WHEN WALKING

Home to Santiago – Day 78

A Salceda to Santiago de Compostela: 27km

Thank you, Martha.

At five or five-thirty, a very loud alarm goes off in the room and continues for thirty seconds, at which point the light is turned on, and for forty-five minutes Martha packs her bags. She leaves the room and re-enters three times, with the hall light coming on automatically. By six, I am wide awake and ready to go.

I join Iván and Margoz for breakfast. My plan for the day, as I have stated to Iván, is to have lunch with him. Every day I have met him on his way back lunch, just as I arrive. oday I decide to be part of that would be a fitting way to mark the final day.

Breakfast pastries in the Mami-Papi restaurant are homemade and delicious. Iván has the added treat of his portrait in the foam of his morning coffee. Margoz and I excitedly order our own coffees, but alas, only Iván is the chosen one.

Margoz goes to pack and I leave with Iván, still in the dark, but just enough light to see. It’s easy walking, both of us half asleep, me from the early morning, Iván from a sleep disturbed by snoring of the worst kind.

A little further on, Margoz catches up, and it’s the three of us from now on, with the path becoming busier with pilgrims around us. I fall back occasionally. It’s the last day. I only need a few minutes myself from time to time, and I happily catch up when I’ve had the time I need. These two pilgrims, faces old and new, are fine companions for the final day.

The paths are wooded, rocky and mossy, and I’m happy that Bernard will get a last burst of the Galician lanes he missed from following my shortcut yesterday. As we go up a path, sunken into the rocks, a Galician bagpipe player plays. Who cares if it’s a gimmick. It’s beautiful.

We stop at the Bar Paio, where I’ve stopped many times before, and we have a coffee. Margot and Iván tell wonderful stories of run-ins with the police. My stories are very tame, but I manage to commit my own criminal offence when I go to check if the men’s toilets are free and am accused by a line of women waiting outside of jumping the queue. I’m horrified they should think such a thing. I’m British. Queues define me. Martha the Austrian goes straight in and uses the gents without a qualm. I can’t help but like her.

It’s strange walking along these roads. From time to time I remember parts, but there are so many bits that aren’t familiar at all. I wonder who I was talking to when I passed them before and didn’t notice a thing.

At Monte de Gozo, Margoz moves ahead and I stop for my lunch with Iván. This huge albergue complex has the air of a half abandoned holiday resort. Lunch is no grand affair and Iván is itching to get to Decathlon. My attention is diverted by endless instructions to Bernard on how to find us. He also has trouble with the language of maps.

Bernard arrives, and so, it is with Bernard, I enter Santiago. I remember, as I must, that this is his entry into the city. I’ve been here before on this very same route, but for him this is the culmination of three years of walks. I let him go ahead, once I am sure he knows the way, so he can enter alone but accompanied. We all deserve a break.

As I enter the cathedral square, I see is Marcus, a German, whom I walked with what seems like so long ago, the day we had ice-creams by the beach with Alois and the American girl, whose name I now forget. We hug as old friends. Then I see, a little bit behind, Nives sitting in the square, after all these days apart. One of the core faces of my Camino since that rainy morning outside the cafe near Biarritz. This is my arrival.

Pictures are taken, me and Nives, me and Bernard, Bernard and Nives. (This is the first time they have met, but he’s getting in there quick nowadays). Margoz appears across the square, and it’s wonderful to see him. We’re all taking turns, lying on the ground trying to get the perfect shot of ourselves in full and the cathedral towering overhead.

And then what to do? We just sit in the square and be there.

After quite a while, Bernard and I move and are our final way to the pilgrim’s office for our compostelas. We barely have to wait any time, but as I walk up to counter number six, I fear I am out of luck. My volunteer behind the counter seems stressed, and my will be a complicated one to explain.

But one last time, I am wrong. Nicola, my Italian volunteer, could not be nicer, nor could he could not be more impressed. I think I am his longest-walking pilgrim during his time spent here, and I’m glad that my distance means something to him. I do not tell him of the others I have met with far more impressive journeys than mine, because this is his moment too.

Sadly, as he is unable to find Eastbourne easily on his list, so he puts London as my starting point and the kilometres from there. At least the distance is pretty accurate. I think I’ve more than done those kilometres with my detours over the last two and a half months.

The form is also filled in with Camino Inglés, the hundred-kilometre walk from Ferrol, and not my actual route through France and along the Camino del Norte. But it doesn’t matter. I didn’t do this for a piece of paper, a piece of paper is always nice.

With our scrolls in hand, we find Margoz again on the square and a receive a message from Nives that she and Grace are waiting for us in a restaurant for dinner. Is the French coming? her message .The French is coming, but I take the Armenian with me first.

And we spend the evening in a busy, cramped, but excellent tapas restaurant in the centre. There is no internet. I miss calls and messages which store up on my phone for when I leave, which is in itself a nice little parting gift. There are people I have met, whom I thought I would never see again, there are faces I know well which I can only hope will cross my path another time.

When I leave the restaurant, I leave with Nives. It is late. I still haven’t checked in, washed or unpacked. I have my box with my tent, picked up earlier from the post office, and with all these, Nives leads me the two and a half kilometres to our albergue on the edge of town.

My bed, luckily, is near the door, and everything is waiting for me. When I phone up, they say, “Don’t worry, it’s all good. You have paid.” As a wise pilgrim told me, not so long ago, “The Camino provides, and failing that, you have a bank card”.

I have paid and I have paid happily, and not just the euros for this bed. And having paid, I have received more than I could ever have hoped for in return.