The Breakdown will be Televised

I've missed a couple of days in my chaos. Lost highlights include Indian Manusha, Australian Lauren, Melide, and the karaoke-with-the-drunk-priests debacle. But let's skip the filler and cut straight to the final day (for a little treat.)

I shift my jarring left knee off the morning mattress and nibble on some painkillers before setting off into the dark. As Santiago draws near, stickers plaster every surface like syrupy stickiness on a Wetherspoons table. Herds of pilgrims trudge like bisons through muddy tundra, and stamp sellers line up like vipers along the rat run.

The stark spires of Santiago Cathedral stab the horizon, a horizon that keeps its distance just enough so you keep walking. Protests rumble through the streets, Galicians waving flags and chanting in synchrony. I gawp at their march, unsure what's upset them. Perhaps it's the pilgrims.

And then, just like that, I'm there. To be honest, the endpoint disappoints me, not because it's ugly or unworthy, it's not. But because it doesn't even try to be something it isn't. Consumerism in the name of religion. After all the miles, my knee doesn't hurt so much as the anti-climax.

Outside the Cathedral, pilgrims stand in every flavour of emotion: awe, fatigue, contemplation. A man wearing Balenciagas poses for a selfie beside a weathered looking wanderer who's walked all the way from Rome. His beard is overgrown, his dog's even more so. As I slump beneath the nave, I spot the Italian I ragebaited days ago. He congratulates me, then casually mentions he makes tea in the microwave. I consider calling the police.

Of course, there's no enlightenment (or lines of cocaine) waiting on the steps of Santiago Cathedral. Just another meaningless certificate for my meaningless wall. The act of meaning making is absurd in its futility, and we are all the punchline. But isn't that, weirdly, all the more reason to search on and laugh harder? Or don't, all approaches are valid. I'm just a man with a brain that won't shut the hell up.

Collapsing thought into language can often drain it of its richness and texture, but I'll attempt to answer Susi's question from Act 2 Scene 24, what does it mean to be a pilgrim? I think: a pilgrim is someone who walks a pilgrimage. Well by extension then, what makes a route a pilgrimage? I think: it's literally that it calls itself one (frightening insight, I know).

But you approach it differently because of that label, and it's that collective questioning - that shared delusion that we're all doing anything more than walking - that somehow ends up making it kind of true.

So would I walk the Camino again, point to point? Probably not. If you want a scenic hike, walk the coast path, and if you want a proper existential crisis then just walk to Bosnia, ya big dummy. But the fact that something like the Camino exists is, ultimately... beautiful. Sure, it might not give you enlightenment, but what it will give you is community, convenience, and a warm sense of belonging - and that's why it means so much to so very many. And it didn't mean nothing to me.

But then again, maybe that's just the enlightenment talking. Mildly. ;)Leer más