Lavacolla to Santiago de Compostela

Final day: wet but short, 11.5km. Destination reached.

We left our hotel about 7:30 with ponchos stowed but within seconds of stepping outside the rain started. Ponchos were donned and off we went into the rain.

It was a good path, no mud, mostly sealed roads or tracks. Also mostly lit by streetlights except for a small stretch when a head lamp was needed.

After about 2km we found an excellent bar open and had a good breakfast (juice, toast, coffee). We also obtained there the one remaining sello or stamp in our credencial document proving where we had walked each day.

We set off into town, passing through a village or two before a longish walk across Santiago proper to the cathedral.

It rained on and off for the entire walk, at times quite heavily. So we arrived about 10:45 with wet shoes and feet.

We got slightly lost in the old part of town as it is a maze there and the Camino markers seemed to disappear. But soon enough we emerged beside the Cathedral.

We immediately bumped into Tony our Kiwi fellow pilgrim from Tennant Creek.

We then took care of getting our official compostela or certificate of completion, written in Latin, including the Latin forms of our first names. It was a very quick process and we still had just enough time to check our packs for later collection and attend the noon pilgrim Mass in the Cathedral. It was standing room only. At the end they did swing the famous botafumeiro, censing the place up well. We were lucky to catch it as it doesn’t happen every day.

After Mass we ran across our Hoosier friends just as they arrived. We will meet them later for dinner. Then a bite of lunch before checking into the Libredon hotel just a short walk around the corner from the cathedral.

A few statistics:
• 42 days
• 904km walked comprising
• 772km Camino Frances plus 132km after arriving each day and rest days
• 1,163,950 footsteps
• 13,079 metres altitude ascent and similar descent
• 885 pilgrims arrived in Santiago the day we arrived
• 2 of more than 400,000 to complete a Camino in 2022Read more