Santiago at last
Posted on July 27, 2010 with 17 commentsI'm in Santiago and finally using a computer at the public library.
For days in Galicia the road goes through little villages with a population of less than twenty. Internet is not available and the few albergues that did have access were charging too much for too little time on very slow machines.
I made it here for the big festival and saw the fireworks and the parades.
Today I will get my compostella which is a certificate of completion of the pilgrimage. This past weekend the line for compostellas was a four hour wait. I'm lucky to have the time to do it today when the whole city is calmer. The King and Queen of Spain were here for the fireworks and the mass on Sunday and not only were the crowds intense the security was what you would expect. I was still pulling my harp through all this and the police kept rerouting me.
I was in the newspaper La Voz de Galicia on the 16th of July and that gave me a lot of goodwill as I walked. Also, a camera crew from a television show called Informe Semanal did a piece on me as I was walking. The program aired this past weekend and gave me my fifteen minutes of fame as I wandered Santiago. I’m hoping someone can find it online. At first I could not figure out why people were stopping me and saying such nice things and knowing my story and then some pilgrims told me they had seen me on TV. The web for the show is www.informesemanal@rtve.es and here's a link so you can watch the video.
The next stage of the walk is to Finnestere which I will do in a few days and while I am recouperating from the walk to Santiago I'll update you on the camino from Villasirga.