Santiago

We entered Santiago de Compostela on a quiet April morning; the kind of morning that accommodates silence quite well among people who are comfortable with each other. The previous eight days had begun like this--each of us in our own sleepy haze until the sun's rays and the café con leche had melted away morning fog and lingering dreams, and conversation became lively and fluid.

I awoke to the two British girls, Holly and Elizabeth, pulling at the frayed cuffs of my green army pants; the only pair I had brought. I grudgingly swung my legs over the top bunk, and noticed that the beds below and across from me were empty. Robe had left early- he was going to catch a soccer game in Madrid that night, and had set off early as he wanted to attend mass at noon. Tom, an American I had met in Salamanca, decided to sacrifice pilgrims' pride to conserve what was left of the cartilage in his knees and take a taxi into the city. Gabriél had drank too much celebratory orujo the night before, and decided that his knees hurt, as well.

I stumbled into the bathroom to wash my face with the cold water that splashed my cheeks like spikes. We had become used to this fresh shock of cleanliness for our wake-up call, as there was rarely even lukewarm water in the alburques . I really couldn't complain--if anything had convinced me to dig my Catholic roots from the infertile soil of elementary school, it had been God's gift of the free shelter that the camino hostels had provided. According to my señora , Carmen, Americans love free things. I tied up my red hiking boots that I had bought only the day before the trip, and soon my two companions and I were marching along through the mist of the descending hills.

Holly, though much shorter than I, tended to set the pace; she always kept at least five meters in front of me. Her short brown curls bounced as she cheerfully chattered in her posh London accent about her trips to India and Indonesia, her secret hobby of fashioning French marionettes, and her love of jeans with holes in the knees. She would often pause, and wait for her hobbling wool-capped Cousin Elizabeth, who had twisted her knee on the first day of the hike.

"Come now, Elizabeth. We're almost to Santiago, where we'll get those Get Out of Hell Free cards that we so desperately need," she would say.

The tall, thin Galician trees sheltered us like Dali's grasshopper-legged elephants from the shadowy, undefined clouds that gently hovered ahead of us. I was hungry, and had to shift my weight from my heels to the balls of my feet every so often, depending on which blisters were the most irritable. Regardless, these days had proven the happiest I had experienced since I had left home. I opened a bag of peanuts and felt confident that we would find a room in Santiago before they were full.

The first view of our destination came not from the top of a grandiose snow-capped peak, but rather from a four-lane highway that darted through the rolling landscape. Smoke billowed from the factories of Santiago's industrial outskirts, and I thought that we had surely taken a wrong turn. There had to be a more picturesque finale to such a legendary trek. We looked for one of the yellow spray-painted arrows that had directed us thus far. These weatherworn symbols had made me feel as though we were hapless pawns in some one's Saturday night board game--every afternoon the dice rolled and we could decide if we were staying or if we should roll again and hope that there were not too many more arrows before sunset. One day, Robe and I had followed the graffitied culprits right out of the town where our group of bandidos had intended to spend the night. During our bitter hike backwards, he taught me the word for "blister," as well as all the ways to phrase and issue the Spanish cuss " puta ."
This time, there was no mistaking that we were going in the right direction. Holly nodded and continued- the arrow assured us from the steel highway railing that this was, indeed, the way into the city.

The sun was high but the clouds were creeping closer as we left behind the purple and yellow jara, the ominous, diagonal rows of stout and scraggly grape trees, and the old women who spoke to us in a language found only in their villages as they offered us crepes from the pockets of hand-made aprons. I saw the first of many billboards advertising the Camino de Santiago, Xacobeo from half a mile away. The trees were becoming sparse, and raindrops began to polka- dot my muddy boots as they clumsily carried me from the soft dust onto city pavement. My señora's son later told me that a day rarely passes without rain in Santiago.

We weaved through the alleys of clothing chain boutiques and bars. The dark pointed steeples of the cathedral jutted into the skyline, constantly in our view. Our regal destination seemed to have spawned hundreds of tacky gift shops--we watched scruffy pilgrims emerge from double-doors carrying over-stuffed bags back to their luxury inns.

"We will be in awe of everything from now on, mountains and footwear alike," Holly murmured, as the three of us realized that we'd been gaping at a display in a shoe store window.

We stopped in some of the over-priced bakeries, all peddling the powder sugar-sprinkled pastel de Santiago . Realizing I still hadn't eaten what Holly and Elizabeth would call a "proper breakfast," I reached in my pack for my bag of peanuts again.

Holly suggested we take a look inside the Santiago Cathedral, since the rest of our bandidos had called and said they were still looking for a hostel. Although it was now fully raining, there was a line of tourists at both the front and back doors. We waited, and I finally stepped past the two beggars, each toting crosses around their gaunt necks, and peered apprehensively into the holy landmark.

Determined not to feel like a trespasser, I scoured the vast hall for a place to kneel.

"Breathe," I muttered to myself, and I inhaled deep, incense filling my lungs, eyes searching. I was intimidated by the selfish splendor of the architecture. Baroque at its working finest.

"It's just too much," whispered Elizabeth, a pensive art student. Somehow her sketchbook appeared, and her pencil flitted lightly across the paper as a golden, pot-bellied cherub took shape.

I tiptoed my way to the back of the cathedral, so I could see the High Altar in its entirety. Behind it was an ornate statue of the Apostle James, indicating the location of his final resting place in the tunnel below. Pilgrims stood in a line winding around the pews, waiting to wrap their arms around the enlarged ceramic game piece in the traditional display of gratitude for their safe journey. The wriggling arms produced a strange effect from the back of the aisle: apostle as octopus.

On the top of the altar, nestled between four giant trumpeting angels and above the crucifix itself, was a statue of Santiago. Brandishing a wide sword, he perched upon a rearing white horse whose hooves were surrounded by the heads of the Moors whom he had slain in the name of his country and its religion. In my head, I reverted to my innate depravity as well. I shouted " puto! " and hear it echo against the sculpted pillars. I turned sharply, sprinting out from under the ten-story arches and past the tourist-trap restaurants and well-dressed university students to where my feet would once again tread dust; where I could see the mountain that I had just climbed, and didn't need to care where I was going. To where I was grateful. Like the day I had spent with Robe--we had walked too far.

"Anyone for a drink? It's a bit crowded in here and my legs could use a proper rest," Holly said.

We decided to investigate the rest of the cathedral later, when our companions found us. We sludged through gray puddles to a café in the corner of the plaza that surrounded the towering Romanesque attraction. I sipped my tiny cup of black coffee and periodically glanced out the window at the immense tribute to the Catholic war god, post card stands invading my view. A group of American college students pointed at the front entrance and tried to cut in front of a rosary-bearing grandmother to have their pictures taken with the saints.

Two days later I was amazed at how quickly the countryside flew by as Tom and I rode the bus back to Salamanca. We had needed more than a week to walk as far as the bus would take us in two hours. Suddenly, I realized that I had not prayed.

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