In Santiago, a city swollen with thousands of “Cathedral Tourists”, some part of the local population is always ready to turn the easy tourist buck. The trick is to find the salt of the earth common people and enjoy genuine hospitality. English language proficiency isn’t that common in Spain. Regardless, AJ generally manages to make good “contact” with ordinary people. She’s like my deceased mother in that way. Herself a Scandinavian, AJ mysteriously manages to smile, speak her second language English to Spaniards, and make them laugh and reciprocate. With this skill, AJ somehow managed to find the Café-Bar ‘La Campaña’ tucked into a back alley a bare 100 meters northeast of the Cathedral. Warmly encouraged by grandmotherly Josephina Rodriguez and her husband Jose, we have returned to rooms at this place as “regulars” to spend our final night in Santiago. Josephina corrects the massive mistakes we make interpreting her menu. Ignoring them, she brings us exquisitely simple dishes of her own choosing. We are her only tourists and she lavishes us with her attention.
“GT” Galician public television is a staple of flat screen TVs in small bars like ‘La Campaña’. Its programming is almost exclusively on scene ‘local color’ interviews. Tonight, at 9:30 p.m., we watched some French pilgrims interviewed live as they entered Santiago today. Father, mother, and small girl child, they had an authentic gypsy yet recognizably pilgrim look. Imagine! Within a half hour they walked into our ‘La Campaña’ tavern trying to solve the arriving Pilgrim problem—where to sleep for the night? The girl, eight years old, was finishing her fifth Santiago pilgrimage. AJ gave her bread from our table.
So a pilgrimage, but not necessarily Pilgrim life, comes to an end. AJ and I have parted company. It can be very hard to tell what the future holds. Your Pilgrim head never knows just where your feet are leading your heart. But perhaps AJ, or you, or I will share a common Pilgrim Road some future day. Till then, Buen Camino!
