Day 31 - The finish line

After almost two weeks of walking it was about to finish - by this stage the 20km left seemed like a stroll in the park, though there were still some steep climbs. There were plenty of people on the route but everyone seemed quieter and more subdued. Lots more eucalyptus forest, and we passed a tree with photos of random people including Michael Jackson, but even stranger was that there was a Collingwood scarf hanging next to the pic - it seems there are some things you just can't escape. 

The outskirts of Santiago were quite urbanised, at one point walking around the edge of the airport, and in case we didn't quite realise where we were we had three Ryanair planes fly right over our heads in the space of about five minutes. We also noticed a lot more souvenir related shops ... there hadn't been that much along the way, but Santiago was the Camino souvenir hotspot.

The closer we got to Santiago the number of walkers grew, many of them we had never seen before, where had they all come from? We followed the signs and found ourselves in front of the Cathedral, where there were people just sitting on the cobblestones. Unlike many of the other plazas with cathedrals we had seen the square was devoid of shops and cafes. We had presumed that when we finally arrived that the end point would be obvious, but there was no finish line, no fanfare ... just a giant cathedral, lots of stick walkers.... and us.

We wandered aimlessly for a while and eventually found ourselves heading for the pilgrim check in point so that we could collect our Compostela (like a certificate of completion). As we approached we were met by a guy we'd seen a couple of times before, he was known as "Father John", and he seemed to have positioned himself at the closest bar to the pilgrim's office to greet everyone as they arrive. We are actually a little suspicious and have wondered if he is a priest, as we had only ever seen him at bars with a drink in his hand.

The pilgrim's office gives out tickets with a number so you can come back later for your compostela, but when we arrived we were told that there were no more tickets for the day and that they would reopen at 8am tomorrow. A bit of an anticlimax, we walked all this way and never had a sleep in and we have to get up early tomorrow?

Our found our Airbnb apartment which was very close to the action with a view of pilgrims arriving, collected our luggage from the post office, started our two weeks worth of washing, went shopping for dinner and then finally put our feet up ... after over 310km of walking in 13 days.