Last night we pooled our resources (emergency rations and a couple of bottles of wine) to watch the final Spain vs. England. It was all you would expect the Final of the Eurocup 2024 to be: Spain scored the first gol, then England tied 1-1, and finally--late in the second half--Spain scored the winning gol. Viva España!! All sorts of fireworks went over the town, but since our country mansion was out of town we saw very little action on the streets. Perhaps it was crazy in town, but we were tired and decided not to go out, imagining that the following day the festive spirit would still be in the air. Alas, it wasn't, and Monday was just another day. Our last pilgrimage day.
It was a great biking day. Santiago is surrounded by mountains, so we had many uphills, but the Galician forests are luscious, so it was hard but beautiful going. Unfortunately, when everything goes well there is not much to write about. Chrissy tried real hard to give me new material for another issue of the Chronicles of the Space Academy, but it was a half-hearted attempt and not even I could spin a tale about a disappearance that lasted less than half an hour.
We came across a statue
of Santiago, in his peregrino outfit, showing a big weeping
sore on his leg and accompanied by a dog holding a loaf of bread in its mouth.
What was that all about? Turns out that it was not Santiago, but San Roque,
a peregrino from the Middle Ages, who was following El Camino
when he caught the bubonic plague. He fell sick in the forest and lay down
there, waiting to die, when this dog came to him carrying a loaf of bread in
his mouth. The dog came every day for several days until his owner, curious
about the fact that the dog would grab from the table a fresh loaf of bread
every morning and go into the forest, followed it and found the ailing peregrino.
At great risk to himself the man brought the peregrino back to his house
and nursed him back into health. Since then San Roque has been the patron saint
of the peregrinos of El Camino and the patron
saint of dogs. I remember a poem about El Perro Cojo by Manuel
Benitez Carrasco, which in part reads:
Portero
y dueño del cielo, San Roque en la puerta estaba.
Ortopédico de mimos, cirujano de palabras,
Bien
surtido de recambios con que curar viejas taras.
"Para tí ... un rabo de oro,
para tí ... un ojo de ámbar
tú ... tus orejas de nieve,
tú ... tus colmillos de escarcha,
y para tí", y mi perro le sonreía,
"para tí ... una muleta de plata."
Ahora ya sé porque está la noche estrellada:
Estrellas? Luceros? No.
Es
mi perro, que cuando anda,
con
la muleta va dejando agujeritos de plata.
The path was so abrupt that we started noticing that our batteries, for the first time in six days, were rapidly losing their charge. We were so close! According to the signs along El Camino we were less than 3 km away from Santiago, when I realized that we were approaching the city from the south, whereas the big hostel where we were staying, Monte de Gozo, was on the northeast of the city. That added another 5 km to our trip and, alas, Margarita's battery gave up two kilometers short of our destination. So we all walked the uphills, and tried to coast the downhills as much as we could, until we finally made it to our home for the next couple of nights. Now we all understood why it is called Monte de Gozo!
After resting for a while we decided to go to the city. Out of battery and accepting it was already 7 pm we took a taxi to Plaza Galicia, close to the Alameda, and walked to the big Plaza of Obradeiro, right in front of the cathedral. It was time to rejoice because we had made it to our objective, but I couldn't help being a bit depressed and sad from the fact that this particular Camino had come to an end. Everyone sees the Camino as something different, but the one thing that is certain is that once can never go back. Even if you follow the same route, you will meet new friends, face different challenges, and learn new lessons. Antonio Machado expressed it best in his famous poem:
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