The Milky Way

Upon Karin's arrival in Vilalba we introduced her to "Cola Cao" (chocolate milk) and "Oikos" yoghurt and, I am afraid, she has never looked back! Having Karin by our side has been really refreshing and I think all the milk she consumes makes her walk like a machine... Virtually burning tire as her only complaint ever was that her feet are hot :)

From Vilalba we walked to Baamonde, 101 km from Santiago, where we stayed in a large, but very nice Albergue.  In the local supermarket we got something to cook for ourselves that evening, and when we payed the owner gave us a pan to cook our food in! How thoughtful is that? At the same time we also bumped into Tanya, whom I then spent the next several days conversating with along the way.

After Baamonde we did the short stage to Miraz, temperatures had really started to drop and rain jackets came out more often than we liked. In Miraz we stayed at the Albergue that is run by the British Confraternity, this was splendid! The Brits even offered afternoon tea, and had a kettle! Thus far we have only seen 2 kettles on our holiday. We took a stroll to an ancient water-mill and gave our feet an icebath. Afterwards we had the menu of the day at the only bar in the town (the other one closed as the owner retired).

From Miraz we walked on to Sobrado dos Monxes where we stayed in the monastery, and cooked up a nice meal for ourselves again. The monastery is huge and beautiful, also partly because it needs some maintenance, which adds to its rustic beauty.

The day after we walked to Arzúa, where we joined the Frances, so all of the sudden there was many Albergues to choose from and many new faces. This evening we went out for supper with Tanya, Gabbi, Kami and Tobias this was really awesome and we had some great laughs. We only had 39km left to Santiago and everyone had their own ideas of how they would split it up, so it became a bit off a farewell as well. We wanted to do 2 days of 20, Gabbi wanted to arrive 3 days later for her 50th, Tanya wanted to do a long stage the next day to be early the next day for meeting her family on the plain, and Kami wanted to start early to enjoy the chocolate chiros...

Funny how none of our plans worked out... the next morning I woke up and told the team: Lets go to Santiago! We tried to leave Tanya behind, but she kept catching us, and by the evening we were all in Santiago! We bumped into Tobias, and the next day Gabbi and Kami also arrived. I think when the goal is that close nobody was able to resist finishing it a bit earlier. 

Our first day in Santiago we realized that we can save money by renting a car rather using buses and airplanes for the rest of our trip. We headed off to Finisterre, in some rainy weather. Unfortunately when we got there I received an SMS to tell me we only have 30mins left before check-in closes. So I had to make a call to the pension we stayed in and had to immediately turn around, doh!

Santiago is still as charming as we remembered it, and we really enjoyed this city so much! We found a place with nice free tapas, and an awesome waiter named Fernando... if I gain a few KGs it's all on him :) 

Unfortunately we never got our compostelas, the queues are just insane.