Made It

Remember how last time I blogged I said that Sofia and I were going to walk another 5 km, camp for the night, and then walk into Santiago the next morning?  Well, we had a slight change of plans.

We had collected all our stuff from our corner of that little cafe, we had put our shoes on, we were walking down the street.  An Italian girl we knew saw us on the way and asked, most incredulously, "Are you guys walking to Santiago tonight??"
No, no, we assured her.  We told her our plan, she calmed down, and we walked on, single-file on the sidewalk leading out of town.

About two minutes later, Sofia calls back to me.  "What if we walked to Santiago tonight?"
The thought had crossed my mind as well, but I played the responsible, sensible role and said, "No, no, we couldn't possibly do that.  We planned to camp.  We will camp."  So Sofia started wheedling.  We had always wanted to night-hike!  There were only 20 km left!  It would be so cool!  We would be so unique!  We would have the cathedral to ourselves!  We could certainly make it before midnight!
She knew I was half-way convinced from the start, partially because I didn't flat-out refuse and partially because she could hear the half-smile on my face even while I produced my counterarguments.
In the end?  We walked to Santiago. 

It took us from 6:00 to 11:30pm.  We walked up and up and into the sunset with a group of Northern-Italian German-speakers.  We left them after 10k at a hostel, and they donated apples, granola bars, and Haribo gummibears to the cause.  It got quite dark and we put on our headlamps.  We passed lots of dogs who loudly expressed their surprise at smelling pilgrims so late.  One scary-sounding creature followed us behind a fence, salivating loudly and hungrily instead of barking.  Creepy!  At the top of the last hill, we happened upon a group of pilgrims we knew who were headed to bed for the night from a bar, and they gave us a bar of chocolate for the last 5k.  People are so nice.  We get so well taken care of.
 
By the end I was hobbling pretty slowly.  The streets were quiet in the suburbs and getting into the city center, but it was only the pre-gaming silence.  Parties start quite late in Spain.  We walked past bars with the murmur of conversation within, and past darkened storefronts.  We followed the yellow arrows and the scallopshells on the sidewalk.  And then, around a corner, was the cathedral.  From the direction we came the spires appeared one at a time, chaotically jutting into the night sky at different heights, creating a strange tiered bunch of baroque flourishes piled on top of each other in the dark.  It was a good first impression.

We walked around to the front of the building, which was more organized-looking and even more ornate.  It was just before midnight, and the square had a few people milling about but not many.  Sofia and I sat down and leaned on our packs, right on the middle, looking up at our final destination.  We did it.  Whodda thunk?
We feasted on gummibears.

 After a bit of reflection, we decided we needed to find a place to sleep.  Although we knew a very nice couple who were staying at the Paramor, the fanciest place right adjacent to the cathedral, we didn't quite feel right knocking on their door at midnight.  So, we picked up our packs (with much groaning), and walked around to the other side of the cathedral.  There we found a delightful little nook, swathed in shadow and smelling faintly of pee, where we decided to bed down for the night.

We rolled out our mats, tucked ourselves into our sleeping bags along with our valuables, leaned against or propped our feet up on our bags, and fell asleep like we had always slept in sketchy porticos in Spanish cities.  We got a good 6 hours of shut-eye, despite the Spanish partying that started around 1 and lasted til 4 in the morning.  There was a lot of drunken singing and shouting, and I kept thinking it was raining because of the sound of the fountain.  I tried to keep my sleeping bag up over my hair, so people wouldn't know I was a girl.  I don't know if that worked, but no one bothered us and no one made us move.  I say our night was a success.

So there you have it.  We made it to Santiago in 33 days, our last day consisting of 39 km.  And it was good.