The day started cloudy and cool but dry - ideal walking conditions. The walk today wasn’t as pretty as the past 8 days, but not too bad considering we were coming into a city.
We stopped for breakfast about 4 kms into our walk - I have developed a Cola Cao habit (it’s not cola at all, but rather a mug of hot, frothy milk and a sachet of THE most delicious hot chocolate powder to mix into it) so opted for that and some cake, the breakfast of champions!
Then it was off again. Our next stop was at Monte do Gozo, a hill overlooking Santiago that gave us our first glimpse of the cathedral. It also gave us the opportunity to act like total charlies which is something we are always very willing to do - in this case it involved posing with some large sculptures of pilgrims.
By this point we were ready for some liquid refreshments and wandered into a bar, where Grant nearly got us thrown out by asking the waitress for “3 titties”…. He was trying to ask for a brand of “on tap” sangria, but it all got very lost in translation and quite awkward! The sangria was good though, so all’s well that ends well!
Off we set again and now it was downhill all the way into Santiago. The rain had found us again, so it was quite a wet walk. A HUGE group of school kids suddenly appeared in front of us about 2kms out (still can’t figure out where they came from?!) so instead of following them all the way to the cathedral, which would have been a bit of a nightmare, we made another stop - I HAD to have another Cola Cao, but this time with churros… heavenly! That sugar rush carried me all the way to the Cathedral!
Walking into the square outside the cathedral was incredible. Quite euphoric! I admit to getting a bit teary-eyed. What a journey it has been! We were a very “happy band of pilgrims” and had so much fun doing this walk together - we’ve laughed (a lot!) had some really wacky moments, some very tough moments and made some incredible memories. Good times indeed!
We are staying at, Casa da Balconada. I highly recommend this little boutique hotel, the location is perfect, so close to the cathedral. Cristina is a lovely lady, who goes out of her way to make you feel comfortable.
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