Camino de Santiago – Part 16

Where I left on, in part 15, I had just arrived at the square in front of the Santiago Cathedral on September 18, 2024. I was sitting there, contemplating what to do with the rest of the day, the rest of my trip, and the rest of my life.

After some time of doing this, without any answers, I struck a conversation with another pilgrim. She had arrived the previous day and was waiting for a friend to arrive. I asked her about the location of the Pilgrim Office, which she was happy to help with. This is the place where pilgrims would present their credential (the document you collect stamps in) to receive two certificates of completion (one in Spanish and one in Latin).

I made my way to the aforementioned office, which is about a five-minute walk from the Cathedral. There is a scene in the movie ‘The Way’ that takes place there. In the movie, the four main characters are asked a host of questions about their journey, in particular the reason for doing the Camino. The number of pilgrims who do the Camino grows by about 10% per year, so I imagine the office may have had more resources to personally interview everybody at the time of the movie. However, I did the Camino years later, in high season, when many hundreds of pilgrims finished per day. I heard the process was more expedited now.

From the movie, I knew one question I would get asked if whether I did the Camino for religious reasons. In doing research before the trip, I saw images of the certificates of the certificates both ways. The ones given for “religious reasons” were more wordy and profound. The alternative is more of a simple certificate of completion. I’m not a practicing member of any religion at this time. I can truthfully say I’m an ordained minister in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but that is a made-up religion. Whatever the case, under a liberal definition of the word “religious,” I think can answer “yes” with a straight face.

The second moral dilemma was my point of origin. As you know from the beginning of my story, I started in Le Puy-en-Valey, France. However, I skipped a big part from Cahors, France to Burgos, Spain. One of the requirements reads the credential should be “duly stamped from each stage of the route.” I obviously had no stamps from that section I skipped.

I strongly felt my journey started in Le Puy and I really wanted my certificate to acknowledge that. I went through a lot of trials on the French portion and think it deserved to be represented on my certificate. Furthermore, I got plenty of stamps from each stage of MY route. If the pilgrim’s office noticed the omission of stamps, I planned to be totally honest about it and accept one that stated a starting point of Burgos, if necessary.

With that plan, I entered a very busy pilgrims office. A guard pointed to a room off to the side with a number of check-in terminals, like what you might see at an airport to check in for your flight. The screens asked me for basic information like my name, starting date, ending date and the two questions I just wrote about. I answered as I planned. Then I was given a number, like at the DMV, and waited for my turn to be called.

The wait was about 15 minutes, which was not as bad as I was expecting based on the crowds. The lady at my window asked for my credential, which I provided. She spent about a minute looking it over quietly. I was very nervous she would ask about the missing portion or grill me about which religion I belonged to. However, she said nothing. She got out a stamp of her own and stamped my credential, I believe to cancel it out. Then I could see certificates coming out of her color printer. She handed them to me and said “congratulations.”

The first paragraph is in Latin. Here is the translation after running it through Google Translate com

“All days and nights are celebrated there, as if under one solemnity, with continuous joy, to the glory of the Lord and the apostles. The doors of the same basilica are never closed day or night, and it is not permissible to have night in it at all, because the light of candles and tapers shines as if it were noonday.”

The rest is in Spanish. Here is my translation to English, which was not easy.

“The counsel of the Holy Apostolic Metropolitan Cathedral of James of Compostela located in the western region of Spain, to all of those seeing this letter of visit certification should know that:

Michel Shackleford

Has visited the Cathedral where since time immemorial the Christians venerated the body of the blessed Apostle James.

With such occasion, the Counsil called the duty of charity at the same time with joy gives the pilgrim a greeting from God and asks for the intercession of the Apostle – that the Father grant the spiritual richness of the journey as how he does material goods. Blessed James andbeblessed.

Given in Compostela, the goal of the Camino, the 18thday of September in the year 2024.

After realizing 1515 kilometers from Le Puy where he began on the 5th of September of 2024 by the route of the French Way.”

I was very relieved and happy. In the gift shop I purchased a cylinder to hold my certificates as well as a nice map of the French Way section of the Camino. Near the store was a nice patio overlooking a courtyard where other pilgrims were taking photos. One of them was happy to oblige me in taking some of me.

After that, I made my way to a hotel I booked a room at the day before at the Albergue in Arzúa. It was not easy finding one. Travelocity indicated only one hotel room in the entire city at a place called the Araguaney. This was a very fancy hotel and part of the luxury Hotel Eurostars chain. I was rather embarrassed to walk into such a nice place looking like a poor filthy pilgrim. However, the staff was extremely nice to me and seemed to take no notice that I looked close to homeless. It was also close to noon, but they let me check in early and advised me where I could safely store my bicycle in a storage room in the garage.

My room was spectacular. Such a contrast to the Albergues and cheap hotels I stayed at the rest of the trip. I was a bit uncomfortable with the luxury. After spreading my stuff all over the room I enjoyed a good shower and changed into clean clothes.

The main thing I wanted to accomplish the rest of the day was shipping my bicycle back home. Many people along the Camino, including Spanish locals, said there was a post office near the cathedral that shipped bikes from pilgrims all day long. I did indeed find a post office that had lots of boxes for bikes and had a special counter for just that service. However, alas, the clerk said they don’t ship to the United States.

That would be a big problem. An Internet search found some private companies that do the same thing, but the cost was about 1,000 Euros, which was about the value of my now used bike. When duty taxes got added on, it would probably be more. I had a problem on my hands on how to get my bike home, sell it, or give it away. More on that in my next chapter of my story.

The rest of the day I spent eating and drinking as I walked about the town. I did the “free tour” of Santiago. I’ve done such free tours before of Mexico City and Barcelona and highly recommend them. Please be advised that a tip is expected according to your perceived value of the tour.

That evening, I tried to attend the Pilgrim’s Mass, but the cathedral had filled to capacity by the time I arrived shortly before the service. That was okay, as I still had two more full days before my return flight.

In my next chapter I’ll tell the story of what I did those last two days of my adventure.