One month ago, we began this journey in St. Jean Pied de Port.  31 days, 433 miles, and countless friendships later, we are in Portomarin.

The day broke foggy again, but beautiful.  You could feel the excitement of the many new Peregrinos who were joining the Camino at the latest point possible to still be an “official” Peregrino.

As veterans, it fell on us to provide the official “look” and “swagger” of road proven Peregrinos. And hey, we know how to follow the Camino, right?

About a mile into the walk, we crossed a railroad track that I figure will make a good picture. Here it is:

After I snapped the photo, Diane went off to the right because there was a place she could sit to adjust her shoes. I hurried to join her. We continued up that dirt path until it joined a major road, which we followed for another quarter mile before really wondering , “where are the trail signs”, and “where are all the Peregrinos? “. We turned around to retrace our steps and found several neophyte Peregrinos following us!  Oops! Bill alerted the group that this didn’t look right, and after 1/2 mile backtrack (right back to the railroad tracks), he found the left turn IMMEDIATELY following the picture, above.  We had missed it and led several newbie Peregrinos astray. Oh well. They had to learn the hard way that,  “everyone must walk their own Camino”. In other words, don’t trust that guy ahead who seems to know what he’s doing!

Aside from adding another mile to an already 15 mile walk, things went very well. We met several of our old Peregrino friends, like:

Axel: The kind, meticulous planning German from Berlin,

Belgian guy: we’ve seen him for 250 miles, talked to him scores of times and still don’t know his name.

Matje: Great guy from Serbia who once chased us down for a kilometer because he thought we dropped a 10€ note. He was right, we did, but his honesty and kindness won us as friends for a long, long time.  He is also an avid cycling fan (and racer), so we’ve had much professional cycling conversations!

Don and his New Orleans family. Great people.

Don and Marlis, whom we hadn’t seen since our very first day of the Camino.

Galan, who is doing the Camino on crutches.

And literally scores of others. It was truly a hike of conversations, from beginning to end!

Oh, and did I mention this guy who greeted us as we arrived at Portomarin?

Just another day on the Camino. Now for chores …

I’ve debated long about whether to do this post, but decided is valuable to anyone considering the Camino.

So, what happens when you’ve really got to go?

There are many options, including:

1. Being blessed with a great bladder.  Not an option for most.

2. A convenient public restroom. It can happen, usually at restaurants. Typically the lines are very long, and/or it’s a long way until you get to that oasis of a restaurant (remember, you’re walking).

3. A convenient detour off the trail. It’s amazing how few of these exist, that provide good shelter and don’t require you walking another several hundred yards for that privacy.

4. The most common solution? a 1 minute lead on the next hiker and a nice bush, tree, etc.!

And that’s about all the options available!

Now in Sarria, another several hundred additional Peregrinos joined the quest, making that “1 minute” requirement challenging. Thus, a really foggy day helped!

And these are the challenges we Peregrinos face on a daily basis. Yet … we continue.

Today was another 15 miles of rolly polly walking. We are now within 41 kilometers (26 miles) of Santiago. Wow!

Last night, in Palas de Rei, we went to a small nondescript pizza joint for some grub. The owner had a small kitchen right behind the bar and was quite proud of his cooking. And deservedly! Bill ordered and ate one of the best calzones he’s ever had. Diane ordered a 4 cheese and vegetable pizza and greatly enjoyed it. While waiting for the pizza, he treated us to a local delicacy, roasted, home grown peppers, oiled and salted. Man, we’re they good! After dinner he gave each of us his own home made aperitif. It smelled great but was a bit awkward as we don’t drink.

Breakfast we went to another small nondescript bakery, and the pattern was repeated! We were about to simply plant roots in Palas de Rei and eat until we run out of money!

So, I’ve been saving today’s lunch story until now. We passed through a town called Melide which is famous for its octopus. We HAD to have some. Here’s proof that Diane had some:

And, here are the buggers before cooking:

And, here are our Peregrino buddies chowing down:

You guessed it, now for chores.

We walked just short of 15 miles today without snapping a single photo. It’s amazing how you can be both so tired of walking and dreading the finish line, all at the same time. All of our comrades had that same happy/sad appearance.  We passed the 19 km to go sign, then turned into our hotel. 19 km is about 11.5 miles, nearly nothing after 34 days of 15 mile average walking.

We currently have 2 debates going on now. The first: should we get on the road by 6:00 am tomorrow so that we finish by 10:30 and can make the world famous mass at noon, or have a standard start and forsake the mass tomorrow, instead going for the Sunday noon mass?

The second debate is: should we continue on to Finisterre (90 km more) or Muxia (120 km)? Those 2 locations truly are the “end of the Camino”. Many Peregrinos simply take a bus there. We have decided to decide on Sunday, not today.

So that the blog won’t be entirely photo-less, I captured what a “credential” looks like after 34 days of stamping:

Until tomorrow and the finish line.  Now, for chores …

From our hotel outside of Pedrouzo to the entrance of the cathedral of Santiago was 13 miles. Our total, from St. Jean Pied de Port to this cathedral works out to 492 miles. That is roughly the distance from Danville, Calif. to San Diego, Calif.

Tomorrow, we plan on attending the pilgrim’s mass at noon. There are no plans beyond that. There are no miles to walk tomorrow. There is no pack to pack first thing in the morning. Just sleep, eat, mass, eat, talk, eat, sleep. We might get used to that!

