Santiago at Last

This morning was a slightly surreal one, realizing as we packed our bags to prepare for our walk that this was the last time we would do so on this Camino. We left our albergue, similarly for the last time, and began our approach to Santiago.

This was a short day, and that combined with the fact that we were getting to Santiago today meant that I simply wanted to be there already. I found on this trip that how long a day feels often has very little to do with how many kilometers or hours I'm walking, and much more to do with my expectations. If I'm expecting a long day, then I can handle a long day. But if I'm expecting a short day, then I spend all day counting down the kilometers. (And despite being shorter than miles, they still don't go that fast on foot.)

After circumnavigating the Santiago airport, walking through a half-cleared forest, and trudging through a surprising amount of mud, we made our final lunch stop of the Camino. It was... Okay. They had almost no food, and I was starving, but the drinks were good and thankfully I was able to buy a bag of nuts to tide me over. We also had a local feral cat bug us the entire time for some of my friends' salami, which was both cute and annoying in equal measures.

After that it was a pretty straight shot into Santiago, and we just had to put one foot in front of the other until, at last, we made it.

It was a little surreal finally arriving at the cathedral. We'd been walking for so long, it almost felt strange to remember there was a destination, and that we were now there. We celebrated for a bit, took some photos together, and then headed off to the pilgrim office to get our certificates. Once we were certified pilgrims, we headed into the church to visit the tomb of Saint James, the official end point of the Camino. (I think traditionally we should have done these the other way around, but oh well.) Turns out they also let you hug the statue of Saint James, which was unexpected, but kinda cool.

Once we had finished checking off all of our pilgrim arrival items, we sat down at a cafe and relaxed and talked for a while. Then we went our separate ways, as the one friend was whisked off by her parents, and the rest of us had to check in to our accomodations for the night. Not albergues anymore!

(You can hug Saint James, but no kissing.)

Later that evening, some of us went to mass, hoping to see them swing the Botafumeiro, a massive incense burner that is one of the symbols of the Santiago cathedral. We were lucky, and they swung it at the evening mass, meaning that we didn't have to come back the next day to see it on All Saints Day. (It was Halloween when we arrived, though there were next to no celebrations for it in Santiago.)

After mass we met up with the rest of our friends in town and went out to dinner, our first meal as not-pilgrims. Hunger forced our hand, and we ended up trying an empty restaurant rather than hunting for somewhere particularly well rated, and it ended up being fine. By the time we finished eating and talking it was almost 11:00, a time I'm not sure I'd seen the entire time I was on the Camino. We went our separate ways back to our accomodations, and ended our last day on the Camino.

Despite the Camino officially ending here, I'm still in Spain for another few days, and I'll probably blog those as well, though maybe not as thoroughly. I'll also have some retrospective thoughts on the Camino, both about the experience and about my preparations, though I don't know if I'll post those before or after I get back to the US. A big thank you to everyone who has followed this blog during my travels! It's meant a lot knowing people are reading this and interested in what I'm up to, so thank you very much. This has been an amazing experience, and I definitely want to give it a proper wrap-up and send-off beyond a normal blog post, but I'm gonna have to think a bit before I know exactly what I want to say.