July 15

July 15
San Xulian to Arzua 25.4km
Again we woke to a very cool morning, great for hiking. We didn´t get away until 6:45 in the middle of a stream of pilgrims. Once you get within 100km of Santiago the number of pilgrims grows exponentially, because you can get your compostella just for completing the last 100km. This also puts pressure on the albergues which fill up very quickly or get in early. Instead, we have access to a phone from one of the  pilgrims we are traveling with. Our little group is made up of Christine, Lisa, Andrew, Lorie and I. We´ve learned that you are able to make reservations at some albergues. This takes the worry out of whether we have a place to stay or not at the end of our day.
Today was a little longer than we wanted after the 28km day yesterday, but even though our feet hurt we were where we wanted to be as we plan our next few days before we reach Santiago. With all the people we saw today, most were new, but we still ran into many of the people we have been traveling with off and on for the past month. We always give out a big cheer and a hola when you see familiar faces. We were able to catch up on things with a girl named Monica from Czechslovakia who we lost track of for the last several days. Thats so common here on the camino. You visit awhile and then move on at your own pace or stop at a café and then you are on your own again until you run into someone else. After a month, you really do have quite a large camino family.
We are 25 miles away from Santiago. Here is our plan: Hike 19km tomorrow to Arco O Pino, then 15km to Monte del Gozo on Wednesday leaving us with 5km to Santiago on Thursday. This gets us into Santiago fresh in the morning on Thursday so we will be able to see the sites and complete our pilgrim business to complete our camino. Increíble!!!  We can´t tell you the joy, and strong emotion that the pilgrims are experiencing at this point.  It´s truly amazing.  We all feel lifted up.
We had an unexpected pilgrim´s mass today, when a priest stepped out of a local parish and literally grabbed my hand, and then others, and dragged us into church.  Our German friend Gunther sang a beautiful solo for us while we were there.  It was worth the pause.  (p.s. Gunther´s companion Haike is one of the highlights of the camino.  She´s a hilarious storyteller and has a perpetual twinkle in her eye and perpetual joy.  Today she said, ´´yesterday we met Jesus on the camino.  We hike 5 extra km. to see a special church and when we got there it was closed.  Along came the man in charge of opening it up, although it was two hours early, he opened and gave us a personal tour.  As we were leaving he introduced us.  He said, I am Jesus.  That, of course, was his name, in Spanish.
As we hit town today we ran into a festival.  There was a parade with the big papier mache figures and a bagpipe band.  Galicia, as we´ve mentioned is celtic in heritage.  It was fun to be part of the festival.
This is the last big town before Santiago.  Wow!  Buen Camino.