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Hotel Ruta Jacobea |
It was cloudy and dark when I awoke, and from the view out the window, I thought it might still be
raining this morning.
No, it turned out
to be a heavy fog that hangs like a damp wool blanket over Lavacolla and the
Ruta Jacobea Hotel.
I think everyone is
excited. It’s game day!
We start off by turning the wrong way out of the hotel parking lot, but the
group soon figures it out and we march off happily, under instructions to stay
together.
We walked out through some
houses and soon find ourselves near the small stone church,
Iglesia de
Benaval, where a mass is underway.
There was some debate, but about half decided to wait for mass to end
and seek a stamp.
Mass was blessedly
short, but it turned out there was no stamp to be had. The woman told us to get
it on Mont de Gozo.
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Iglesia de Benayal |
We walk uphill in the early morning freshness, past farms and houses with
large gardens.
It is a beautiful morning -- clean and crisp air and the sun burning off the fog.
As we get higher, you
notice the fog still hangs in the valleys.
We passed some nameless but very large office complexes before I
realized that they must be the Television Espana and RTVE Galicia installations
that Alex had mentioned.
We also stopped
briefly for a stamp at a small bar that was serving coffee and beer to
pilgrims.
Joe, Carl and I walked for a distance, telling stories and enjoying
the cool but sunny morning. I had little sense of exactly where we were, but
the yellow arrows continued to indicate the Camino.
Apparently the government of Santiago
district does not mark the Camino as carefully with stone distance markers as
the A Coruña authorities did.
At a corner there was a small souvenir stand with a sign promising a “
sello.”
Carl got one, so I did too, both of us feeling guilty that we could not
see anything to buy in compensation for the lady’s trouble. But she wished us a
cheerful
“Buen Camino!” nonetheless.
And, she told me it was just 400 meters to the Mont de Gozo.
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Monte de Gozo |
And sure enough, there at the top of the hill
in the sunshine by the big abstract art statue, were Alex and Cate with
torta de Santiago cake and Aquarius
juice for us before the descent.
We
could not, however, see the spires of the Cathedral from here because of the
heavy fog or clouds in the valley.
We went down through the large (800-person)
albergue that was built to accommodate pilgrims during the last
Jacabeo year in 2010.
We needed to use
the facilities and take pictures with the “pilgrim looking at her feet” statue.
From here our path was pretty much down city streets as we crossed the
bridge over the highway and entered Santiago proper.
There were scallop shells embedded in the
sidewalks, and we passed a large modern sculpture arch that honored many
historical and mythical figures who are thought to have walked the Camino, ranging
from John Paul II (about 2 miles of it) to the writer Dante Allighieri.
Just as we began to enter the old city, I spotted Marcia waiting for me with
Alex on a stone bench.
We all marched
into the city together, taking pictures and video as we went.
The figures
burning in flames on the front of the Church of the Passion (“Igrexa de
Animas”)
caught my eye, as did the
purple flowers in the courtyard of the Praza de Immaculada, but we kept moving
forward. You now could glimpse the steeples of the cathedral from time to time
as we passed between buildings.
The
morning’s fog seems to have totally disappeared into a blue sky.
The main square, Praza de Obradeiro, suddenly opens. You’re walking down a
side street and then you see the massive Hostal de los Reyes Catolicos on your
right and the Consello in front.
Then,
you look up to your left at the majestic Baroque front of the Cathedral with
its towering steeples.
Our group had
strung out a bit, so we were not together, but each of us put a symbolic foot on the stone
in the center of the plaza that marks the zero kilometer of the Camino.
(Now that you can’t put your hand in the
place on the Puerto de Gloria where thousands of pilgrims before you put theirs -- it was wearing away the stone column and is now forbidden, except in the case
of movie stars like Martin Sheen -- the stone in the plaza has taken its place.)
I can’t remember if we took a group photo or
not. But, my GPS recorded that we did walk the last 8.05 miles of the Camino today, in just under three hours.
Alex wanted us to move right on over to the Pilgrimage Office to get signed
in for our Compostella, the Latin-language document, each with the pilgrim’s
name inscribed in Latin, that certifies that you made the trip.
The next day it became clear that the
Cathedral uses this information to draw up the list of countries from which
pilgrims arrived and the cities from which they began their pilgrimage. Alex
wanted us to do this before the large crowd from the Cathedral’s noon mass came
out and did the same thing.
We had a short wait on the stairs and then the staff
there were very solicitous in taking down our information and providing the
hand-lettered scroll. Gosh, think how many times they do this, day in and day out, with such
cheerful good humor and efficiency. The DMV and TSA could learn from this.
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In line at Pilgrim's Office |
We moved over to a Restaurant A Curtidoria for lunch.
It turned out to be the same one Marcia had
eaten in the day before.
I had a pasta
dish putanesca sauce (olives, tomato and capers) followed by beef tenderloin.
Dessert was fig ice cream, if I remember correctly.
We went to the Fresco hotel, Hotel Compostella, after lunch so I could
retrieve my suitcase.
Marcia and I
walked it across town to her hotel, As Artes, which was about a block from the
Cathedral and well within earshot of the bagpipers and
tunas who play for money in the main square. Then we kind of
wandered around, taking pictures and Marcia showing me the features of the city
where she has spent about three days before my arrival.
In the evening we walked across town to the market area, Los Abastos, to a
new, fashionable restaurant (Abastos 2.0) run by young chef Manolo and his team.
Alex and the chef have cooked up the idea of
a cooking demonstration based on the fresh foods that the chef found in the
market that day, and the things he can do with them on the spot. We are, I think, the first group to do this. We begin with
razor clams (long and thin) which he cooks in boiling olive oil just a few seconds until they
pop open – delicious!
He then moved on to things like a sushi-type of dish with
Wasabi, clams,
berberechos, and
finally a Gallego comfort food of whipped – no, let’s say “foamed” – potatoes
with chorizo and Arzúa cheese.
A feature
of all this fine cooking is how much of it is done by hand and with extreme
care – the sous-chef bending over the plates or the food, carefully placing
individual ingredients just where they need to be.
The result is not only delicious but a work
of visual art.
At this point we bid farewell to Alex and Cate, who have to begin a long
drive back to Bilbao this evening.
Alex
gave us all a CD of pictures he has taken on the trip, while Cate gave everyone
a key chain with a yellow leather Camino arrow.
This was just the right kind of dinner after such a substantial lunch, but
some did not want the day to end or want to turn in so early.
A few of us continued on the Camino Casino, a
1890’s style café – a sort of long and narrow bistro with tiled floors, wood
paneled walls, and small round tables as well as some sofas along the
walls.
This was just about right for our
group.
Some tried the soft, sweet
pacharan, while others ordered coffee or
wine or fiery
orujo.