We enjoyed a well deserved sleep in this morning, then after checking in for tomorrow’s flight to Madrid we headed out to obtain our Compostelas!
The shop windows were very distracting, not clothes or tourist items, but food! The sandwiches overflowing with meat and the Torreznos de Soria (thick cut pork belly strips fried slowly in oil) made our mouths water. We didn’t stop though as we were on a mission to get our certificates showing we had walked the Camino Portugues.
On our way there we ran into our Kiwi friends, Justine and Nicolette who we’d had started the Camino with. They didn’t have a rest day in Pontevedra so we weren’t sure we’d see them again, it was a great reunion!
They’ve got the Compostela system down to a science, a good thing as thousands of pilgrims come through each day. I think it took less than 10 minutes to have our passports examined and to receive the personalized Compostela in Latin and another certificate in Spanish that shows when we started which Camino we walked (there are 5 different ones) and how far we travelled. Wow!!!
Having completed our main mission of the day we headed to the cathedral for a closer look around. Theresa opted to line up to see St James’s tomb and give his statue a hug from behind. She saw several people having confession in a variety of languages. Several times there were calls for silence and shushing noises over the loud speakers. It’s hard to be quiet when you’ve just accomplished an amazing feat!
In the afternoon we walked to Alameda Park and had our photo taken with ‘the two Marias’ – sisters who were persecuted for their left leaning views during the Spanish Civil War. They would dress up in flamboyant outfits and walk around the park at 2pm each day. We hung out with them later in the afternoon in our more drab outfits.
The views of the cathedral from the park were fantastic and we even saw a rainbow! In fact we saw two rainbows today, the other one about 1/2 hour later on our way up to the cultural center, after we got completely soaked by a sudden rainstorm! Luckily we dried out quickly.
We checked out an interesting exhibit about Pacific cultures. The cultural center’s architecture was quite impressive.
