Buen Camino
We are in Palacio Carmen in Santiago de Compostela, the end of The Way of St. James or, as it is more commonly called, the Camino de Santiago. The Way gathers from all over Europe , wherever pilgrims start their trek. To get an official stamp and certificate you have to walk at least 100 km of the Camino or, if you are on a bicycle, at least 200 km. Based on that, and the fact that we first crossed the Camino about 500 miles back in the Pyrenees last week, we figure we have a right to petition the authorities of the Camino to grant us a motorcycle certificate. I’m not sure we are prepared to stay here for the necessary papal decree on such a thing, but I’m just saying.
The typical greeting for pilgrims or Peregrinos, as they are called, is to say “Buen Camino”. It is the equivalent of saying something like “God be with you”, I suppose. Yesterday we started to see signs of the Peregrinos and a few road signs and markers where our roads would cross their paths, but today was a different story altogether. Today, much of our ride was actually on the Camino de Santiago Norte, which is considered to be the hardest of the Caminos, given that it goes through the mountains, called Parque Nacional Picos de Europa, which extend perhaps three or four hundred miles across the north coast of Spain. That topography was new to me and I now appreciate that Europe has more peaks than just the Alps. I would argue that without any specific measurement criteria, these mountains are every bit as rugged looking as the Alps from what I have seen.
In 2019, before COVID hit, almost 350,000 pilgrims walked the Camino over the course of the year. That went down significantly during COVID, but I suspect from what I hear and what I saw today that they will be back up over 300,000 in 2022 when all is said and done. I’m not sure what it says that so many people are wanting to do pilgrimages, but I suspect it is a combination of increased awareness due to social media and the Matin Sheen / Emilio Esteves movie The Way, released in 2010. I know that’s how I learned about the Camino and ever since then it has been on my screen to come and see it. It has been every bit as interesting as I had imagined.
This evening we are going to a restaurant at the foot of the Cathedral of Santiago, where the statue and remains of St. James are housed. It is the mystical endpoint for the Peregrinos and marks the cathartic moment of rapture that many feel as they finish their treks and achieve whatever personal goals they set out to achieve. This evening I took a taxi to the Cathedral of Santiago. I had to do a business call on an expert witness case I have taken on and I stayed at the hotel while others, including Kim, went ahead to the cathedral before heading for dinner. If I stopped to think of walking 500 miles, I might have chosen to take a brisk walk to the cathedral, but my aching joints and bones, riding being more taxing on the body than non-motorcyclists can imagine, caused me to take the taxi. It felt funny arriving at the cathedral by taxi, but it worked out logistically well since I was taken through the winding old city streets that cannot be driven EXCEPT in a taxi to the base of the cathedral entrance. There I was, delivered to within 50 feet of my group of Peregrinos for the past week. They had just exited the cathedral and were willing to let me go in for a look. As I edged my way through the crowd, I could see the large silver incense ball, suspended from the cathedral ceiling that hung over the altar where the mass was underway. The faithful were just lighting it and starting it on its swaying path. What an amazing and inspiring sight for some reason. I do not understand the meaning, but the sight was profound.
As for me, riding the Camino de Santiago has been a goal ever since I saw The Way. While I have walked none of it, I feel that riding along its length and spending more than a week in this place that has been so new and so interesting, as well as eating and sleeping amongst those enroute to their pilgrimage has been enough to give me a sense of what people have done for centuries to cleanse their souls and lift their consciousness. It strikes me that in the same way that we all choose our own means of expression and our own paths in life, my path of motorcycling, chosen in my youth for reasons of youth, but consciously continued into adulthood and beyond (am I transcending adulthood?) is the way for me. I actually feel quite good about that self-justifying analysis since motorcycling both elevates my consciousness and my spirits and has and does make me the person that I am.
This trip along the Camino has been a good one for me. I have loved the countryside and scenery. The roads have been fun and energizing to ride. The camaraderie, as always, with our group has been soothing and pleasant. And the overall experience has felt great. It has restored my soul. It has restored my interest in foreign travel, which waned somewhat over COVID. It has reinspired my love of motorcycling, following a line of bikes as they wend their way around a mountain pass or an a low sweeper around a river in the valley. These are spiritual moments for me that I have come to love how they represent the meaning of life to me in many ways. What more can one ask of a trip or of any recreation? The very word RE-CREATION says it all. We are supposed to regularly recharge our batteries doing things like this ride. We are supposed to try new things and see new places and learn more about our friends and fellow man, aren’t we?
We have already been discussing our next ride, which is our habit on these rides. We have discussed a trip through Japan, a trip up through England, Wales and Scotland, a trip from Venice to Istanbul and a trip from Southern Spain (Malaga) across Gibraltar into the desert of Morocco. If you are a fan of the movie The Way, as I have explained that I am, you know that Martin Sheen is so smitten with his new life of exploration that he next finds himself walking through the souk in Marrakech. It seems only appropriate that we seem to have decided that that trip is top of the list for us collectively and Kaz/Skip will plan something out for next Fall for us. The movie ends in that spot and you feel that Sheen has become a better person and more fulfilled person for his experience. I think I can safely say the same for me at this moment.
We leave in an hour for Portugal and a quick visit to Porto and Lisbon. We have one day of riding left and while we will try to avoid what Skip calls “Border Fever”, which I assume means rushing to end the trip prematurely, we do have to return the bikes in Porto today, so we will try to see a bit of the Portuguese hills and valleys on the way. The way is the way, so Buen Camino.