Editor’s note: Rick McKay, Joe Masonick, and Jack Karolewski, have been travel companions for more than 50 years to a variety of sites with many goals. This week’s adventure is the 29th in the series, a 14-day hike in 2005 across northern Spain’s intriguing Camino de Santiago known as the Way of Santiago, for a religious retreat and pilgrimage. Visiting various villages on the journey requires continual hiking and climbing. Previously the trio’s exploits were focused on an 11-week trans-Asia trip in 1977. This week’s journal is Day 15 on the journey Melide to Santiago Friday, Sept. 30, 2005.
The previous part is at thevoice.us/journey-through-spain-to-santiago-humility-spiritual
By Rick McKay
Day 15: Arca to Santiago, Friday, Sept. 30, 2005.
Last night, upon returning to the albergue after dinner, we found a party building up steam in the communal kitchen upstairs. Bottles of wine were being popped, glasses filled, pilgrims toasting the upcoming end of their respective journeys. After poking our heads in, Jack and I, being weary from our day’s hike, left and walked down the stairs and outside to the dormitories. Joe remained behind. There, in contrast to what we saw in the kitchen, other pilgrims had retired to their beds early, perhaps to reflect on their experiences thus far and the final day’s walk into Santiago on the morrow, or perhaps due to sheer exhaustion.
I was preparing for bed when Joe came in to tell me that bagpipers and drummers had arrived and were commencing to put on a show in the auxiliary hall. He knew I had played the pipes when I was a child and thought I might be eager to see it. I was! Joe returned to the party while I scrambled to put on my pants, shirt, and shoes. When I arrived, the pipes and drums were playing and the hall was quickly filling with pilgrims, most coming from the aforementioned kitchen. Soon a giddy and celebratory atmosphere prevailed. People spilled out onto the floor, glasses of wine in hand, and began dancing to the uplifting tunes while others clapped in rhythm with the music from the sidelines.
As enjoyable as the merriment was, after a short while, I left the party and returned to the dormitory, the sounds of the pipes gradually fading behind me. It was dark and quiet. I groped my way between the bunks till I found my own. I undressed, and climbed into bed, reflecting for a time on the two very different ways of preparing for the coming day. Soon I was asleep.
Today’s walk, though 12½ miles in length, seemed to pass very quickly. We were not in a rush to get up this morning, preferring to let the throng rise, dress, and leave before us. In fact, we were among some of the last pilgrims to depart the albergue to rejoin the Camino. The only person we overtook was Leny, who was enjoying a cafe latte at a shop alongside the trail. The others, perhaps smelling the finish line, must have surged on to the end. We stopped at the cafe as well and, while there, Joseph from Ireland and a couple of ladies from Canada arrived. So we chatted and took group photos, knowing now that the conclusion of our journey was near at hand, and soon we would each be going our own ways.
The walk was uneventful, Jack and I passing the time singing a Beatles’ medley, every song we could remember.
We stopped briefly in Lavacola where it is customary for pilgrims to wash their private parts in the stream at the edge of town in order to purify themselves in body before arriving in Santiago.
Soon thereafter we rose to the top of the Mountain of Joy (Monte do Gozo) where the peregrino gets his/her first glimpse of the cathedral spires in the distance. We were disappointed to find that this was no longer possible, more recent construction having now blocked the view.
Coming down from the Mount and out onto the highway was a shock to the senses. Suddenly we found ourselves walking along busy motorways and then city streets with construction noise and the hustle and bustle of modern metropolitan life. Gone were the country lanes and the rustic villages which had been our constant fare for most of the past two weeks.
In a way it made our arrival almost anticlimactic. Or perhaps it was a not-so-gentle reminder that the time was near at hand when we must leave the idyllic world of the Camino and take what we have learned back into the real world, returning hopefully better persons for what we have experienced.
Continued at thevoice.us/cathedral-of-santiago-spectacular