8.5 miles, 19,383 steps, 5 cats 

Done! 

Left my little casa rural (country house) at 8am, which is before sunrise. I wanted to make sure to get to Santiago in time for the pilgrim’s mass at 12:00. Before I left, I tried to make coffee with a moka pot which would have been fine if I could get the electric stove to work. I just couldn’t figure out the controls…the burner would go on and then shut right off. I realized later that I think I was supposed to set some sort of timer for it, probably a fail safe to make sure it could never be left on indefinitely. Ugh. So no coffee and the breakfast they left for me in the fridge was not doing it today—some slices of cheese and ham and a hard boiled egg. There was bread, but no butter or jam. So I skipped breakfast. Which was a bummer because it was a long way till a cafe 😞

There were just a few people walking from my starting area today. But more joined as we went. You could tell everyone was high-energy for the last day. The final hour is through the city of Santiago, so not super pretty, but locals on the street were nice and there were lots of “Buen Camino!” 

Got to the cathedral and that was amazing. It’s surrounded by windy old streets packed with tourists, other pilgrims, restaurants, inns, souvenir shops. A guy was playing bagpipes in the corner of the square and pilgrims were everywhere taking pics and just lying down to rest on the stones. I paid 3 euro to store my backpack so I could enter the cathedral and was walking to find the end of the lonnnnnnng line for mass, when someone tapped me on my shoulder—my buddy Eric! He was in line so he invited me to join him to get in faster. The cathedral holds 1000 people but unfortunately we were too late to get a seat. Had to stand for the hour-long mass and my feet were not happy about that. 

I had heard today’s mass had some importance because there were 7 priests from other countries co-celebrating the mass. That meant they included the botafumeiro at the end. The botafumeiro is a giant incense burner that is suspended from the top of the cathedral ceiling and swings over the people, hoisted by 6 or 8 priests. It’s kind of crazy and it’s something that isn’t done regularly—there’s no official schedule. Camino pilgrims hope to get lucky—and I was lucky to see it! (I’ve shown Paul videos and he always laughs because it looks crazy, like not safe at all lol.)

After that I had a mini pizza and an aperol spritz at an Italian place—I would have eaten just about anything, I was starving. Went to my hotel, dropped my bags, and headed to Trasnos Tattoos for my little Camino remembrance! Just a little seashell symbol on my ankle—pics to come. 

Crazy to think that I just spent 2 weeks in sort of an altered state, pretty much removed from the rest of the world. That’s what I was going for. Just a disconnect, mind-cleanse…the time went so fast. I can’t believe I won’t be getting up in the dark, putting on my complicated Vaseline/sock/shoe routine, re-packing everything and heading out to walk walk walk walk. I’ll miss it for sure, but my knees and feet need a break. 

I’ll miss all the morning roosters…eucalyptus trees…cats!…seashell trail markers…so many different languages being spoken on the trail…cafe con leche…cheap house wine…

Tomorrow it’s off to Madrid and then Paul arrives on Tuesday and we have vacation time!! 

(I owe a few days worth of photos for the Photos page, so check that soon if you’re curious.)