Today broke foggy, making it 6 for 6 foggy mornings in Galicia. That’s okay, it makes it somewhat mystical.

We had been warned that many, many additional tourists would join the walk on the last day. Expect crowds. We’d seen the numbers of Peregrinos increase significantly in Leon, then in Astorga, then very significantly in Sarria, so we were braced for crowds. Our journey unfolded differently. For nearly an hour we walked through a beautiful forest with birds chirping, streams flowing, and not a sight or sound of another human besides ourselves. We mostly stayed silent ourselves and listened to God’s symphony. We were blessed.

One we started encountering people, we saw literally scores of friends we’d made over the last 5 weeks.  We can literally say we’ve walked a mile or more with each of them!

Eventually, we reached the city limits of Santiago.

Now, the city of Santiago was never the goal, the cathedral of Santiago was the goal. So, we had more walking to do.

We finally made it just before the sky let loose with a significant downpour.

(Note that, because they are refurbishing the cathedral exterior, there are “facades” over much of the actual building).

The final step in completing this pilgrimage is obtaining a compostela from the Peregrino office. Once again, we saw many of our buddies in line there. After about 20 or so minutes, we also had our compostela.

We have completed this journey.

Tomorrow we rest, we reflect, then we decide if we go on to Finisterre. For now, we are very tired and very content.

Now, on to possibly the last afternoon of chores …

It seems like a month ago that we arrived in Santiago, but it was yesterday. We made the hike, got our compostela, found the hotel and ate way too much food. Oh, then slept without an alarm! We had done everything required of a Peregrino, but the mass.

After traveling hundreds of miles, the ancient Peregrino would attend the mass and receive their blessing. Over a thousand years later, Peregrinos continue to do the same thing.

We attended the pilgrim’s mass at noon where the priest, reading off of the records of arrivals from yesterday, announced pilgrims from literally dozens of countries.

One feature of a pilgrims mass in Santiago which is not regularly done is the Botafumeiro, or the swinging of an incense ladened pot through the cathedral while singing is taking place. We were very fortunate to be at a service that had the botafumeiro. If youwatch the movie, “The Way”, they have a really good scene of the botafumeiro. Absent that, here’s my attempt to capture it:

So, it ends. We have carried our burden, left it at the foot of the cross, and received our blessing.  For each of you as you journey, we wish, “Buen Camino”.

We have decided not to continue on to Finisterre. The weather is forecast cold and rainy. As it is not part of the Camino, but rather a choice, we will choose not to do it … this time.

We head to Barcelona tomorrow to become just two more tourists in Spain.

Well, we took our unearned couple of days of rest from the blog, but now back to business. WireWalker rides again!

On Tuesday, we took the train from Santiago to Barcelona. What was fun about that is that for 400 miles, it more or less paralleled the Camino! On several occasions, we saw the poor Peregrinos slogging along and we struggled between wishing them, “Buen Camino” and simply suggesting that they also consider taking the train … much faster and more comfortable!

At one point, the train went right by one of the B&B’s we stayed at. However, with the train traveling at over 100 mph, we doubt that Mercedes (the owner of the place) heard or greetings!

Actually, the train hit speeds of 150 mph. You’d think that we’d cover the roughly 600 mile trip in about 4 hours, but no. 40 stops and many, many small towns insured that we kept the average speed way down. The ride lasted 13 hours.

We arrived in Barcelona at 9:30 pm and were to call our landlord so that someone could meet us at the flat we were to rent. The first challenge was that our phone doesn’t with in Spain. No problem. We can use a pay phone. We quickly located a bank of them and were about to insert coins when a janitor told us, “no funciona” (doesn’t work! ). Okay, I asked him where we could find a functioning pay phone. His look said it all, “no where around here! ” He was, however, kind enough to let us use his phone to call the landlord.

Next, the taxi. We found a seasoned taxi driver and gave him the address. He had no clue! On referencing his equivalent of Thomas Brother’s Maps, we were off. In 20 minutes, he stopped his car in the middle of the street and said the Spanish equivalent of, “you can’t get there from here! ” He pointed to an alley and said, make a right, then left, then … and you’ll be there.  Uh-huh.

He was actually a nice guy and it was only 10:00 at night in a strange city, so why not trust him?

At the point where we were thinking we were hopelessly lost, we hear a “Diane?  Bill?” It was our landlord. The taxi driver really did give us good directions.

Our flat is on the 5th floor (no elevator), so bringing the bags up was a chore but, hey, we just walked 500 miles. We can walk a few flights of stairs.

Wednesday was all about getting our sense of direction. We are staying in the “El Born” area of Barcelona. Tallish buildings, narrow alleys, and non perpendicular streets make direction finding a bit daunting.

We were able to find a large park and did our first run in 6 weeks. The combination of not running for so long and the abuse of walking so much made this an interesting event. We figured it was much like a pirate with two peg legs trying to run. No spring, just: thud, thud.

Today we’ve started branching out. To the beach, Las Ramblas, markets, etc.

And so that this blog won’t be entirely photo-less, here is Barcelona’s Arc de Triomphe:

Also, here’s the Chris Columbus monument celebrating his return from the first voyage to the new world:

Finally, as a follow up to the video of the Botafumeiro, I know the video was really hard to download, so here’s a still shot. If you want to see the full video, you’ll have to come visit us when we get home!

And, the farewell is no longer, “now for chores”. Instead, we’ll go with, Hasta la Vista.