Sunday morning I arrived in Santiago de Compostela after a long and arduous journey on the night bus from Madrid. I had underestimated the need for planning far ahead when travelling to Santiago, so when I sat down to buy the tickets I had to forego the quicker and more comfortable train. Looking back, this was effectively a foreshadowing of the lesson I came to draw from my first encounter with the city itself. This first encounter came about when I was leaving the bus station. A man accosted me and asked me for money to travel, and because I am stupidly unaccustomed to carry small cash, I had nothing to give him. One thing that struck me was that as he was explaining his situation, he included the defence "no soy peregrino", I am not a pilgrim. This very simple disclaimer carried a lot of context, and it was a glimpse into local attitudes about pilgrims, a glimpse with more clarity than I would have expected. However, I was only surprised by the clarity of the statement, not what the statement alluded to, because as one of the foremost pilgrimage sites in Western Europe, Santiago de Compostela is full of pilgrims of all sorts.
That evening, when meeting up with a dear friend of mine who is herself from Galicia and lives in Santiago, I mentioned this encounter, and she confirmed my suspicions about local attitudes. It is quite common that modern pilgrims ask for money and argue that they should receive it because they are performing a pious endeavour. This is an argument that would be perfectly legitimate in the Middle Ages, when many people would not have had the means to cover every expense of the journey to Santiago and back home. Nowadays, however, when a lot of the pilgrims are dressed in outdoor gear that is certainly not inexpensive, carrying modern-day walking sticks and other paraphernalia, the idea that some of these people ask for money does leave a bad taste in one's mouth.
I am writing this on my third day in Santiago, and I very much sympathise with the locals in their distaste for the tourism connected with the pilgrimage. Every day, I have seen numerous people with their backpacks - which are not permitted when entering the cathedral - their walking sticks, and, occasionally, some odd headwear that seems borderline farcical. I try very much not to be a pilgrim, at least not in this sense, and so far it seems that I am succeeding in not appearing as a tourist. I wear a shoulder bag rather than a backpack, I am dressed in ordinary clothes, and I speak a passable Spanish. On the other hand, I am also both a tourist and a pilgrim. This is my first time in Santiago, and I have already got lost while trying to exit the labyrinth that is the old town. Moreover, going to Santiago has been a dream of mine for years, and my scholarly interest in the cult of Santiago himself, Saint James the Elder, is one of the primary reasons for being here. Yesterday, for instance, I bought my first Bible in Spanish, something I decided years ago that I would first do in Santiago de Compostela rather than in any of the other places in Spain that I have visited. And as I have been sauntering about town for a couple of days now, I am very much feeling like some sort of pilgrim. But I also have a very strong feeling that if I ever came in a situation in which it were relevant, I would also add the very useful disclaimer: I am not a pilgrim.
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