Camino de Santiago 2.0

23.07.18

From now on, the journey is somehow less fun, the stone with 100km is passed. You are now walking the last 100km needed to receive the Compostela (certificate).

On one hand, it's a mental thing, it's getting closer to the end... but what's happening here on the route is much worse... it's like a race... hundreds of people start here every day...

In the morning, I found a new alternative route where there were no people... with the fog, it was all very mystical...

Often, they don't even have a backpack (or only a very small one), they send huge travel bags by mail and have reservations everywhere... so you have to start very early to get a bed in a hostel...

But now it feels like an annual trip with a bowling club, mixed with school trips, bachelor parties, scout groups, "see and be seen" groups including heavily made-up Barbies... some shoes and backpacks are so new that they are shiny or still have price tags on them... it feels like there's not enough space after hundreds of kilometers of walking...

Sometimes they travel by tourist buses and only walk a short distance to get their two stamps for the credential (pilgrim passport).

The best part is that sometimes they overexert themselves on the first day and then limp into town after me in the evening... but it doesn't matter, they have reservations...

So there's slowly less time for nice photos on the way because anyone who passes you could take a bed away from you... that's why the last kilometers are often a race... not so relaxed anymore...

But I'm clever and learned from 2015, I will stay overnight before or after the typical places, so I can avoid the competition for beds. But today, there are really a lot of people starting, especially youth groups, maybe because it's Monday...

Thanks to the buses, I made it really well today, just two days faster than planned in Portomarin, so I will take a day off and just relax tomorrow...

I was lucky with the bed, three small hostels that I wanted to stay in were full. So I went back to the big one with 130!!! beds in one room, and I got the second-to-last one...