Camino Days 40-44: Celebration and Final Farewells

If there’s any single post that can define my Camino experience, this is it. It’s long. It’s sad. It’s happy. It’s about about love and family. It’s about endings and beginnings. It was a heartachingly hard post to write.

Making it to Santiago was a truly bittersweet feat. It’s one of the greatest accomplishments in my life. Early on, I had my doubts if I would even make it due to Achillies pain. Many of us battled physical limitations during the Camino. Now it was time to look back on how far we’d come, how deep we’d dug physically, mentally, emotionally.

Our celebrations were much deserved and so epic. Yet celebrating meant impending goodbyes and a finality to the Camino life that had become so normal. I can say (write) with a full heart and tears in my eyes that these last days were some of the most beautiful, joyful, intense, and emotional days of my life.

I sat down to write this post many times. I’m still processing it all, and it’s hard to find the right words. I thought about splitting it up into 5 different days, as I did with the other Camino days, but it’s hard to separate these days in my mind. It’s one big, beautiful, bittersweet blur. As the saying goes, we dont remember days, we remember moments. So here are some of our final Camino moments…

One of my favorite moments was greeting the others at the cathedral as they walked in together, arm around each other. Chris and I had arrived the prior day, and it brought us both great joy to welcome our fam with open arms (and a sign and champagne, of course). I’m not even going to begin to explain the amount of inside jokes we have, some of which appear on the sign. Those are for meant for us anyway. We hugged, popped the champagne, raised a toast to ourselves, poorly executed some boomerangs, and had way too much fun taking photos.

I can’t tell you how many more times we ended up in that cathedral plaza over the next couple of days. We’d go sit and take in the excitement and emotion of other pilgrims arriving and ending their own long journeys. We’d sneak off between bar hopping to do handstands and cartwheels. We even ended our nights there- drunk, laying side by side, looking up at the church and the moon. It’ll always be special place for me.

Ohhh how we enjoyed the days after we were reunited. We thoroughly steeped ourselves in celebration. We drank wine like it was water and chowed on CHEESE, meats, seafood, pizza, kebabs.

Nuno always had the top places for us to try- best spicy mussels, best tortilla, etc. We ended up at those same places over and over- Gato Negro like a second home in Santiago. We had happy reunions in tiny bars as we ran into other pilgrims who we had met along the way. One of my favorite nights ended (started, really) with us taking to the dance floor and belting out sweet Caroline along with a live musician.

On Thursday, May 12th, we rented a van and drove to the coast, to Muxia. We had just said our first goodbye to Tash, so it was a somber car ride, and the hangovers didn’t help. We got out of the car and slowly, individually made our way to the church on the edge of the water. I hadn’t even know what I was walking too. But there I was, sitting by myself on a massive rock, watching the waves crashing, feeling it all.

What happened next is perhaps one of my most memorable Camino moments. Daryl came and sat down next to me. He asked how I was feeling. I said pretty fucking sad. He said yeah me too. And we just sat. Over the next few minutes, the rest of the group wandered over, one by one, from all directions. Nickie came and sat on my other side. Then Bekki and Blake, the very first people I had met at my hostel back in St. Jean, sat. Then Nuno. Frances. And then Chris (who captured this moment so well). And we all sat there in a row looking out over the ocean, in complete silence.

This moment still blows my mind. I sat down by myself and ended with 7 people by my side; it wasn’t planned, we just eventually ended up in that moment together. It speaks to my entire Camino journey. I knew these humans for mere days… but we were so closely connected, so in tune with each others moods, and so comfortable in the silence, in the sadness, in everything. It was a beautiful and rare thing… a moment that may not have translated in any other context.

After lunch in Muxia (burgers all around), we headed to Finisterre. It continued to be a quiet and calm day at our seaside apartments. My Camino bestie, Iris, joined us. We sat out on the balcony and caught up. it felt right to see her one last time before it all ended. (But I know I’ll see her again!) We walked down to the beach and joined the others in a freezing dip in the ocean. We all ate a quiet, homecooked dinner.

The next morning, Iris and I talked over one last coffee and chai before she continued walking to Muxia. We spilled our hearts to each other and then laughed about it all (like, really laughed), and it felt like 2 best friends that have known each other forever. I was, again, in awe of the instantaneity and depth of relationships on the Camino.

Our Camino journeys had mirrored each other in so many ways- our cravings for solo time at the beginning, our achillies pain, our heartaches and uncertainties about love and life. We started together on Day 2, and even though we eventually walked different paces and found different groups, we had been there for each other throughout. I love you Iris, and I’m so proud of you!

On Friday afternoon, we drove back to Santiago. Friday night was our last night together. It was everything you’d expect from us. It was drinking, it was laughing, it was chaos and cheesecake. It was goodbyes at the end of the night. It was watching Nickie and Frances walk away down the tiny street, hand in hand. It was Chris and I hugging Nuno in a dark bar and then watching that orange shirt and scarf disappear down the street. On Saturday morning, it was watching Chris get in a taxi to the airport- the hardest and final piece in the puzzle of goodbyes.

And just like that, on Day 44, my Camino was officially over. I packed up and left my hotel in a daze. I wove through the city center with my backpack, small bags, my purse. I was on my way to acquire my suitcase, which was waiting for me in storage at another hotel.

The next part I can’t really explain. It just happened, and it all felt very guided. I was following the route to my hotel, but it felt wrong. The church was calling out to me, pulling me in. And I had to go. Before I knew it, I was sitting there in the plaza, pulling small items out of my bags. Pressed flowers from Frances. A foot charm from Nickie. A chapstick from Tash. A cow from Nuno and a shell he had collected in Finisterre. Cards from Chris.

Something special from each of my people. Momentos of moments, kindness, and love. The funny thing is I knew exactly what items to get without thinking about it, and I didnt have to dig for anything. They were all right there, close to me. I sat in front of that cathedral one last time, mini alter spread out in front of me, and cried my eyes out. It felt like mourning a loss. The separation from my people, after glorious weeks together, was painful and palpable. It was absolute sadness.

That’s when I knew it was never about the walk. It was always about the people. This destined meeting of souls on a path, the divine timing of it all. This brief and electric connection of individuals who change each others lives forever- both in small and big ways.

Leonardo Di Caprio captures my feelings during the ending scene of the beach, “And as for the rest of us, we carried away our sins and made our way back to wherever it was we called home. To pick up the pieces of whatever was waiting. Of course you can never forget what you’ve done, but we adapt. We carry on. And me? I still believe in paradise. But now at least I know it’s not some place you can look for. Because it’s not where you go. It’s how you feel for a moment in your life when you’re a part of something. And if you find that moment, it lasts forever.”

You expect to walk away from the Camino feeling strong and accomplished. They don’t tell you how raw and strange those first post Camino days will be. How you’ll feel even more lost and less like yourself. Your heart pulled apart, fragments of it carried to new places in the loving hands of your Camino fam.

Yet, I know our cups are even fuller than when we started. Overflowing, in fact. I know we’re braver, freer versions of ourselves. I know our paths will cross, our lives now inextricably intertwined. I know we can’t even begin to understand how this journey will influence the course of our lives.

Nuno keeps saying the Camino really starts after Santiago… where you take what you’ve learned on the trail and integrate it into your life.

If that’s true, then our journey is just beginning. So it is with much love that I wish you a Buen Camino, mis peregrinos.

And so it is.

For Iris, Chris, Nuno, Frances, Nickie, and Tash.