Day Eighteen: Santiago- Walking a marathon

I should have never said a thing...

It took one comment to get it into David's head. I only said "Caroline and I walked the rest of the way in from Arzua to Santiago in one day, and we are only 2 miles from there." David's competitive nature kicked in and he is looking at the maps. "Dad, we are 26.2 miles from Santiago. Isn't that the distance for a marathon?"

Next morning we got up at 5am (we weren't the first) and headed out in the dark. It was the earliest we had walked and the cool felt good. It is interesting to see how towns and villages wake up. 

We walked through fields and forest of  Eucalytus trees that have been taking over this area of Spain. On through Santa Irene, and past our original stopping point. With only a short stop for drinks, we soon found ourselves on Mount Gozo, facing the city of Santiago. There you see the church spires for the first time. 

Here is a famous sculpture there of two pilgrims pointing to the church as they crest the "mountain of joy". From there, the heat, the traffic, even the lack of Maria cookies would not stop us. 

We pushed on into the city and to the cathedral. It is quite a feeling to enter the square and see the front of the church and know you really did finish it. We will have walked 300 miles by the end of our trip. After celebrating with hugs and pictures, we went to the pilgrim's office to receive our compostelas, that show our completion of the pilgrimage. We also went to the Franciscan church and received a special compostela in honor of St Francis' pilgrimage 800 years ago. 

Then food, a hotel, and a shower. I was bushed!