hard cider (another Celtic/Galician thing) to drink. It was probably the best meal of the Camino.

After dinner we went to a really cool bar with a neon-lit garden and had a beer to relax before heading back to the albergue for the night. The next morning we slept in and basically got thrown out by the lady running it (haha, oops). We put all of our stuff in the bus (as we wouldn’t be going back) and went into Santiago for the day. We went to the official Misa de Peregrinos (Pilgrim Mass), a service dedicated to the pilgrims who had completed the Camino the previous day. It was packed, but really cool nonetheless. It’s famous for its giant incense burner, the “Botafumeiro,” that is managed in a sort of ritual by 5 monks – as it is burning it swings across the cathedral and over the people – it’s really, really cool to watch.

After the service we did a little more sightseeing and got lunch, before getting back on the bus for a 14 hour ride home. The Camino was probably my favorite thing I’ve done in Spain, for a ton of reasons. I got to recharge mentally while walking through beautiful countrysides, I got to share in a very moving experience with good friends from my program and meet interesting people from around the world, and I got to see a ton of history in Santiago and everything else along the way. This experience is definitely something I will never forget.

Location: Santiago de Compostela, Spain

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