Santiago, being there

I won't bore you with too many details about the cathedral. The cathedral at Santiago de Compostela is world-famous and if you google you will find a tonne of information about it. But I can affirm that it is everything it is cracked up to be. It is old: started in 1123, finished in 1211. It is huge: you feel awestruck by it and have to stand far back in the square to take it all in. People have obviously desired and known how to build impressive structures for a very long time.

We headed off to find the Pilgrims' Office to get our Compostela. It must seem a bit crazy, at this point in the journey when you are tired and sore, to stand in a long lineup just for the sake of paperwork. The Pilgrims' Office is upstairs in a building almost adjoining the cathedral and there seems to be a permanent lineup of peregrinos seeking the Compostela certificate. About a half-dozen staff waited on us in turn. When it was finally my turn, the young woman asked first "Que habla/what do you speak?" She handed me a short form to fill out while she examined my credencial. I filled in information with the usual name, nationality etc. but also "At what point did you start the pilgrimage?" "Did you undertake the pilgrimage on foot, by bicycle, or on horseback?" (I never saw anybody on horseback; really, is that possible?) and finally "For what reason did you complete this pilgrimage: for religious reasons, religious + other, or just 'other reasons'?" Once the information had been supplied to her satisfaction, the woman printed off my Compostela. It was filled out completely in Latin (even my name had been latinized!) and an attractive little document. We left the Pilgrims' Office feeling like new graduates; so ecstatic it makes me smile even to write about it. We rushed into the first shop we saw to purchase a mailing tube to keep the Compostela in a condition suitable for framing.

The final part of our journey was to attend the Pilgrims' Mass at 7:30 that evening. One more time we followed the bronze scallop shells through the tangle of streets in the Old City. We followed the other peregrinos into the cathedral, already filling up fast for the Mass. This was by far the most ornate church we'd seen: most of the others along the way had been very simple and some were downright humble. But the inside front of the cathedral in Santiago is dripping with gold: statues and figurines and general religious filigree. Behind the altar there is a structure of some sort: it looks like a cage or old-fashioned wagon but it is so encrusted with goldwork that it took me quite some time to figure out that it is the structure in which the (apparent) remains of St. James are kept. The steady stream of people shuffling single-file across the back of the church, through the cage, was a clue I suppose.

The Mass itself was the usual Spanish Mass, as far as I could tell. But at the end, when things should have been wrapping up, there was a sudden BLAST from the organ and suddenly everybody rushed up to the front. There was a commotion, some smoke... and suddenly the incense burner was aloft.

Like the cathedral itself, the incense burner in Santiago is very famous and any quick google will show you that. Most church incense burners are about the size of a sugar bowl and the priest holds it by a little handle and swings it as he walks around the church to spread the perfume around. But this incense burner is enormous -- as big and no doubt as heavy as me -- and it is suspended from the cathedral ceiling (a long way up) by ropes that are bigger around than my wrist. It takes 4 or 5 young priests to raise it up with pulleys etc. They start it swinging and then they haul HARD on the ropes to increase the swing and it pendulums wildly, enthusiastically across the massive front of the cathedral. You can understand why people talk about it; it's spellbinding. And it fills the church with the sweet smell and at that point your senses are just about drowning.

We went back to our hotel. We had a bottle of wine, some bread, cheese and olives and we sat on our little patio amid our hung laundry to eat. We drank to each other, to our sisterhood, our Camino adventure, family and friends, to the future and to God.

And then to bed in clean sheets.