A very exciting day, about lunch time I reached the Camino road marker showing exactly 100KM left to reach the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. It has never been about the destination but rather the journey. It was very emotional to reflect I have done roughly 7/8th of the trip. Now only four days of walking left.
It was a beautiful day for hiking, 25 KM, although temperatures were at 25/26C, we had a nice breeze and much of the path was in forests with protection from the sun. Again, beautiful Galician scenery and Portomarin is very nice place to spend the evening. Lots of restaurants and cafes.
Early in the trip I met Tanya from Colorado, a Marketing professional. We kept running into each other for the majority of trip. It turns out her husband Jim us a CEO and a member of a Vistage group (Vistage us the name of the TEC program in the US). As was always the plan, he flew yesterday to meet up with Tanya so that they can do the last 100KM together, and today I also ran into them and had nice stretch of walking together. You just never know who you may meet here and what connection you may have. So was nice to share some Vistage/TEC group comparisons.
Sarria, the city I started today from is the starting point to a very big % of all pilgrims because it sits at 114Km from Santiago and the Catholic Church requirement to receive a Compostela certificate proving you completed the Camino makes many people start there. So all of a sudden a much busier Camino. Many of them come in groups both Spanish and foreign, South Korea in particular.. it struck me very funny to see all these newly minted pilgrims start today with brand new and clean backpacks, shoes, neat clothing etc. then you see the ones like me that have been walking for over a month with worn out/muddy shoes, unshaven, dusty backpacks and wet laundry hanging from the packs so they dry in the sun. One of the photos below us of a Korean lady in fashionable Camino clothing, I am sure she was protecting herself from the strong sun, thus gloves etc.
