Worth the Wait

As we sat up late last night watching Gavin & Stacey, there were lots of loud bangs as the town was showered with fireworks as part of the fiesta celebrations.

After breakfast we headed out, and this time the Tourist Information office was open, so we could get a map. The lady inside congratulated us on our Spanish which pleased us no end.

Armed with our map we walked for a good 2 hours round a headland, keeping the sea on our right. There was lots to see and some lovely tracks, and the locals were out in force jogging along them. Much of the coast was rocky but from time to time we came across a lovely sandy cove. On the higher land were all sorts of sculptures, including a mini Stonehenge and a real (old) lighthouse.

Around 1.00 pm the sun was quite strong and people started to come down for a swim. We stopped on a sandy beach which was steeply shelving so there was some great surf. We sunbathed and paddled and had great fun.


Spanish Pedro acted as our tour guide and showed us a really lifelike sculpture of some surfers. We could almost feel those muscles flexing.


We had a late lunch then a long walk to the railway station, but at least we knew where we were going this time.

On the way we were able to get a big bottle of Fa cologne which pleased our female minder no end and lots of pimenton (for Rick Stein recipes) which pleased our male minder.

We caught the 15:45 train back to Santiago and checked back into our friendly Pension Alfonso. It felt like coming home and we were given the room above our last one, with possibly an even better view of the cathedral.

We knew there was a mass at 6.00 pm so we went back to the cathedral to find standing room only at the sides, but the botafumeiro back in place over the altar.

We sat patiently at the bottom of a pillar waiting to see if there would be any signs of imminent use. During a long sermon in Gallician we concluded that nothing was going to happen and snook out. The next things that happened must surely have involved some divine intervention.

We went first to the Pilgrims' Office and then to Tourist Info to see if we could get information on when the botafumeiro would be swung. We gave up as either there was a long queue or there was no-one there.

We started to walk further away from the cathedral and met our Austrian/Norwegian friend coming the other way. We knew he had seen the botafumeiro twice on Thursday so asked him when in the service it was used. Our male minder had thought it would be early, before the Gospel, but our friend said, no, it was at the end.

We looked at our watches and thought, we could be missing it right now. We hastily retraced our steps and re-entered the cathedral towards the end of the distribution of the mass (the cathedral remains open to visitors during the services). As chance would have it, we ended up following 3 men in maroon robes, who from the look of them had to be botafumeiro operators. They were heading towards the ropes so we followed them. More strong looking men in maroon robes appeared on the other side.

The priest then said something about the botafumeiro and it was slowly lowered. A dish of burning coals was put into the bottom and then a visiting priest from America (whose group probably paid for it to be swung) blessed the incense and put it on the hot coals.


The botafumeiro was then raised and one man gave it it's initial swing. Once it was going 8 men then started pulling on their spiders web of ropes and it got faster and faster and the arc greater. We had seem it on film before, but the reality far exceeded all expectations. We could only describe the swing of that censer as absolutely crazy. We really thought it might go through the roof and we could quite understand how it has gone flying out the doors in past history. It almost gave us vertigo watching it and the power of it's swing was quite frightening, given how packed the cathedral was. It was also quite surreal seeing all the priests standing there with it passing in front of them.

When the 8 rope operators stopped pulling, the arc of the swing started to decrease but it took a while to slow down to an almost stop. One of the men went to grab the chain and, although it looked as if had almost stopped, it still swung him completely round. It was then raised again and the main rope secured. This most amazing and awesome spectacle was then over. We could understand why it had to be done at the end of the service. It was so spectacular that no-one would be able to concentrate on the mass after seeing it.

We felt so lucky to have seen it in action, especially when we heard that it had not been used at the midday mass today. What a good thing that we bumped into our Austrian friend. It is just a shame that it seems to be the case that you see it if a group has paid for it. This is a form of bribery of which we do not approve.

After this excitement we went for a beer and then a lovely meal. We then went back to the cathedral square to hear more tuna music. The square was half full of Porsche cars, which amounts to an awful lot of cars. There was clearly some special event going on and no doubt the owners were all staying at the Parador the other side of the square.

While listening to the amazing tuna music we were joined by our American friend Christina, last seen in Sarria waiting to be joined by her husband. It was lovely to see her again and to meet Jim.

What an exciting day we've had.

Love from the Compostella bears xxx