Nearing the End

An easy walking day today of only about 20 km. Once again, Francine has been powerwalking in the mornings and slowing down in the afternoons, which is fine as this is my method as well. I try to plan our lunch stop for about two-thirds or so of the way through the day’s distance.

Before leaving Arzúa this morning, we visited the local church. It was a very nice little place, crawling with cleaning ladies and the usual sorts of little old church ladies one finds in every parish. One of them gave me a brief tour, pointing out the statues of Santiago as a pilgrim and Santiago Matomoros in the altarpieces.

We meant to have lunch at Brea, 15 km on, but we somehow missed the village and ended up lunching in Santa Irene 2 km further on.

After walking through a series of impressive little forests, we also somehow managed to miss our final stopping point for the day, a town variously known as Arca and O Pedrouzo. We had to find the nearby highway and backtrack about a kilometer.

Tomorrow, God willing, we arrive in Santiago, the object of our pilgrimage. There’s a strange sense of unreality about the whole thing settling on me at the moment.

Originally published at Another Pilgrim on the Way