Camino Day 13 Padrón to Santiago de Compostela

On the Final Day of walking, I had already decided that I was going to walk most of it alone. The night before, my travel companions  insisted we needed to leave as early as possible because they didn't want to arrive at 7:00PM in the evening. The last day was going to be 17 miles and as we already knew, it was going to be uphill. I certainly didn't want to arrive late either.  They had a few thoughts on the matter, they were sure they didn't want to be walking in the heat, they didn't want to rush and they really didn't want the whole experience to end. I had explained that getting up early wouldn't change how long it took, it would take the same amount of time and if they were trying to get there early, then they should consider walking just a bit faster. Not a ton faster, keep a steady pace and they'd be fine. Otherwise they would need to leave at 7:00AM if they wanted to get there in the middle of the afternoon and of course that would mean they would have to skip breakfast too. On average it was taking them about 28 minutes a mile, which would mean about an 8 hour day for them. Don't ask mine, but it was a lot less than 28 minutes a mile.

As it turns out, we didn't leave till like 8:45 in the morning, because they decided breakfast was a good idea. But it was lot later than they wanted to leave. As always, we hit the trail like we had somewhere to be, because we did.

It wasn't long before we met up with a few folks we knew from our very first day on the trail. A couple from Nashville, TN who had been together nearly 40 years. Mr & Mrs. Nash.   As was usual of one particular person in our small little group, they'd latch onto someone else that wasn't us.

In this case Mrs. Nash was the victim this time, and our friend ditched the rest of us.

Thankfully Mr. Nash was an awesome guy and wasn't much of a hurry to go anywhere. He was just going with the flow.  As we took up the rear, Mr. Nash, and my other travel companion and I did what we did early in the morning on these little trips. We chatted and what not. It was at this point Mr. Nash got a bit profound. I'm not sure he intended to be but he was. We was a rather well spoken man and well read too. He was talking about how The Camino basically emulated life, you have your good days and bad days, but you keep on going.  He spoke a little bit more, he had this way of keeping your attention. I had to dip out and use a green door bathroom, (I hopped off the trail to find a tree) so I don't know how the story ended.

Mr. Nash eventually regrouped with Mrs. Nash and our group of 3 travelers were back together again. At least for a bit. At the first chance I got I put on the speed and took off. My other 2 companions were going at a slower pace, and I wasn't having any of that. As a matter of fact, it was causing me to have to actively go slower than my regular pace and that was really making it difficult for me. Besides I just thought I need to be alone and think about "stuff".

You would think it would be weird to be alone with your thoughts for so long, but I do it quite often. So the only thing interesting that occurred to me was that Mr. Nash was right about The Camino emulating life. In my case it also included a bit more. As I said, I didn't get to hear how his story ended. SO, I had my own ending to Mr. Nash's story.  Maybe not an ending but a continuation.

On The Camino, like life, "You spend time with a few people, friends, acquaintances  and along the way they come and go, then you're you're left wondering where did they all go, I'm not so sure it matters, because  at the end of the road, you do take it alone. "I think that inspiration came from a Lady Gaga song that I heard while trekking along on my own. "The Edge of Glory". (YES I'm a Lady Gaga fan)

Having "said" all that, I'm still not sure what I "learned" on The Camino, I did make a few people laugh, some times laugh hard enough to almost pee themselves. I probably got laughed at too for carrying a rubber chicken sticking out of my backpack. I had quite a few people stop and ask me about it, and it was always a fun story to tell. So, I'd call that a win. Not everything in life or on the Camino has to have a meaning nor did I expect an epiphany. Although it would have been nice if the Powerball numbers came to me in sweat soaked vision. OMG I did sweat A LOT!

Seriously you try walking over a 179 miles uphill both ways, you'd think you'd have visions too. I do remember at one point, I caught myself swaying while I was walking. It happened several times. Each time it happened I'd go a little bit further to see if "just" lost my balance or something. As it turns out, I was way tired and dehydrated. I'd take a quick stop for water and catch my breath, but probably no longer than 2 or 3 mins. Then I'd be off again. It's a bit maniacal I suppose, or perhaps I'm just a glutton for punishment.

