It´s not every year that I arrive in Santiago with a Camino family. This year there were 7 of us. We met each other at the first albergue on the Camino Primitivo and spent the next 12 days as a loosely knit group. We walked the same stages, stayed in the same places, ate dinner together, and sometimes walked together. Yesterday I was the first to arrive in Santiago (not because I´m the fastest, but because I was the one who was the most scared about having to walk in 90 degree temperatures and as a result left very early). I was in Santiago by 10:45 or so, and spend the next hour and a half as one by one the other six arrived.
Lots of hugging, laughing, followed by a big group meal, and a couple of strong shots of something for the more intrepid.
Then the teary goodbyes started. Two of the madrileños (well, actually one Salvadorano and a madrileño) had to leave last night, the third one this morning. And then there were four of us, all of whom will start for Finisterre/Muxía tomorrow. I expect that when I come back to Santiago, though, I will be alone.
So ends another camino. I´ve probably written this before on my other camino blogs, but every year when I walk into Santiago, I wonder if I will say -- ok, I´m done, this is the last Camino. This year was lining up to be a pretty good year for that to happen, because it was rough at the beginning, both physically and mentally. But the last two weeks have been amazing, and I´m still hooked and starting to wonder which Camino I will walk next year.
But first, there is a Spain-Portugal soccer game to watch (semi-finals of the Eurocup 2012), a four day walk to Finisterre, another day in Santiago, and a reunion with the three madrileños next Thursday in Madrid before I get back on the plane.
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