Day 51: Brea to Santiago de Compostella

"How does it feel like to let forever be"
-Chemical Brothers

Last day. Thank god, this is the last day of walking. Eagerly left Brea at the crack of dawn (which is around 8:30 nowadays), wanting to make tracks into Santiago as soon as possible. The path wound through valleys and forests, and at one point, through the charred remains of a forest. I had heard about the Galician wildfires in August, but I never realized they had come as close as this to the Camino. All around me, tree trunks blackened, some fallen down, and some tree stumps that were little more than charcoal. It seemed ironic, given that from what I've seen, Galicia gets more water each year then, say, Atlantis. Today, it was raining so hard that that my poncho gave up, as if to say "Fine, rain, you can go through. What do I care?". I thought I had been soaked the previous two days, but this time, I was sopping wet. Had to duck into the washroom of a bar 12k in to do a complete change of clothes. Socks, underwear and all.

Just before reaching that bar, I entered the district of Santiago. It's marked by a large-ish rock, carved with the traditional symbols of the pilgramage; a staff, a gourd and a scallop shell. A very low-key and understated way to say "you're going to make it". Seeing it was an emotional experience. All the times I thought I wouldn't make it, including as recently as two days before, came back to me. What I felt as I touched the rock was a mixture of joy and pride and sadness (sadness? what the hell?) that almost got the best of me. I don't know what it is about human beings, that the sense of touch is so important to determining whether an experience is real. But I knew from the moment I saw the marker that I had to put my hand on it. Man, I was going to be a mess at the cathedral.

Walking into Santiago itself was a surreal, indescribable experience. My first views of the city were from the Monte de Gozo, where pilgrims for hundreds of years got their first rapturous glimpse of the cathedral spires. After that, a 5k stroll into the city, which only felt like it took 10 minutes. All the while remembering what it had taken to get there. How much I had put up with and put aside to arrive here. 50 days. 50 wonderful, brutal, revealing, mind-numbing days. So much had happened. So many times when I was sure I'd never see Santiago. By the time I reached the cathedral, I was little more than a shell, full of emotions. The tradition for pilgrims when arriving at the cathedral is to enter through from the Plaza Obradorio, to reach the Portico del Gloria. You're then to place your right hand on the central pillar of the portico and give thanks for your safe journey. This apparently, does not apply to pilgrims arriving after 7:00pm. The doors were locked. I'm glad. If I had gone through with the tradition in the state I was in, I would have lost it right then and there.

Exhausted but happy right now. Still a bundle of frayed emotions which makes it difficult to put my thoughts in order and on paper. Maybe in a couple of days, but not now. Now I just want to enjoy the moment. Now I just want to feel.