We arrived! But there’s always a story…

Last night turned out to be very enjoyable. The albergue was clean and cozy and charming. I’m always pleased when we have cubbies for more privacy. We were excited to get out of the pouring rain and get into something dry. There was a small food cart in front offering some drinks and food. Thank goodness as we hadn’t found anyplace to buy supplies to cook. We managed to get soup and sandwiches and found our way into the kitchen/common area. It was already filling up but a charming young Portuguese hiker, Duarte, had us join him. Turned into a lively evening exchange with us and other hikers from Australia, Japan, Germany and Lithuania. Much of the talk was around the impending storm and reaching Santiago.

Apparently we were getting hit with what had been Hurricane Kirk, in the Atlantic. It was being downgraded but was still expected to dump a lot of rain overnight into today with extremely strong winds. Yikes! The kids weren’t overly concerned as they’ve hiked through worse.

No one was in a hurry to get moving this morning, unlike most mornings when people start stirring at least by 0600. We all slowly started seeing what the situation was inside and out, as the kitchen window obviously leaked. Karma and Andrew, from Germany, found a mop and started cleaning up. Everyone was concerned as the storm was still ongoing. As you can only book in for one night at albergues we knew we needed to get going despite the weather.

We put on all our rain gear, including our trash bag skirts. That got everyone’s attention. Soon some of them were in the kitchen looking for trash bags!

Out we went into the fray. Too windy to use the umbrellas. Lots of gusts of wind pushing lots of rain. Debris everywhere on the path. Branches broken, trees down across the trail as well as electric wires. Rivers flowing like crazy, with rivers of water flowing down the paths and roads. Mandy kept reminding me we were having Type 2 fun. I kept reminding myself that this trip was my idea. Karma reminded me we paid for this so we ought to keep going. So we did.

On the good side there were just a few hikers that came along. So much better! We found a cafe to stop in for coffee. We apologized profusely for coming in dripping wet. It was a great break.

Back out again with heads down pushing onward. We came across one area with police tape blocking the designated path. Hmmm. No detour noted. Mandy found the way around it so we proceeded. Eventually we entered the outskirts of Santiago and it became busy with traffic and pedestrians. One last long hill and we came closer. And finally we were there!

The Cathedral loomed ahead of us, looking better than it did seven years ago when I was last here, when it was covered in scaffolding. We got a few requisite pictures then headed to the Compostela office.

They’ve got a new system where we had to register online ahead of time for a QR code. We then had to present that at the door. From there they gave us another code that had a number for our time in line. Amazingly there was no line! No waiting! We couldn’t believe it. We had been watching the daily numbers of pilgrims registering and it was generally between 2,000-4,000. A good side effect of terrible weather!

Once we all had our completed certificates we found our way to a restaurant for lunch. It was a beautiful old building with high ceilings and carvings on the walls. We ordered vegan paella and a bottle of rose to celebrate.

8.73 Miles with 18,270 steps