Triacastela

My last stage ended here, 120 kms from Santiago. So many mixed feelings. I’m ready to go home but love being in the big wide-open, so quite bittersweet to leave the countryside and commence re-entry.

I literally ran down the mountainside, arms outstretched and zig-zagging all the way down! Remember being a child and running downhills pretending you were flying? It felt just like that and I have not experienced that since I was quite young. Exuberance! Pilgrims saw me coming, making way and crying “Forza!!” as I swept past them down the road.

Just in time for my walk to end, really, as the Way started yesterday to become very crowded with Spanish pilgrims clocking in their 100 kms to Santiago to get their Compostela. These local pilgrims will be thronging the Camino from Sarria all the way to Santiago. They are fresh out of the gate and friskily bopping down the Camino in large, chatty groups.

By contrast, I am moving deliberately, slowly, somewhat grim-faced, I’m sure, and covered in dust—clearly nearing the end of my journey. You can tell the jaded pilgrims by our mumbled “buen camino” responses to pilgrims passing us by. I wish I felt like rejoicing with them but I am too internally involved with detaching from my pilgrimage and preparing for blast-off back into “real life”.

I checked into an albergue in Sarria and was just grateful that the mattress seemed clean and comfortable. I really wanted to be left alone, did not join in the communal albergue dinner that evening and turned in early.

I’m now hurtling on a train heading towards Madrid and it is strange to be traveling so quickly through the landscape when just yesterday my body was gliding through the valleys at a walking pace.Read more