The Way of St. James: A pilgrimage to Spain
Chicago Sun-Times
SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain — A sporadic stream of hikers — most old enough to be collecting Social Security checks — followed a trail of yellow arrows and entered the ancient walls of Pamplona.
On this drizzly day in early May, they looked like a parade of quasimodos with their hooded rain jackets draped over bulky backpacks, trekking poles tap-tap-tapping along the cobblestone streets.
Some had started walking weeks ago, on the other side of the Pyrenees in France.
Others had just begun their journey, bouncing on fresh feet free of blisters.
All of them were headed to the same place: Santiago de Compostela, a town near the Atlantic Ocean, about 435 miles away.
For more than a millennium, countless people have made long, hard — sometimes deadly — pilgrimages to this holy city. Santiago’s towering cathedral is said to be the final resting place of St. James, devout apostle of Jesus, slayer of the Moors and the magnet drawing pilgrims across Europe to this remote corner of northwest Spain.
Legend has it that back in the ninth century, a hermit saw stars here dancing on a field, leading to the discovery of St. James’ remains. The local king ordered that a church be built to honor the beheaded martyr, and one of the most sacred pilgrimages in Christianity was born.
In medieval times people traveled here — or in some cases, paid a proxy to make the arduous journey — to have their slate of sins wiped clean; to earn a ticket on the express elevator, past purgatory, straight to the pearly gates.
Religious fervor isn’t the fuel driving most modern pilgrims. These days, people do the “Camino de Santiago,” or the Way of St. James, for the adventure. Or because they want to slow down, have time to think. Get over a divorce or a death. Literally follow in the footsteps of history, or nourish some spiritual growth. Start fresh.
If you’re Wilbert Wils from the Netherlands, you’re doing it to clear your head.
“I’m in between phases of my life,” said the amiable 70-year-old, whose navy blue backpack sported a fist-sized scallop shell — the hallmark of the Camino de Santiago.
“I thought I would walk to see what happens,” Wils said. “To see how things sort out in my mind.”
Wils will have a lot of company on the camino this year, a holy year. St. James feast day, July 25, falls on a Sunday in 2010, which guarantees unusually heavy foot traffic on the several historic routes leading to Santiago. The next holy year won’t roll around until 2021.
In its 12th century heyday, as many as 1 million pilgrims hoofed it to Santiago. Three decades ago, those numbers were down to about 30,000, Galicia tourism officials said. The Camino has made a bit of a comeback in recent years, with roughly 150,000 pilgrims arriving in 2009.
Martin Sheen and his son — that would be Emilio Estevez, not troublemaker Charlie — were among them. The pair were filming a movie about the famous walk. “The Way” is slated for release this year, when officials are predicting a pilgrim population close to 200,000.
Pilgrims travel by foot, bike or on horseback, getting their special passport, or “credentials,” stamped at various checkpoints. They spend their nights at a network of first-come, first-served curfew-enforced hostels, paying about 5 euros (roughly $6.20) to sleep on Spartan bunk beds among snorers and the scent of wet socks.
Some of the softer souls opt for comfier confines at nice hotels, or join group tours that take care of the logistics and transport guests’ heavy backpacks from place to place.
“I’m too old for that hostel stuff,” said Ruth McGorty of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. McGorty was one of a dozen people — mostly Irish women — traveling with a company called Portugal Walks.
“It’s been more of a leisurely stroll than a hike,” said McGorty, whose group covered a little more than 70 miles in six days. “We take long breaks, eat really good food, drink really, really good wine. I’ve been accused of basically going on a pub crawl across Spain.”
The average pilgrim covers between 12 and 16 miles a day, often lugging their sleeping bags, toiletries and other essentials on their backs.
To officially “do” the camino, you need to cover at least 100 kilometers (62 miles) on foot, or twice that on a bike. Many pilgrims travel much farther. A hardy group set off from Finland in April; they won’t set eyes on the Santiago cathedral’s soaring baroque spires for at least half a year.
It easily can take a month to walk your way to Santiago from Pamplona, a popular starting point along the most heavily traversed path, the French Route. No wonder Santiago’s souvenir shops are full of T-shirts showing bandaged feet under the slogan “Sin dolor, hay es gloria.” No pain, no glory.
After days, weeks or months on the trail, the sight of Santiago’s most famous building can bring tears to weary trekkers’ eyes. In the cathedral’s massive courtyard, pilgrims — some limping painfully — hug, cry and high five one another, proudly posing for photos with their walking sticks.
Their next stop is the nearby pilgrims’ office, where they show their stamped passports to get an official Compostela certificate. The first 10 to arrive each day are treated to free breakfast, lunch and dinner at a former pilgrims’ hospital turned into a five-star hotel. Leaving their giant backpacks behind, pilgrims head back to the cathedral to give an obligatory hug to a golden statue of St. James and get a glimpse of the tiny silver coffin holding his bones. Because it’s 2010, they’re able to enter the cathedral through a special door open only during holy years.
Inside the cathedral, an enormous incense burner hangs from the ceiling. It used to double as an air freshener back in the day when sweaty (read: smelly) pilgrims slept on the church floor.
Those sleepover days are long gone, but the pilgrimage itself has essentially stayed the same, century after century. And in today’s rapidly evolving world, maybe that consistency is what makes the Camino de Santiago so appealing.
“There’s something very satisfying,” McGorty said, “about walking a route people have walked for more than 1,000 years.”