2025 Leon to Santiago

Validation is like cheesecake. We may not need it to survive, but when we get a nice slice, we really enjoy and savor it, as it is one of the sweeter things in life.

When we arrived in Santiago at the end of our epic Camino, Bonnie and I went to the Pilgrims’ Office to turn in our credentials with all of the stamps we had collected along the Way. Once they checked to make sure we visited all of those places (and hadn’t done so on an electric bike), they put in one last stamp, this one from the Cathedral, and returned it to us. It is an accordion of sacred memories.

In addition, they also provide us with a Compostela, the parchment with our names in Latin that grants whatever blessing, forgiveness, or honor comes with walking at least 100 kilometers to St. James’ resting place. I don’t think there is any worldly or heavenly value in having more than one of them, but I’ve always obtained one at the end of my Camino pilgrimages.
The last piece of paper that is offered to the pilgrims is a Distance Certificate. For a couple of Euros, the church will give you a document that states where and when you started, as well as an estimate of how many kilometers you walked. Bonnie and I both decided to get these papers which would indicate how we zig-zagged across Spain from their northern border with France.

But the Pilgrims’ Office didn’t want to give us one.

When we entered our information into their computer, we couldn’t find the routes connecting the Norte Camino with the Frances. One of the workers came over to help us but she couldn’t find them either. After talking with a supervisor she came back to us frowning.

“I’m sorry, but the route that you walked is not an official Camino, so we cannot provide you with the entire distance.”

“What do you mean it isn’t an official Camino?”

“Well, the Church does not recognize it as one.”

“You mean to tell me that the Church doesn’t recognize the Lebaniego Camino to the Monastery where they keep the largest piece of the cross of Christ? You mean to tell me that the church doesn’t recognize the Vadiniense Camino that goes over the Pecos Mountains from that monastery, even though it is marked the whole way as a Camino, has its own special logo, and had representatives at the St. James Festival hosted by the Cathedral last week?”

“I don’t know what else I can tell you, sir. You both will be given a Compostela as you walked far enough on the Frances Camino, but your whole journey will not be indicated on a distance certificate. Do you still want them?”

It was senseless to argue. We didn’t walk for papers, stamps, or certificates. Our pilgrimage was not about mileage, steps, or to prove anything to a religious institution. We walked with and for each other; we walked for our health, growth, and healing; we walked with open hearts and minds for those we want to bring back to the Camino with us.

I mumbled something to the worker and walked back over to Bonnie to vent. She told me that she didn’t care what they wrote on the certificate. If she didn’t agree with what it said, she would just scratch it out and write in her own calculated distance.

She’s my hero.

I took a deep breath and started to relax. A few minutes later, the worker called me over to her desk.

“Sir, did you really walk with your daughter this whole way that you have told me?”

“Yes. That is what we did.”

“It sounds like it was very special.”

“Yes. It really was.”

“Do you pinky swear?”

I looked up and saw that she had moved her hand across the table towards me with her smallest digit extended. While I do not believe that pinky swearing is an actual, official oath in the Catholic Church, I gripped her finger with mine.

“I swear.”

She printed off two distance certificates with over 800+ kilometers on them, handed them to me, and then said, “I didn’t do this.”

I don’t think this was an official church confession, but it was certainly a measure of grace.

Later, Bonnie and I discussed how her validation of our journey together meant more to us than the certificates she printed. We felt recognowledged. (That is a Bonnie-ism. She creates words when she doesn’t find one she likes. She is my hero.)

The following day, Bonnie and I had a list of chores to complete before leaving Santiago - a big breakfast including specialty coffee, eating churros with a cup of melted chocolate, finding pastel de natas, washing our laundry, and to purchase a couple of souvenirs. I had read about a shop, A Rua Recordos, that "has everything that a pilgrim needs.”

Knowing that the Lebaniego and Vadiniense routes aren’t popular routes on the way to Santiago, I didn’t know if I’d be able to find those Camino patches for our backpacks. I reached out to the owner, Oscar, before we left for Spain, and he messaged me back with pictures of two different patches of those routes from his shop. He told me to come see him when we had completed our journey.

We arrived at A Rua Recordos just as Oscar was opening for the day. The shop isn’t fancy like those closer to the Cathedral; it doesn’t have a flashy sign out front; there doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to the stacks and piles of souvenirs. What you do feel when you walk into the store is the great energy that Oscar has created with his collection and his care for the pilgrims who enter. Within seconds, he had located our patches for us and asked us about our journey. I showed him on my phone the WhatsApp conversation I had had with him several months ago.

After we had paid for our trinkets and were getting ready to leave, he came around the counter and handed both Bonnie and I a slip of paper to read. It was the story of Mocho the toymaker who would give out toy hands to pilgrims that he found exhibited the character of true pilgrimage. You cannot buy these symbols; they have to be given. Then, in the special fashion they are awarded, he shook both our hands, putting one of the mementos in each of ours.

And then he hugged us.

Bonnie and I both cried because we felt seen.

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