arrival

Greetings from Madrid! We are here for a few days to visit family before heading back to Finland.

The arrival in Santiago de Compostela was long-awaited and quite loud, as eleven of us went hand-in-hand down the narrow streets to the plaza and cheered like mad as we arrived! It was like celebrating the win of a soccer game. We went to mass and patted St. James on the back, because apparently those are the traditional things to do, but then four of us zoomed to Finisterre in a rented car to visit what the medieval mind considered "the end of the world." Most of our crew continued to Finisterre on foot, but we had already pre-booked our tickets and were short on time. After weeks of beautiful landscapes, it was also impressive to gaze over the sea in all its vastness.

It takes some getting used to being in a car or a bus. There are no more clear routines in the morning or at bedtime. There is no more walking for hours or daily washing of clothes; no more constant hugs and kisses, or the jokes we got used to sharing with our camino crew. Our friends took us to the bus stop in Santiago when we left, and it was such a desolate scene to leave them teary-eyed, leaning against the shop windows in the shade as we waved goodbye. I do hate goodbyes. The Camino is one of those unique community experiences that is something of a world of its own. I don´t know where else you would bring together such a random group of people like a lawyer, a road-constructor, prison guards, a taxi driver and a life coach, for example.

My uncle told us he thought we were crazy when he heard we were going to do the Camino, and that he didn´t think we would make it. Well, it´s true we are crazy but we did make it! And it was AMAZING!