Camino de Santiago - Day 31

Day 31: Arca do Pino - Santiago de Compostela
Distance: 19.2 km(11.9 miles)
Approximate Walking Time: 4-5 hours
Altitude: Start at 357 m(1,171 ft.) and descend down to 288 m(945 ft.).

     Trying to sleep the night before the last day's walk was impossible. I think I woke up at least 7 times throughout the night and each time, I was more intent than the last that it was time to get up. Around 5:00 a.m., I quit fighting the excitement and rolled out of bed. Izzy was already awake. Our Danish and Korean friends were already starting to stir so I knew that they were excited as well. We all washed up and dressed quickly and were out the door by 5:30 a.m. We cut through town instead of backtracking and picked up the trail near a public pool. The part where we entered the woods was a bit confusing because there seemed to be several forks in the path. We had to look carefully to find the yellow arrow but it was there. For the next two and a half hours, we wandered through the woods with the occasional bit along paved road on our way to Santiago. Nothing took away from our excitement.

     The trail entered Santiago from the northeast and looped around the airport. As we passed by, a plane taxied out and took off. It definitely woke us up. Around the airport, we saw that there was a thick fog everywhere but we hoped it would burn off as the sun came up. As you can see from the pictures, it didn't at all. It was hard to take pictures because the camera couldn't find a focal point.

     Previous pilgrims left words of encouragement on the stop sign. Funny it wasn't in Spanish. About 5 km outside of Santiago was the small town of Monte do Gozo. It had the biggest albergue of the entire Camino at 400 beds. Many people hiked there the previous day and woke up to take a leisurely stroll into Santiago. The houses in the town were made of stone and were beautiful.

     There was a huge monument just outside of the albergue. We tried to find a way in to get a stamp but it sat out in the middle of a fenced off field and we couldn't find a way in. Many albergues closed daily for cleaning at 8:30 or 9:00 a.m. after the pilgrims left.

     After a couple of long roads, we started to get closer and we could make out the city in the distance. The number of people walking seemed to increase exponentially the closer we got.

     We crossed over the highway and followed the signs through town.

     As we passed more and more buildings and we found ourselves in the city proper, the excitement was palpable. We were a mere few minutes from finishing our 800 km hike.

     Around 10:20 a.m., we reached the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. 31 days after we started hiking in Saint Jean Pied de Port, France. We took some pictures then walked around the corner to Pilgrim Office to get our compostela. The line wasn't very long. After a 10 minute wait, we were able to get our final stamp and our names in Latin on a certificate that verifies we walked the Camino de Santiago. While we were there, we saw our Italian Egyptologist friend.

     After collecting our certificates, we parted ways with everyone so we could go to the bus station and buy tickets and they could get a room and drop off their bags at an albergue. The two Danish guys planned to go on to Finisterre to see the ocean. We visited Finisterre in July and took a picture of the hiker boot plaque at the lighthouse there. We bought overpriced bus tickets for 45 - 50 euros a piece to get back to Madrid on an overnight bus. There were tickets for an express bus that left at 2:30 p.m. and cost 80 euros a piece. We rushed back to the Cathedral for the pilgrims mass given each day at 12:00 p.m. We arrived a bit late because we were looking for a friend and had to stand. The priests read out the names of the countries and starting point of the previous day's arrivals. After a multi language service in German, French, Spanish, English, and Italian, we witnessed one of the most amazing things. The best part of it was the total surprise. The Cathedral was packed with people and the priests prepared the Botafumeiro, which is one of the largest incense burners in the world. It's a ceremony only performed on special days or when the amount of pilgrims is high. They loaded it and set it to swinging. You can see the ceremony at the bottom of the page. The history behind it is that it was designed to spread large amounts of incense and cover up the rank smell of nasty pilgrims. It's had several accidents over the years with no deaths reported. Once, the ropes broke and it flew out of the top window. Can you imagine what someone in the 16th century would have thought of something like that landing at their feet and not killing them?

     We were able to have lunch with the Danes and our Korean friend. We caught up with Shawn and his mother, an Italian guy we met three weeks earlier in La Rioja, a Swiss couple we met the first day, our friend José we met the first day, and our Canadian friend Rick we met the third day. It was great to see everyone and we all felt overjoyed to be there. We all had a drink at a nice cafe at the Hotel Costa Vella. 

     With great sadness, we left Santiago and caught our bus back to Madrid. We arrived early the next morning and went home. The scales showed us we'd lost quite a bit of weight and we felt great. We hope to return and hike the Camino del Norte soon.

                            

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