Before I forget though, somewhere along the way, I'm not sure when. BUT my right foot, the toes in fact started getting squishy. Just around my pinky toe. I had a guess what happened, but I didn't want to stop and look. I was pretty sure the blister finally popped and I had "pinky toe juice" making things squishy. So I did, what you do when you don't want to stop, you just ignore it and keep moving. I did that up until I realized I had a small pebble in my shoe, except this pebble was right underneath my right heel. And of course I ignored that for as long as I could, because I didn't want to stop, take off my shoe to remove the pebble and THEN while I'm there take time to look and see what was going on with my toes. Yeah I didn't want to do that. So I trekked on with a pebble in my shoe for a few miles until I just could not take it anymore. Not that it was super painful, it was more of an annoyance and I was too busy concentrating on the pebble and not the damn hills that were sucking all the life out of me. That and the fricking sun/heat. I stopped somewhere and took care of my shoe my shaking out the pebble. Took a quick peek at my pinky toe through the sock and I didn't see anything alarming. I was surprised I could get my shoe back on with relative ease.

The last few miles into Santiago was literally all uphill, a few downward slopes to help give you a running start. OMG and then you had to walk through the city center, cut through their version of Central Park, although this park was actually very small. But all the major streets from the historic areas intersect at the Park, so it's kind of a big deal.

I came to a point where I had to cross the street, I could see that this was the last leg before I got the the Cathedral. There was a crosswalk to maneuver across, and on the other side of the street were cafes, and a sea of people. The light for the crosswalk took forever, but once actors, I cut through some narrow streets filled with people, most of them appeared to be travelers like me. You could tell from the Camino paraphernalia they were wearing that they picked up at a gift shop. I was bobbing and weaving and eventually I made my way to the plaza of the Cathedral. There was a gazillion people there, everyone taking pictures and whooping and howling. It was quite the spectacle. I admit it, it was actually a bit underwhelming for me. I don't know what I was expecting, BUT I half expected to have a ticker tape parade or confetti falling from the sky. Crap, balloons or bubbles would have been good enough. But nope, nuttin. I was standing there looking at the Cathedral and wondering, now what? That's when someone touched me on the shoulder and said, "You made it"! It was Mrs. Nash.

I don't feel like I really knew her, but it was awesome to see a friendly face, and get that hug of congratulations. It felt really good, and then she offered to take a few pictures so me in front of the Cathedral. Mrs. Nash invited me to come sit with them as we watched for people we knew to arrive. My travel companions arrived about 25 mins or so after me. Which put them nearly a mile behind me. Not that I was counting or anything. I was trying to get their attention but with the sea of people around it was next to impossible to get their attention. Mr. Nash took of his bright yellow neon shirt and started waving it to get their attention. I'm not sure if it was the funk making its way over to me or what, but for a brief moment I thought I was going to hurl. Finally one of my travel companions looked in my direction, and came over. Yeah I know what you're thinking why didn't I go get them. My legs and glutes were so sore I didn't want to move. Eventually other folks we knew arrived, Ann-Marie from Dublin, Amanda from Boston, Amelia from Finland, we found them, or they found us. They had arrived the day before or early that morning. They just came to see us. We hung out for a bit, Amelia had to catch a bus back to Porto so she only stayed for a few minutes, but it was cool that she made the effort to come hang for a few. Mr and Mrs Nash, left us to go to the hotel and get cleaned up.

After chatting and swapping Camino stories, we all went our separate ways as well, went to the hotel and agreed to meet out later for dinner. We ended up at a local pizza place because it had vegetarian options that one of our travel companions wanted. All good, I enjoyed the pizza. Pizza Carbonara, Sadly it no sauce at all. I almost broke down crying, because who makes pizza without sauce, but it was good. At that point I probably would have eaten just about anything.

We walked around a bit after dinner and said our good byes, my group was sticking around for a couple of more days. We were taking a walking tour around Santiago at 9AM in the morning on Saturday and then to the Cathedral museum.

Until next time, and yes there will be a next time. Stay outta trouble and if you can't do that. Don't get caught.

Tim