Day 37 O Pedrouzo to Santiago de Compostela

”And now the end is near…”

I woke up on this last day of my Camino feeling excited at the prospect of reaching Santiago and yet sad, that this incredible journey is coming to an end.  My feet will be so incredibly happy at not having to be stuffed into hiking boots for hours on end, and my heart will be breaking at having to say adieu to some of the most amazing people I have ever met.

I got up, and packed my backpack for the last time, grabbed my poles and headed out of the Pension Residencia Platas Pedrouzo.  I had breakfast at the restaurant next door and ran into Farrah.  The restaurant was full of pilgrims loading up before the final push into Santiago.  There were a few locals there as well.  People from all walks of life, breaking bread, some off to an ordinary day’s work, others about to complete a life long dream.

Farrah and I watched one character in a leather jacket, sitting at the bar, looking like a 60 yr old Elvis, complete with a pompadour dyed black and wearing jeans, sucking back a bottle of beer… at 8:00am!  Wow, we thought, these locals party hard, drinking before heading off to work!  He drained his bottle, paid for his beer, bent down on the other side of his stool, picked up his backpack and headed out the door!  He was a pilgrim!  Talk about judging a book by its cover!  My apologies to all local Spaniards I’ve encountered.  But to be honest, I have seen a few Spaniards having beverages stronger than café con leche at 10 in the morning.

I left Farrah, wished her a Buen Camino, and headed back up the road to the meeting point where I would wait for Peter, Charlotte, Annie and Kathryn.

They showed up a few minutes later around 8:30am and we, the ”Fabulous Five” set off down the road to Santiago.  The sun had risen on a beautiful sunny day.  We walked out of O Pedrouzo and through the countryside for a while and eventually into a beautiful forest that ran alongside the Santiago airport near Lavacolla.

We met a pilgrim that Peter had previously met in a few towns back.  He was a former submariner from England who kept us entertained with his hilarious stories and when we stopped for our morning coffee break, he plied Peter and Charlotte with a wee bit of Jamieson’s, at 10 o’clock in the morning!  What the locals must think of US!

So on we walked through the last of the beautiful and so fragrant eucalyptus groves and up to Alto Gozo(Mount Joy) and we set eyes for the first time on our ”Emerald City” below in the distance, Santiago!

At the top of Gozo is a beautiful monument that was erected to commemorate  Pope Jean-Paul II’s visit and pilgrimage to Santiago in 1989.

We descended Gozo and crossed the highway overpass into the outskirts of the city of Santiago, where we saw the city sign welcoming us.

 

We walked, for what seemed forever, until we finally reached the old city.  Down its narrow streets we went, rounded a corner, walked down a of couple flights of stairs, and there we were, at our final destination, the Cathedral of St James, la Catedral de Santiago de Compostela.

We made it!

We had walked over 800km, up mountains, down mountains, through forests, through urban jungles, on dirt paths, on rocks, on pavement, in mud, in sunshine, in rain, in wind, in cold, in heat, through aches and pains, blisters and wounds, swollen feet and blackened toe nails.

And we wept!  We hugged each other with tears of joy and sadness rolling down our cheeks.

We composed ourselves as we had one more order of business to attend to…the Compostele.  Our diploma!

Down the street from the Cathedral is the Pilgrim Office where upon presentation of our credentials, stamped by all the cellos along the way, proves that we met the requirements to be issued a Compostele.

It was around 3pm and we lined up in the queue with hundreds of other pilgrims ahead of us.  A lovely lady came over to chat with us, she was a volunteer of Irish Society of the Camino of St-James.  She told us that we would be waiting about 1.5 to 2 hours in line to receive our Compostele and that we may want to return early in the morning when the line up is not so long.  We really did not want to have to get up early the next morning, so we told her we would wait.  She left, and worked her way down the line chatting with other pilgrims.

She returned a few minutes later, and asked us if we were a group.  No, we were just friends that had met up along the way.  She asked if we all started at the same place.  We said we had all started back in St-Jean-Pied-de-Port back in the beginning of September.  She asked how many we were, we answered five.  She said we qualified as a group and to follow her to the group office.  The group office is quite small, so Kathryn, Annie and I stayed to fill out the forms with our names, where we started from and our country of origin.  Charlotte and Peter followed our ”Camino angel” up to the ”vip lounge” on the second floor where cookies and tea were served.  A mere 20 minutes later and we had our beautiful Composteles with our names in Latin.

Our lovely lady was in fact a nun.   We said a few prayers, she read a beautiful poem, and we had a lovely chat about our achievement, and what it meant to everyone.  I had a very difficult moment, so I stayed back a few moment to collect myself.  So many emotions!  So very thankful and so very blessed.

We left the Office and went back to the Cathedral where we met up with our other family members Tim and Agneska, and we ran into those crazy kilted Scotsman.

From left to right: Kathryn, Tim, Charlotte, Agneska, Annie and Peter

 

We soon met with Gentleman Jim from California and Theresa from Windsor Canada.  We made plans to meet for dinner, as Jim, our forward scouting party, had a lovely restaurant in mind.

So Charlotte, Peter and I went off to check into the Hotel Lux a couple of kilometers away.

We returned at 7:30pm and met at the fountain next to the Cathedral, and we walked passed the Cathedral and down a few narrow streets to the restaurant Jim recommended.

We ate, and laughed, and toasted to our health, to each other, to the Camino and to lifelong friendships.

A perfect ending to a perfect day!

Tomorrow we will attend the pilgrim mass and witness the magnificent Botafumeiro, the giant incense burner, swing high above all the grateful pilgrims.

Today’s tally 24km, 36,813 steps, in 5:28 walking time

S-A-N-T-I-A-G-O!