23. Day 19 - and so to Santiago

We woke up to the sound of rain lashing down so groaned and dragged ourselves out of bed. Fortunately by the time we had had breakfast, the rain had cleared - well sort of. So off we went with only 20k to ride, mostly downhill we thought, and expected to get to Santiago in 3 hours max. But of course we had not reckoned with the vagaries of The Camino. Our first 4k was spent crawling uphill and then the rain set in as the hills continued to roll out in front of us. We had a couple of coffee stops and chatted with many walkers who were wearing maximum rain gear. After our second coffee stop the rain got worse and when we thought we were only about 5k from Santiago we got off the bikes and joined the walkers because we had said that we would walk the last 5k on The Camino. After about 1k pushing the bike in the rain I checked the map and found we still had 9k to go! So we quickly hopped back on the bikes. When we actually were 5k out we took a loo break in a nice warm pub. Then the heavens really let loose and we didn't need much convincing to decide this was the place for lunch. The rain lifted slightly but we had no alternative than to get back on the bikes. And we rode with the walkers although they were few and far between, (probably all sensibly sheltering in the nearest Alberge), then started walking the final 2k which wound through the city centre toward the Cathedral. As we got closer we entered the old part of the city which gave us a sense of the history of this famous destination. The rain started to lift, the sun made an effort to peek through, and then we rounded the final corner into the massive square in front of St. James' Cathedral. There weren't as many folk around as we expected but those who were there and still arriving just stood looking at each other, hugging, crying and laughing. And we were no exception - it had been a five hour battle to cover 20k's in some of the worst conditions we had encountered. And we had conqured The Camino. Needless to say weren't feeling any pain or rain.
So that's it. Well not quite - we had a huge night out and an exciting day today so here's Rhon to finish what will be our last report.
As Barry has already said, we had not quite anticipated how difficult our last day would be and I had a completely different vision in my head of our final entrance into Santiago. However it did not take away from the emotional impact of our momentous achievement. Tears of joy mixed with sheer relief flowed freely.  I still can't quite take in that we have actually ridden 800 kms across Spain and arrived safely. We have heard some terrible stories of injuries along the way of people that did not make it, including one guy that fell off his bike and broke his hip. Last night we went to a very special Tapas bar that we had pre-booked as it only seats 12 people and the most magnificent meal which was predominantly local seafood dishes. We finished the meal sampling 4 different liqueurs and walked home happy little pilgrims. Today we went to collect our Compostelas and complete our passports - the photo shows the front and back of one passport.
Then we joined the throng at a special service for the pilgrims in the Cathedral and spent the afternoon wandering around bumping into lots of people that we had previously met on the Camino. Sadly we did not meet up with the Barrowman again. - I somehow suspect that he got here before us! We will miss him.         Buen Camino......xx

"The only thing that stands between you and your dream is the will to try and the belief that it is actually possible" - Joel Brown