Perhaps by tomorrow I will have some profound words of wisdom from this journey, but the only thing I could come up with today was: ´three Americans and three Canadians walk into Santiago…stop me if you´ve heard this one before.´Not exactly the wit of the century. Maybe by tomorrow I will have come up with something better.
For now, we had a hot walk today which ended in shorts and a t-shirt for the first time. Tomorrow should be hotter still and we will try to leave about 6:30am in the hopes of making the centre of Santiago by noon and avoiding the worst of the heat. At least we have no concern about bad weather the rest of our stay here in Spain. Should be stunning the next two days and only cloudy the day we fly. At last. Still, even with the varied weather we´ve had my tan is pretty good if…obvious in where it ends. Tanlines are unavoidable!
My cold has progressed to an annoying cough that hits me in fits. Senja went through the same thing (and still is). I´ll keep taking the meds we got as they seem to work and hope I don´t keep anyone up at night.
The albergue we are in today (our last one) is perched in a valley of pine and eucalyptus trees at a low elevation. We had a pleasant walk today on dirt track through little villages. Tomorrow we have that for the first 15km, but the other 6 will be along busy roads into Santiago. Just because it is the end doesn´t make it prettier! At least until we reach the old city. I am trying to prepare myself for noise, traffic and plenty of people, but that´s hard. It´s been a long time since Leòn. But perhaps this time will be different because it is the end and by Tuesday we will be tourists in a city of tourists.
But for today I have enjoyed stopping to smell the flowers (and the cows), enjoying the quiet and can sit here at the window on a city of trees for the last time. I have fallen in love with this place. Each province we have passed through has had it´s own beauty, but Galacia is the most stunning. It reminds me of two homes in equal parts and the people are so friendly. I think I will return here one day and see it again, perhaps by means other than foot!
Just one final step to take on mi camino.
June 2, 2013
Mi Camino 2013 