Arca to Santiago
19km/12miles
I realized I haven't shown you what the albergues we stay in look like so I took a few pictures before we left our last one. It's a pretty typical one.
Bunk beds, bunk beds, bunk beds.
A rack to leave your shoes outside the sleeping area because they're dirty (and also they smell).
An example of a couple of the arrows we followed today.
A sign about 5km from Santiago! Getting close!
Enjoying the Fall colors.
The last pilgrim statue. It is actually inside the city of Santiago and I call him the soldier pilgrim.
Today it rained and rained and rained. Even with our ponchos on we were wet. It was a strange feeling as we got close to Santiago. Sara said she felt kind of nervous and that's how I felt, too. What's the end going to be like? After 500 miles walking toward this goal how is it going to be? The last hour of walking was in the city and the three of us we quiet, each thinking about the end of this journey.
Here's the first view of the Cathedral we had. It had been raining all day and the sun peeked out just as we saw the cathedral.
Even with the scaffolding it was stunning. We saw a couple friends in the plaza and we just stood there, looking at the cathedral, and not knowing what to do now that we're here.
After looking at the cathedral we went to the pilgrim office to get our "compestela" which is our certificate that we finished the Camino de Santiago.
Only 126 people had finished today. Tara walked the camino last June and 971 people finished the same day as her! I can't even imagine.
It's written in Latin so they write the Latin translation of your name also. Here's the English translation.
Here I am eating my chocolate and churros!
And then we shared a very VERY good piece of chocolate cake.
We met all our friends in front of the Cathedral to celebrate with tapas and drinks.
Here's our friend Christina we walked with the last few days and her fiancé, Andres.
Crazy California sisters, Tara and Stephan.
We had about 40 people gathered. It was tons of fun. After we are we went to a bar that had a dance floor. We pretty much took the place over. The DJ started playing oldies and everyone was on the dance floor. I won't soon forget seeing our friends from Spain, the U.S., Canada, England, Ireland, Argentina, Switzerland, Poland, Australia, and Germany all dancing together, celebrating our arrival in Santiago, enjoying each other's company, and living life.
Gema was our organizer for the evening. She's a sweet woman who is great at taking care of people.
The three of us with Amparo, another sweet Spanish lady! She said she's making plans to come to the States for a Camino reunion :)
Tomorrow we sleep in! Then we eat a big breakfast before the Pilgrim Mass at noon. I'm really looking forward to the Pilgrim Mass. For me it will really be the finish of the pilgrimage.
I'm still learning a lot!
I'm thankful for so much, for the opportunity to come on this pilgrimage, for the ability and God's grace to finish, and for all the amazing people in my life.
WE DID IT!!!