The End of the World As We Know It

---

---

Well, this is it. The end of the line. After six weeks of walking I've run out of land. I'm writing this from Cape Finisterre, which until Columbus(?) was the end of the known world, the edge of something that no one at that time, and probably today as well, could really grasp at convincingly. Grandiose words I know. I can already hear the 'pretentious siren' sounding around town. Any moment now a crew of Spanish rednecks are going to crash through the windows of this net-cafe and beat me into a gibbering, ignorant wreck. But until that happens, you're going to have to put up with needlessly extravagant descriptions of otherwise unnoteworthy feelings or places.

Having said that, all self-indulgence aside, this place really has something special about it. Yesterday, upon arriving, I walked to Fisterra, the most westerly European point and a place of pilgrimage since pre-Christian times. I knew it would prompt some type of emotional response, whether it be a sense of pride, nostalgia or something in between the two, or engulfing both. At the top of the hill, however, the realisation that I literally had no more land to walk on seemed to hit me all at once. I had to really hold myself together to stop bursting into tears in front of hoards of American tourists, who undoubtedly would have taken photos and applied faux-meaning to this odd outbreak of emotion. I've been trying to pinpoint the exact cause of it myself, without much success. It is difficult to determine whether the importance of such a place stems from the history of Fisterra, the knowledge of its significance and tradition, and a vague and distant connection with the millions of other pilgrims who approached the same spot and encountered the same, curious reaction. Alternately, maybe the half-mad hippies I've been drinking with on the beach are right, and there is some particular resonance present at the summit of Cape Finisterra, a burst water-pipe of energy that everyone feels, yet causes people who attempt to rationalise it to grow beards and live in caves on the hillside.

Anyway, enough of this philosophical bollocks and lets get cynical. Santiago, 'sold' as the spiritual end to this most peculiar of excursions, falls on its face when compared to Finisterra, mainly because of the emphasis placed on marketing that promoted the pilgrimage so much in the first place. I don't begrudge anyone attempting to earn a living from a money-spinner as abundant as a constant tide of pilgrims with cash to burn, yet the emphasis on prising money from your wallet viciously erodes at the reason why all but the most brainwashed Christian chose to walk here in the first place. No doubt it was the same 500 years ago, yet the replacement of brothels and taverns with souvenir shops touting 'I <3 Santiago' t-shirts doesn't sit well with me, or anybody else looking to take advantage of an alleged total forgiveness of sins once they walk through the Cathedral doors and out granted the Compostela.

And now for the grand finale. The culmination of all I have learned, supposed to have learned, and plane missed the point of since being here. From day one I have been bombarded, to some extent, with advice from other more mythical pilgrims about how the Camino will 'change' me. Stories of how former businessmen have walked the Camino, returned home and quit their jobs for a more ethical, or at least more eccentric trade. Even theories of how mother Earth will heal my tendinitis if I ask her/it/whatever too. I have tried to listen to all forms of explanation presented to me with as objective mind that I can muster, with varying degrees of success. Whatever I have learned, ironically, I don't know it yet, but one particular incident sticks with me. I once asked an older pilgrim who had walked the Camino several times what his favourite element of it was. He attempted to articulate his love of the people he met, yet choked on his own tears before he could finish his sentence. Such a genuine, sincere and borderline mental show of affection for other people was more moving for both me, and the other people who witnessed it, than seeing any mountain, ocean or much touted ruin. And if I ever achieve a shade of the perspective of John from Cape Town, I will be a truly happy guy.

And, as far as life lessons go, I think that's pretty much it. If I've learned anything else I'm not conscious of it, and so won't worry or even consider it until it's relevant to some situation or other. Anyway, it's back to deal with the brutal realities of Stoke-on-Trent, and a life of bills, deadlines and routine..

So, until the next travel bout,
I remain,
Wearily, physically and essentially,

Paul M. Creeney

---

Photos

Finisterra
Nowhere left to walk.