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Camino 10: Monte de Gozo to Santiago de Compostela

Posted on 28 March 20112 April 2021 by Rob Ainsley

Thanks to the clocks springing forward, it was still black outside at 8am when I had to leave the hostel. Misty, damp, half-drizzling: it was all a bit anti-climatic. Er, anti-climactic. Well, both, actually.

Finished. I certainly felt that way.

I slipped downhill and along trafficky roads through dreary outskirts, and followed my nose to the cathedral square and my entrance-finale. Here I was: Santiago de Compestela’s mighty cathedral, the destination for pilgrims from all over Europe for thousands of years. I was standing on the shoulders of history, and in a very big puddle.

The square was half-deserted except for scurrying umbrellas and the odd German touring party keen to finish and take their morning coffee. I took some underexposed pictures in the shelter of a colonnade and thought, er, what now…?

What now turned out to be an excellent coffee, churros and croissant, and shot of fresh orange juice in a cafe with wifi just behind the cathedral, while I waited for the tourist info to open. I felt a mild, modest elation. I was close to the heavens, particularly the part of the heavens responsible for rainfall.

After dripping over the floor of tourist info I wandered back into the square and who should be there but my old chum Carlos from a few days ago, who was just arriving. We high-fived and spent a few minutes in the cathedral being awestruck, and dry, before he had to whizz off home.

I had the rest of the day to explore and celebrate gently: sightseeing strolls punctuated by a pavement-cafe beer here and there. For lunch I invested seven euros in a pilgrim set lunch in a tiny local place down an alley off Cervantes square. A basket of fresh bread; a huge steel vat of help-yourself hearty soup (cabbage, potato, bean featured strongly); a second course of tender pork slices with onion dressing and handcut chips; that regulation pudding, a flan; a cafe solo; and a bottle of xoven Galician white. I was very happy.

Enjoy the view

I’d fixed up a bed in the hostel Roots and Boots, in a dorm which had a fine view of the cathedral. I wound down in the common room with fellow pilgrims, all a bit demob-happy. In enjoyed chatting to a humorous Czech couple, Mirek and Lenka; I enjoyed rather less being chatted to by young Belgian hiker who had to top any story: if you’d seen someone doing the Camino with a black dog, he’d seen someone doing it with an even blacker one.

But it was a fittingly convivial finish to the trip. We swopped stories about our Caminos: the villages, the churches, the getting losts. The dog that bit everyone. The crazy German woman doing 60km a day. The Chinese guy with a hole in his foot big enough to put a finger in. Quiet and meditative during the day, lively and social during the evening: that’s the Camino protocol, and it had worked for me.

A week and a half of mixed weather, mixed emotions, mixed surfaces, and mixed drinks, but rewardingly so. I didn’t find myself between Pamplona and here – nobody answered the description – but I’d had a wonderful experience.

Miles today: 2
Miles since Pamplona: 475
Cafes con leche: 24
Punctures: 0
Potential pneumatic catastrophes averted: 1
Storks spotted: 187
Times I wished I’d stayed at home: 0
Total expenditure inc all transport and bike hire: 650 euros
Value: Priceless

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