Three days from destination!

[CaminoDebrita]

Three days from destination! My walking companion and I are currently at Ventas de Naron, in stage 30 of the Brierley guide! While we haven't really used the guide as a definitive destination guide for several days now, we are using it at this point. We are setting the goal every day to just get to the end of the stage, and enjoy the walk.

As we ran into each other, after several different meeting times, at the top of Ocebreiro, we have kind of figured out that we are fated to walk into Santiago together. We are an unlikely partnership. She is 17; I am 56. However, she is happy to go at my slow pace, and I am happy to laugh at her when she makes great jokes! She is a real ray of sunshine.

We have met so many different people along the way, and are constantly surrounded by familiar people. We are looking forward to several days of sunshine. I really think we deserve it, as we walked for several days in cold, driving rain. Interestingly, we kept finding places with fireplaces, and we would take off our ponchos and people would hang them up for us so that they could dry out a bit. We discovered a lot of kindness along the way, warching older man sitting together and eating meat and cheese, while drinking their wine and beer. It has been quite an amazing last couple of weeks.

So many stories, so many kindnesses, so many gracious people. I really thought for a while that I could never, ever do this again. Now, I am looking at the April and May and started to plan but just a bit! Now that I have done this walk, I know which parts I like, and which parts I could maybe miss! I am proud to say that I have walked the entire way, I have carried my pack the entire way. I have given as much as I have received, and I think that is the best that any of us can do.

So looking forward to walking into Santiago, and wishing you all the very best. Boy, have I learned a lot.

Camino love--

Debra

 

[wayfarer]

Well done Deb, enjoy these last few days.
Buen Camino.

 

[Al the optimist]

Lovely post Debs. Glad the spirit has grabbed you. Enjoy your arrival as much as your journey. May the inner celebration live within you forever.

 

[NualaOC]

Super post Debra, well done. I hope that you enjoy the next few days and that your arrival in Santiago is a special experience. Buen Camino.

 

[Sailor]

Inspiring. Your teenager friend is lucky, she found a camino mom. Que la luz de Dios alumbre su camino, y que alumbre el camino de su joven amiga tambien.

 

[Former member 42123]

Three days from destination! My walking companion and I are currently at Ventas de Naron, in stage 30 of the Brierley guide! While we haven't really used the guide as a definitive destination guide for several days now, we are using it at this point. We are setting the goal every day to just get to the end of the stage, and enjoy the walk.

As we ran into each other, after several different meeting times, at the top of Ocebreiro, we have kind of figured out that we are fated to walk into Santiago together. We are an unlikely partnership. She is 17; I am 56. However, she is happy to go at my slow pace, and I am happy to laugh at her when she makes great jokes! She is a real ray of sunshine.

We have met so many different people along the way, and are constantly surrounded by familiar people. We are looking forward to several days of sunshine. I really think we deserve it, as we walked for several days in cold, driving rain. Interestingly, we kept finding places with fireplaces, and we would take off our ponchos and people would hang them up for us so that they could dry out a bit. We discovered a lot of kindness along the way, warching older man sitting together and eating meat and cheese, while drinking their wine and beer. It has been quite an amazing last couple of weeks.

So many stories, so many kindnesses, so many gracious people. I really thought for a while that I could never, ever do this again. Now, I am looking at the April and May and started to plan but just a bit! Now that I have done this walk, I know which parts I like, and which parts I could maybe miss! I am proud to say that I have walked the entire way, I have carried my pack the entire way. I have given as much as I have received, and I think that is the best that any of us can do.

So looking forward to walking into Santiago, and wishing you all the very best. Boy, have I learned a lot.

Camino love--

Debra

What a lovely post.II am so pleased for you.Best wishes for the rest of your Camino.God Bless.

 

[grayland]

Many of us find the entrance into the square in front of the Cathedral to be a great sense of accomplishment ...followed by a sense of loss that the adventure was over.

Be sure to get contact information from all of your Camino friends.

