Day 6

Well, here it is. Our final day on this Camino. Ivar and Siobhan are still walking strong. Stephen is a machine. A bit slower perhaps, but unstoppable. I am decidedly the least prepared but have decided to walk the full 20 km distance today. The last 5 days have been training days, at least I hope they have been.

Ivar is a natural and could easily walk any of the Caminos and quiet Siobhan is the ringer in our group. You know, the silent type who just puts herself in a gear quietly….and you eat her dust.

Ivar and Siobhan walk in a similar style and sped….and Stephen and I are similar. OK, Stephen is faster.

Sheron’s plans aren’t known at this point. Here’s hoping she manages to meet us for the group lunch.

Two pairs of socks so I can change them over is my secret weapon. We’re out of the Pension at 7am

Let’s see how this goes.

I’ve managed to pack my carry-on bag this morning with some frightening ease. Maybe it’s because I managed to organize everything in the bag rather than throwing it from across the room like yesterday. Maybe I’m forgetting something under the bed.

I’ll figure this out later.

I’ve made it as far as the common area and have dropped of my keys making a horrendous racket as they drop into the metal box

Now I’m off to meet I, S, & S for breakfast.

We finished breakfast and walked down the road a bit off the designated Camino path. According to Ivar we could avoid walking back up into town and just joint up less than a kilometer away. And sure enough we could.

And this started the longest walking day for me on this trip. The distance is officially 20km, but once again don’t think this is similar to waking around town. We were walking in everything from paths, farming roads and towards the end sidewalks.

Here’s the deal. If crushed limestone paths are the next to walk on, you would put dirt paths and pavé (like interlocking) below that in terms of desirability. I put road walking way below that and similar to sidewalks. The difference is sidewalks constantly cross other streets so you have to negotiate curbs. Anyway, we were faced with a variety of these and my feet were going to take a beating either way.

Oh, I forgot, we also have significant hills to climb up and down. For my money climbing down is dramatically more challenging. Thigh burn is a real thing. Going uphill it’s always possible to just stop for a bit. Going downhill stopping doesn’t seem to provide any sort of recovery.

Our path into Santiago takes us around the Santiago International Airport, then down and back up past the TV Station, then down and up again before a massive descent into the city of Santiago. When I say massive it seems like several kilometers of dramatic downhills.

Our goal today is to get to Santiago, walk into the Plaza Obradorio in front of the Cathedral, and then head over to our hotel to check in, have a quick shower, then run over to a restaurant for 3 to have a celebration lunch. Oh yeah, on the way to the hotel we dropped off at Casa Ivar to drop off the walking poles I borrowed from his shop on Day 0 and hit the bathroom.

Finally we each checked in to a beautiful room and after cleaning up, ran downstairs to eat. We were all staving. The most we had eaten that day was a couple of pieces of toast and possibly a banana. I say possibly because I didn’t buy one at the breakfast place.

We ended up with a multi-layered celebration. First was our completion of the Camino, then Sheron from Australia (one of our fellows on this walk) was celebrating her birthday. Sheron’s walking was limited so she had been shadowing us the whole time.

All in all a fabulous experience.

Here’s another chance encounter. While walking you will often meet people and start talking. The fellow pilgrims can be from anywhere, of any age group, and persuasion. Two people were were bumping into on and off were Ann and Erin from Tennessee.

After lunch I needed to do a tiny bit of shopping and bumped into Ann and Erin. It was just so nice to be able to congratulate each other and wish them well on whatever was next on their list.

This is just another gift from the Camino.

Now I’m going to tend to my exhausted feet. Today was more than 20km and more than 35,000 steps.

Or as people walking might say…just another day, much like the last month or so…..