Distance traveled: 39.1 kilometers (24.3 miles) – my longest day!

I didn’t start the day thinking that I would end up in Santiago. My plan was to do what I’d done for my arrivals in Burgos and León: stop about 10 kilometers outside of town and have an easy walk in the next morning.

I had clearly ended up in an albergue with new pilgrims. Around 7:30 a.m., I was in the common area outside my room continuing to pack my bag, while precisely no one else was awake. This was completely outside the norm; everyone should have been up and moving at this time! Finally, just as I was about to leave, a man came out and said “you’re getting an early start.” I couldn’t help myself; I said “actually, you’re all starting late.”

I was anxious to beat the crowds on the trail, but I still stopped in a nearby cafe for a coffee and pastry before I got going. It was still dark when I started heading out of town, and it wasn’t for another 25 minutes or so that I finally got the first glimpse of daylight on the horizon.

There were a few other pilgrims on the path, but not as many as I’d expected. It was a welcome change. Apparently, I’d just had good timing. About an hour after leaving, I got a text message from Jean-Pierre (who, as it turned out, had also spent the night in Arzúa) saying “the whole world is on the trail right now!” I managed to stay ahead of that wave the whole day.

The majority of the walk went through trees, which was lovely. We’d noticed that Galicia had lots of different plants and, in particular, some very colorful mushrooms.

We did, here and elsewhere on the Camino, have to go through the occasional tunnel under a road, and these were often filled with pilgrim-related graffiti. I liked the message of this one a lot:

In the afternoon, I passed through a particularly beautiful bit of forest. Once again, I chose to play a bit of music to enhance the moment. When I took this picture, I was listening to one of the songs from “Sister Act”, and something about that song was perfect for this moment – a combination of worship and fun energy. Something about it gave me a little shiver.

I’d gradually started to toy with the idea of going all the way to Santiago. It was Friday, and the weather was lovely: after spending the day before entirely in the rain, today was mostly sunny. I wasn’t sure what kind of weather I’d have the following morning, and I so liked the idea of arriving in Santiago in the sun! Plus, I knew that my friends Javier and Becky had arrived that morning, so I’d have people to greet me when I arrived. I kept thinking about it.

When I arrived at the town where I’d originally planned on stopping, something just told me to keep going. I didn’t feel done, and suddenly nothing sounded better than arriving in Santiago and having a celebratory Friday night! Plus, I wanted to see if I could handle the extra distance. I was so proud of myself for the distance I’d covered in the past two days; if I made it all the way to Santiago today, that would mean I’d done the last 110 kilometers of the Camino in only three days!

I did decide to stop for a beer before continuing. I was sore and thought I might as well try to take the edge off. I set my backpack down at a table near a man and a woman who were also drinking beer, and they asked me if I was planning to go all the way to Santiago that day. I told them yes, and they invited me to join them. They had met on the Camino del Norte and, like me, had decided at the last minute to finish their journey today.

After our beers, the three of us set off together (the two of them at a pretty brisk pace, but I stayed with them), and, eventually, we reached the edge of the plateau and found ourselves looking out over Santiago de Compostela. Although smaller in terms of population than either Burgos or León, Santiago de Compostela is still a legitimate city, and seeing it beneath us made us realize that, as was so often the case on the Camino, we still had quite a way to go before we would actually arrive at the end. Still – there it was!!!

It probably took us the better part of an hour – possibly a bit more – to reach the cathedral from that initial lookout point. We walked through quite a bit of the city to get into that historic center. My hips and feet were hurting pretty badly at this point, but I continued to feel I’d made the right decision in going all the way. It felt great to be pushing myself like that at the very end, and the weather continued to be lovely.

Finally, when we were about 10 minutes from the cathedral, we started to see more signs of the Camino. Within the city limits, the stone markers with the Camino symbol and yellow arrows had vanished, and we’d been following a trail of brass scallop shells set in the sidewalk. As we entered the historic center, we passed this inscription in multiple languages:

The path leads you behind and then alongside the cathedral until, after passing through an archway where there is almost always someone playing some sort of music, you emerge into the grand plaza in front of the cathedral.

This is, predictably, an emotional moment for many pilgrims. I had no particular expectations for my reaction to my arrival other than that I figured I’d be pretty excited, which of course I was. It was such a surreal moment that I think I was incapable of feeling and thinking the complete range of appropriate reactions. I had never really doubted that I would make it here, either before or since beginning the journey, so while I certainly felt grateful to have arrived, I didn’t feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude or relief for the physical act itself. I did feel a great deal of gratitude for the friends I’d made, the lessons I’d learned, and the experiences I’d had over the course of the past 34 days.

Javier and Becky found me in the plaza shortly after my arrival and gave me congratulatory hugs. I could spend hours of every day in that plaza. If you remember the opening scene of “Love Actually” when Hugh Grant is narrating footage of the arrivals area of Heathrow airport, it’s like that. Pilgrims arrive, and other pilgrims greet them. People shout, cry, laugh, jump for joy, and/or collapse. It’s the best form of people watching imaginable.

My next step was to collect my Compostela (certificate of pilgrimage). Javier and Becky led me around the corner to the pilgrim office, where I took a number, and then we sat at a nearby cafe and ordered a celebratory bottle of Cava while I waited. (The system is electronic, so you can check where you are in line on your phone.)

A couple of people ahead of me in line must not have shown up, because suddenly my number was being called. I learned in that moment that it is possible to sprint 40 yards with a 25-pound backpack on and after you’ve walked nearly 40 kilometers already that day! But I made it inside and went straight to a desk, where I presented my pilgrim passport – filled with stamps from each place I’d stayed, plus a few others – and filled out a brief form to indicate who I was, where I’d come from, and what had motivated my pilgrimage (I checked the boxes for religious and personal reasons).

There are two types of certificates available, and most people get them both. The Compostela is the official certificate of your pilgrimage; it’s written in Latin, and if your name has a Latin equivalent, they will write that on the certificate. (I swear this is true: the woman typed in “Kendra” to see if there was a Latin version, and she said “mierda” – “shit” – when, of course, there wasn’t a result.)

The Compostela is given to anyone who has completed the last 100 kilometers of the Camino on foot, bicycle, or horseback. That’s the only requirement. It doesn’t say anything about how far you’ve come, and for that, people get the distance certificate, which is written in Spanish and provides the number of kilometers you’ve walked from your starting point. Officially, it’s 779 kilometers from Saint Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago de Compostela. That’s 484 miles, and I walked the entire way. Spread out across the number of days I walked, I averaged 23.6 kilometers (14.6 miles) per day en route to Santiago.

Certificates safely in hand, it was time to figure out a place to stay. I had planned to stay at a pilgrim hotel (a converted monastery) near the cathedral and had made reservations for Saturday and Sunday nights; I ended up just adding an extra night. What a beautiful view of the sunset I had from my simple room:

I joined Javier and Becky to meet up with a larger group of American pilgrims for dinner. It was nice to meet some additional people and to be in a large party – it really felt more like a celebration! I had a pizza and then was very ready to go to bed. Before I did, as was usual, I synced my Fitbit to my phone and learned that there’s a special badge for people who walk 55,000 steps in a day: the Platform Shoe badge.

And finally: here’s the map showing my completed journey across Spain to Santiago de Compostela!

Don’t worry, I’m not done yet. I stayed in Santiago until Monday morning, and then I had four more days of walking to get to and down the coast. Stay tuned!