Day 32 – Pedrouzo to Santiago de Compostela

 

I have finished! I have walked around 500 miles or 800 kilometres. 

I didn’t plan to arrive in Santiago today, but quite late last night, my plans with my American friends had changed. I left it to my walk this morning to decide what I wanted to do. As there is rain forecast for early next week, I am now planning to continue walking tomorrow to Finisterre, and then onto Muxia. I thought it made sense to bring it forward to tomorrow morning to make the best of the good weather.

The downside of this change in plans are that I won’t be meeting up with the 3 amigos. So, earlier this evening, I had a WhatsApp call with Chris, Chris and Bob. It was lovely to chat with them again, to thank them for their friendship and Chris for the walking poles.

For the walk this morning, I thought it better to let all of the peregrinos go on ahead of me and so enjoy the quieter walk. But it didn’t quite work out like that. When I left at 8:30 (last one out of the albergue), the path was still packed with the pilgrims. So, I just focused on my walking, trying to ignore the clicking of the poles. Initially I would say a cheery  ‘Hola’ or ‘Buenos días’ but, as time went on, I would just pass them in silence. I think everyone was tired today.

I came upon a group of walkers that I had seen over the last couple of days. Previously, I had noticed that one of the women had been struggling with a painful thigh. She had been doing some stretching exercises to try and help it. This morning as I passed the group, this lady collapsed in in pain. The group all went to try and help her. I didn’t want to gawp, so carried on. When I looked back, one of the guys was carrying her in his arms! 15 minutes later, a local police car came down the track and I assume that it was to pick her up. Such a shame as she was so near to Santiago.

The track made it’s way up past the end of Santiago airport. There was a roaring as a Ryanair jet took to the skies.  I was thinking that it would only be another ten days and I would probably be on that flight.

As the path dropped down into Santiago, the thought really jumped out at me for the first time that I had made it! It was a public holiday in Spain today and the further in I walked, the busier it became. Crowds of perople everywhere out enjoying the lovely warm and sunny weather.

Santiago Cathedral

I dropped my rucksack off at the albergue. I had booked it on the phone, whilst walking on the Camino. As soon as I had put my bag away, I set off for the Cathedral and the Camino office. As expected, the Camino office was packed with peregrinos. I got in the queue in one office and got a numbered ticket for the Compostela office. My ticket was number 900 and there were many more after me.

I checked the screens and they were working on number 465. It was to nearly 4 hours until they got to 900. During the afternoon I went out many times to have a look around the city, popping back now and again to see where they had got to.

When I went into the Compestla office, I thought they might make a fuss at me not having enough stamps in my log book for the last 100km. The rules are that we are meant to have two stamps a day, but I had only one on some of the recent days. In the event, he could see that I had lots of stamps stretching back over five weeks and just stamped it to approve my Compostela.

I made my way wearily back across the city to my albergue and a reviving shower.

I have finished!

But tomorrow there is Finisterre (90km). Should be like a walk in the park.