Camino diaries: it takes two to Tango

Four days have passed since my joyous arrival in Santiago, yet a gentle melancholy still lingers in me. As on any given day, hundreds of pilgrims and tourists gather before the majestic cathedral. Local guides shepherd their flocks through the square, and a rainforest of umbrellas drifts in a chaotic ballet across the Plaza de Obradoiro. One in particular catches my eye: “Life is a dancefloor”, it claims.

Dancing, now there’s a thought. Who would have guessed that on some idle Monday I’d find myself attempting a tango? Long ago, I once signed up for a ballroom dance class. I could muddle through the basic steps of a waltz or quickstep. But the tango – all fire, tension and seduction – was another story entirely.

It was Marita, a peregrina I had met in Silleda, who convinced me to give it a try. We’d agreed to meet on the cathedral steps that day.

After attending the pilgrim’s mass, we lunched together at the Hospedería San Martin de Piñeiro. Over the meal, her words spilled out in a torrent, all about her greatest passion. Before I realised it, I had stepped aboard the tango train with her.

Later,on the Plaza Quintana, she drew me into the spell of this dance, a duet as intricate as it was intoxicating. We practiced, stumbling and laughing, until the moment came for our grand finale. The sultry guitar notes of “El Jazzmen” wrapped around us, and suddendly we were no longer two pilgrims in dusty boots but dancers, gliding as though the Plaza belonged only to us.

For those few minutes, I was somewhere else entirely – not on earth, but in the rhythm of the music, suspended between each heartbeat.