 

[VNwalking]

Such a beautiful post!
Well...I'm not at all surprised that this journey is as rich as it has been for you, Deb--nor that you're already incubating plans for a 'next time'.

I have given as much as I have received, and I think that is the best that any of us can do.

If the rest of the world did this...well...it would look totally different. What a wonderful, simple, and yet very profound thing to learn from the Camino, for us all.

May you have some sunshine in the next days and a beautiful time in Santiago, when you arrive (how great it would be to trade stories at the Tertulia; maybe next time?).

 

[CaminoDebrita]

Many of us find the entrance into the square in front of the Cathedral to be a great sense of accomplishment ...followed by a sense of loss that the adventure was over.

Be sure to get contact information from all of your Camino friends.

Many of them are now my friends on Facebook, and some of them I have asked to join this form, including my very marvelous friend Simon.

 

[GettingThere]

Wonderful, Debra! What a lovely post, beautifully put. Do enjoy your last few days, and your arrival in Santiago. I remember being surprised at how emotional that last day was for me (couldn't work out why I felt so irritable, till we arrived at the cathedral and the tears started!!)

You so deserve some sunshine for the last few days - but whatever the weather, buen almost-finished camino!!

 

[Ekelund]

Thank you for sharing your experience with the Forum, it is a lovely post. I hope you will enjoy the last days before entering Santiago, it is a great moment when you arrive on the square in front of the cathedral. And it is not the end of your Camino.

 

[julia-t]

Oh thank you for posting - I had been wondering how you were getting along. Such a lovely lyrical description, and I'm happy for you to be having such a wonderful experience. Congratulations, enjoy your final few days and the arrival into Santiago.
Buen Camino!

 

[jdpiguet]

Well done Debra!
Enjoy the remaining time!

Buen Camino,
Jacques-D.

 

[naplesdon]

Congratulations on "making" it! Tears of joy will be part of your experience walking onto the plaza, guaranteed.

 

[fraluchi]

Welcome to Santiago, and maybe asking yourself what made you do this all! Solamente El de arriba sabe porqué. Enjoy that special moment!

 

[Kanga]

As I walk into that square it always overcomes me; what an accomplishment. A truly great accomplishment. It fills me with gratitude. Only you will understand the depths of that Deb. Congratulations.

 

[VNwalking]

This year for me the tears happened quite unexpectedly not at the Plaza, but at the park on the edge of the city after crossing the motorway--the one with the big sculpture. It was a huge 'gratitude attack,' with an added dose of awe...I had actually arrived, after all that walking, step by step. It wasn't my first Camino and along the way I hadn't ever felt the least doubt about being able to walk the distance, so the reaction was a big surprise. But looking back now . . . it is amazing, what we can do, all of us . . .

 

[William Garza]

Well Done
Trite words no?
For having come..so far
Seen so much
Doing..doing..done....

The Journey..
NEVER ends.
You have found something of and within yourself.

Your set free.

Forevermore
Your Mind,your body, your Soul
Will know True Freedom.
No matter what happens hereafter
You have known Freedom
And that will never leave you,

You are among the Blessed now
All the Pilgrims past
Present
Here
And gone have touched these colors of the Soul
And are Marked.indelibly.

No, the footsteps may stop
The bag put aside
Breath caught

But inside
Inside where it counts
You are free.

And that is the Siren Singing
That Hiraeth
That Fado..you hear deep in the deepness of nite

Will forever call to you.

Be Ever so Blessed Pilgrim on the way

 

[Christian Hiriart]

Congrats on a great accomplishment, Santiago is just around the corner.

Chris

 

[Seabird]

Utreya! Many congratulations.

 

[Al the optimist]

So tomorrow's the big day then? I envy you (that's it I've already sinned today and it's not yet 10am) Enjoy your bitter sweet moment. It always makes me feel lost and in limbo. I love it and hate it finishing. Anyway - best wishes for tomorrow. Now you will be doomed for thinking "This time last.... I was in ...." almost every day of your life.