Day 33 Final: O Pedrouzo to Santiago

The final day of the Camino. Bitter-sweet feelings: sad that it's over, but pleased to be there
I wasn't in any hurry this morning, but some kind person woke everyone up early, so I ended up on the road not much after 6:30am. The town of O Pedrouzo (where I was staying) was slightly off the Camino itself, so the first priority was getting back onto the right path. And the right path was again a lovely walk through the trees
And it stayed that way a long time...
... past the trees always planted in straight rows...
... past the minivans dropping off a group of Americans at the 16km mark...
... and back into the trees...
... yes i saw some pretty flowers!
... and in contrast, a church with souls burning in hell
10km to go, wahoo!
Near Santiago it obviously got more urban
After having superb signage the whole way from St Jean Pied-de-Port, the last little bit to the cathedral was surprisingly tricky, with peregrinos all over the place checking directions on their phones

But then coming around the corner and hearing the piper, we all knew where we were...
[no photo, since I was using WhatsApp,  doh! - perhaps tomorrow]
It was great being able to catch up live with friends on a WhatsApp video call, although I missed a lot of what people were saying. The signal was breaking up, presumably because hundreds of others were sharing the bandwidth
Yes I'm pretty pleased to have made it here; it seems like ages ago that I set out. I do feel a bit mentally exhausted. Having said that, I've loved the experience, and I can understand why so many want to repeat it over and over. In case you are wondering, I'm not proposing a repeat for me!
I headed downhill to the Pilgrims Office, and got in line to receive my Compostela and distance certificate. It was a pretty slick operation, with a new peregrino processed every few seconds
Then back to the cathedral - given the very long queues, I decided to wait until tomorrow to go in
After a bit of a wander, it was time to wend my way up to my backpackers accommodation, maybe 1 or 2 km back up the hill. And I think that's far enough for me today!

I need to think about planning the next 100km out to the end of the world

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