Well, we made it!  Melanie (in Spanish “mal a knee”) tried out her walking skills this morning and said, she’ll take a taxi closer to town and walk in with me. While waiting for her slow husband, she visited a pharmacy, got a knee brace, some magic crean and some special Camino candy (400mg ibuprofen pills). When I met her outside of Santiago, she was dancing on a cafe table.  Almost dancing.  Actually, she was able to walk at about 80% of her normal speed after her knee warmed up. The problem was stopping and restarting.  For example, if she stopped at an intersection with a red wait light, when she tried to walk again after a minute, she would then be at 20% normal speed for several minutes again.  I learned that if i just told her “don’t worry, the cars will stop for you” and then push her out 8nto the road, she moved really fast. 

The walk today was poorly planned on my part.  I chose to stay in O Pedrouzo last night because it about the perfect distance from Ribadiso to set up a shorter day to walk into Santiago. Just like last year, I forgot that it means my early start is in the pre-dawn pitch black.  Those several kilometers are some of the nicest trails through the forest on the Camino. I tried to enjoy it anyway but I was surprised by the number of people walking without any headlight of torchlight. I have decent night vision so I tried walking without my torch, after giving my eyes time to adjust. I still couldn’t see my feet, much less the potholes in the dirt trails, rocks sticking up or piles of horse or dog poop. 

There were very few parts of the walk today that I hadn’t remembered. I kept thinking to myself “there is a hill around this next bend” or “just ahead is the place where we met…”. Counting the Camino del Norte/Primitivo and our other three French Ways, this is our fifth time on that path so I shouldn’t be too surprised. 

My two favorite parts of the walk were meeting up with Melanie (and getting breakfast #2 there) and visiting the statues at Monte de Gozo where pilgrims on the French Way got their first glance at the Cathedral. I can imagine their elation. Most would have walked much further than we did, without as much support, and under much more difficult conditions.  Of course,they still had to walk home too.

My favorite part after the walk is hanging out in the square in front of the Cathedral and meeting up with friends from the way.  Everyone is happy and everyone is happy for each other.  Some will be crying but most a just so happy with the whole experience. Slowly, people also realize that the friends they met along the path, the ones they spoke with daily, the ones with whom they talked about their most personal issues for a month, they will likely never see again.  Somehow, on this day, that makes their bond even stronger.  Pilgrims learn to live in the moment and they make all they can of their moments together. 

Today was a day for celebration so I’ll keep my gripes short.  Once again at 3km, I stopped for breakfast but had to shake the dust off my boots and leave hungry.  I finally found food at the 12km mark.  Also, I think a lot of pilgrims today think that it’s bad luck to say “buen Camino”, “hola” or”buen día”.  Maybe 10% of the pilgrims who passed me said anything and, of the others, if I said something first, maybe half begrudgingly replied half-heartedly.  What would make up for that though was the pilgrims we met weeks ago.  Those people can warm my heart with their greeting and remind me of the goodness of people.

This one isn’t a gripe but lots of people in Santiago wash all their clothes in the laundromats.  I finally finished getting ours cleaned and dried at 8:15pm.  We I got back to the room, Melanie was sound asleep.  She was probably wiped out by those double strength ibuprofen pills and all the work and stress to get walking again.  By the way, or “penciled in plan” to walk to the coast is obviously off.  We will be in Santiago until sometime Wednesday, then we’ll take a bus to Muxía on the coast for a few days then come back here to start the long haul back to Singapore. 

As promised, I prayed last night at the pilgrim mass in O Pedrouzo for that those I promised to pray for. I did again in the pilgrim chapel today.  Tomorrow, I’ll light candles for the special intentions and pray for them and everyone else who helped or encouraged us in anyway with their support. That will include those old folk in little villages of Spain who wished us a “buen Camino”, which I always to answer with, “En Santiago, rezaré por ti”.

If I think of anything worthwhile to add, I might have another post or two.  Don’t count on it though.  

Peace y’all. And for friends and family in America, VOTE!

Good night George, Leo and Stella.  Y’all don’t need to worry about the voting part yet.