Monte Gozo – Santiago (22er Mai)
I feel quite well after the small suggar shock yesterday night. The third day of fasting is reached – no complainings, no nothing. So we packed our tents to set off Santiago. As we reached the last cafe before the holy city, we get 2 stamps and have a short glimpse to the boundaries of the coming. People say that you have to collect 2 stamps a day to get the Compostela, i was not doing and to be honest i do not mind not to recieve that piece of paper, its just important to know that i did the way on myself, without any cheating and completely come to terms with myself. Even though it is not important to reach this city, more important is to get the experience, the encounters with other people and to reflex all of this to ones own concerns and problems. “The journey is the reward” like mostly in lifetime. For my own this way got me a lot and im grateful for the people i met and the experience and ideas i got. I highly can recommend everybody to walk this way once in lifetime, especially when there is a big change in life appearing or an important decision to make.
As we arrive in Santiago, we make a small stop at a grocery, Richard is about to get some food, where im waiting in the meanwhile in front of the market. I started crack my walnuts and sort the shells from the seed as a woman comes and wants to give me 50 cents as she thought i gonna need them more then her. My beard and my bags must have awaken some mother feelings in her. I just smile to her and her child and deny her offer, but a nice try anyway – ill keep that in mind for later
On our walk further we meet known faces, here everybody comes together again. SOme of them are here since few days, other are just arriving like us. At 10am there is a mess at the cathedral, we are not about to miss it so we go. There we meet some baggers n front of the entries, which also can be angry when youre not giving them anything. As we enter we see a lot of tourists, making tons of pictures and with a behavior we do not like. We feel to be the onliest real pilgrims walking more than 800km to reach this place. Everything feels so surreal, that we cannot stand to be here for longer. It seems that everybody is holy now after touching the shoulder of the holy Jacoby. There is no sign of spirituality or deep reflexions over here and when it is floatet by the presence of tourists, so we decide to leave this place. At the pilgrim office it looks like an agency of work, the people stand in a queue to get her Compostela. The only thing which seperates them to normal people is the walking stick and the trecking clothes. After i got mine i wrote into the guestbook “My sins have been assigned. Time to sin again! Cleaning by walking in 2010 again” The catholic church knew how to get the people over here, i have to smile.
Some minutes later we meet an old woman which offers us to stay at her place for a moderate price of 10 Euros. We first thought to o on and leave that place, because we would not like to stand the albergue, but then we accepted and followed her to her place. Quite tiny for us, we had to stoop down to not crash against the ceiling, but so we could enjoy the freedom of coming home when we like, we had own keys and so we finally could go into the temptation of Santiagos holy nights.
As we entered the historic center again we meet John and his friend, the Santiago Night Amigo Group was found and so we enjoyed some concerts in the streets and continued greeting the neverending stream of known faces. I found some locals which could recommend us a great bocadillo place to eat and there i found the greatest bocadillo i ate on the whole trip. Coupled with some beer and a switched off brain we hang up a while, but finally got tired. I generelly say, when you do not feel like party, you should not exxagerate it and so RIchard and me decided to go home. Tomorrow we wanna set off to Finisterre and we would not like to stay even a place more here, there was no reason for that.
