My friend, Mary, came over for brunch and to share her experiences of traveling the Way of St. James two years ago. I had first read about this ancient pilgrimage a while back in a book of travel essays by women. Mary traveled with some family members from a location in France called St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, near the Spanish border where they picked up Credenciales or Pilgrim's Passports at a church. These passports enable the bearer to stay at refugios along the way. These are simple hostels costing five to ten euros (6 to 13 dollars?) a night. Often they have a number of bunk beds in one room and cold water showers. You can stay just one night and you must be ready to go by 8:00 in the morning. These hostels are also called albergues.
Pilgrims walk (or ride bikes, horses or donkeys) to the destination of Santiago de Compostela and the cathedral where legend has it that the remains of the apostle James are interred. Compostela means "field of stars" and may relate to the origins of the Way in pagan times or when it was a Roman trade route and travelors found their way by the Milky Way. The popular Spanish name for the Milky Way is El Camino de Santiago.
At the Cathedral, there is a daily mass at noon for the pilgrims. If the traveler has walked at least
100 kilometers they can receive a compostela there for completing the Way.
Mary traveled beyond Santiago de Compostela to Cape Finisterre on the coast where the Scallop Shells which are symbolic of the way can be found. Many travelers wear them on their clothing or on their hats.
Mary tells me to take two pairs of shoes. She wore her regular running shoes as well as light layers of clothing. She also took a sleeping bag in her back pack and carried about 20 lbs of belongings with her.They bought dried apricots to eat as they walked, wore hats and sometimes had some cold weather requiring jackets. You can wash your clothes in the refugios. Your bathrooms are the open fields or the woods.
No olvides tu toalla.
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