Celebrating Quietly
Santiago
Getting our Compostelas
After arrival in front of the Cathedral we spent some time having photos taken and reciprocating. The way to get the whole cathedral in behind the person is to lie down!
Then we joined the queue for our Compostela. Almost two hours later our Compostelas (one saying in Latin that we have completed the pilgrimage and another indicating how far we walked) safely stored in a tube, we went for a well earned beer.
Farewell Drinks
Most of us walked from St Jean Pied de Port. A group of people who would not normally share a drink together. There are Canadian, American, Australian, Australian/South African, English/South African, French and German.
The Danish mum and daughter joined us later. We ranged in age from 18 to 69 and are from all walks of life. The common thread-that we met along the Camino, walked together or shared a meal or drink together.
Then three of us went to the Franciscan church to get a third certificate offered every 100 years to pilgrims who walked the Camino -this time 800yrs- After St Francis of Assisi walked the Camino.
Celebration Dinner
We ended our day with the usual peregrino meal. But this time it was supplemented by a tapas of caracoles. Since we saw that couple weeks ago collecting snails I have wanted to try them.
They were delicious in a spicy pimiento sauce. As it was ‘our first time’ their camarero gave us instructions on what to do and to ‘cut the end bit off’.
We had pulpo again -this time with potatoes. It was delicious-much better than the first tapas of pulpo.
Next post: Beggars and the Botafumiero