<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=3 FAMILY="SERIF" FACE="Times New Roman TUR" LANG="0">I completed my pilgrimage last Saturday and have remained in Santiago enjoying the still ongoing St. James' day festivities.<BR>
Two other bicycle pilgrims from Scotland and I, led by the priceless information contained in Linda Davidson's indispensable book "The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago", made it a point to visit the Santa Maria del Manzano church in Castrogeriz. Indeed, as Linda writes, a rock outside one of he doors shows hoofprints believed to have been made by Santiago's horse as it, and its rider, landed from a prodigious jump to point out the place where the image of the Virgin was hidden. The Virgen del Manzano is believed to be impressively miraculous and "romerias" to the church are made frequently.<BR>
In Santiago, we attended the ceremonies to celebrate the installation of the new equestrian statue, "Santiago a Caballo" which, Juno-like, has two fronts facing opposite directions.<BR>
We asked a few people what the name of Santiago's horse was and although some seemed to remember that it was Estrella ("star"), which would make it a female horse, no one knew for sure.<BR>
We did learn that there is a riding club in Spain called Santiago's Horse, and we were regaled with stories of the gallantry and heroism of El Cid's horse, Babieca, and how the horse survived the death of its rider by two years "in profound sadness" and did so only, at El Cid's behest, to offer comfort and solace to Dona Ximena. We were also told that several towns and hills were named after the horse who died on its thirtieth birthday.<BR>
As usual, there are people from all over the globe in Santiago, but many more so now because of the celebrations, which have an international flavor. Van Morrison's free concert was canceled because of rain, but one by an Algerian star was a tremendous success. Representing the United States (?) was a group called "Los Tigres del Norte"; in their Black Bart costumes they sang in Spanish and had a huge positive response with attendees dancing in the street and asking for reprise after reprise. Today a group called "Van Gogh's Ear" is featured. But there are also a great many cultural and art exhibitions, several classical music concerts and wondering troubadours singing medieval Camino songs all over. The festivities will end on Thursday evening with a last burst of fireworks. <BR>
I'll be going home next Saturday.... exhausted, and very happy.<BR>
Liz</FONT></HTML>