Camino de Santiago – Part 17

Where I left off in part 16 of my adventure, I had finished the Camino and told what I did on that last day. I still had two more full days in Santiago to explore the city. Another challenge was doing something with my bicycle.

September 19, 2024, the day after finishing, I first met my German friend Alexander, whom I met on day 12, for breakfast. It was nice to meet up with anybody. As I’ve said many times, it’s tough making friends on the Camino on bicycle because you go so much faster than the vast majority who walk. I was surprised to learn that despite bicycling all the way from near Frankfurt Germany, Alexander never asked for a certificate. He must have carried a credential because you need one to stay at certain Albergues. His explanation was he didn’t do it for any kind of recognition or religious reason as well as not necessarily being on the Camino much of the time. As for me, I’ll accept external validation wherever and whenever I can find it.

Another activity I did was a tour of the Santiago Cathedral. This tour primarily consisted of the upper passages and walking on the roof as well as the museum. It was fun and offered nice views of the city below.

As for my bicycle, I decided to offer it to the nice woman who did the “free tour” of Santiago I did yesterday. I happened to find her again the next day in the square. To make a long story short, she said she didn’t have room for it and her boyfriend already had two bicycles. I was quite shocked she refused a bicycle worth over 1,000 Euros, but I think to her all bicycles were the same and she just didn’t want another one.

In the evening, I made sure to arrive at the Cathedral well before the Pilgrims Mass because it filled to capacity the previous day and I couldn’t get in. Although my Spanish is pretty good, the audio in the Cathedral was poor and I couldn’t understand what was being said. I could tell the recited a list of nationalities of people completing the Camino that day. In the movie The Way there is a scene where they swing a large object that emits smoke. However, alas, they didn’t do that when I was there. I would later ask about it and they said they do that only on special occasions, including in Jubilee years, of which 2024 was not one.

The following day I took a bus to Fisterra, which is another official ending spot of the Camino and known as the “end of the earth.” It was a long bus ride, about three hours each way as I recall. While there I walked to the lighthouse and onto the rocks at the end of the peninsula, where some pilgrims leave their boots or pictures of loved ones.

The next day I would have an extremely early flight back home. I still had my bicycle in a storage room at my hotel. On the bus I thought about what do with it. My plan was to take it to any church still open and give it to anyone who would accept it, perhaps just abandoning it with a note to give it to a student. Back at my hotel, I asked them to open the storage room so I could get it. A young man was tasked with opening it. I asked him if he wanted it and he enthusiastically said yes. So that was how the story of my bicycle ends.

It was a long journey back home, necessitating making connections in both Barcelona and Chicago. My flights were on time and the journey uneventful. When it comes to air travel, no news is good news.

I enjoyed my time on the Camino and was not happy to see it come to an end so soon. For about the next two weeks I continued to dream I was on the Camino and wake up disoriented – not knowing where I was.

As I write this, five months later, I feel called to return. Maybe as soon as this year. Next time I am going to walk it. Perhaps the section from Cahors, France to Burgos, Spain. I feel I need to build on what I learned from this trip. What did I learn? Perhaps I’ll answer that in a future newsletter, but I probably won’t. It’s too personal and hard to express.