Today should have been a lot easier. Yesterday's long hard push to get into town as quickly as I could without Dad slowing me down finally took its toll on my legs.
It was bound to happen sooner or later, but my legs are quickly becoming much harder to move. In the evening they begin to seize up and the mornings I can't move without making old man noises.
Leaving behind the impressive river, I cycled up and out of town. I realise I've begun to become really irritated by humanities need to build towns next to water sources. This invariably means they're placed at the bottom of hills, which in turn means I always spend the first part of the day cycling up a stupid hill. Ergh, damn human logic.
The first hour of this morning's ride was also a real slog. I left Dad to go and get a taxi but it took at least an hour before my legs stop aching. Warming them up for the day's ride has become harder and harder.
Once I get going I begin to feel so much better. At this stage of the journey Spain's hills have returned to the undulating countryside of before.
This makes riding a lot easier, obviously, but it also means there's a lot less time to recover on the downhill sections. I remember them; they were lovely.
Today's ride became just a bit mundane. A 'just get there' sort of day. Not that the scenery itself wasn't lovely and the ride itself pleasant enough. It was more a bit nothing.
One thing is for sure though, the closer we get to Santiago the more walkers there are on the paths. This is a nice thing, more people to say hello to, but my goodness, I wish they would just get out of my way.
It can really slow your progress down. Big groups of walkers will stroll in lines down the path completing block the way. You approach behind them slowly, making sure you give plenty of time and space for them to act by ringing the bell and then, when they still don't know you're there, shouting at them. It's at this point that they all scatter in different directions like frightened stupid hens still ensuring that there's no clear path through them.
Now they all turn around and look at you angrily because you've interrupted their conversation and scared them half to death. This gets old very quickly when you have to go through the entire arduous process every 100 yards or so.
But, it's all part of being on the ride and the annoyance is quickly forgotten. Especially once I arrived at the trip's penultimate hotel.
A short ride outside of town and nestled snugly out of the way, with stunning views of the countryside, the newly converted farm houses of Pazo Santa Maria.
It was exactly what was needed and a long rest (hence a few days between the last few posts) was long overdue.
Onto the last day and in Camino de Santiago!
Arzua to Santiago de Compostela
It's the last day and Dad has mustered up enough strength to have a go at getting back on the bike. It should be easy enough. This is the shortest ride of the entire trip and at the end we'll finally be in Santiago.
Today was always going to be a bit of a slow day and there's nothing wrong with that. After the mountains and valleys of the last few days, heading into Santiago at an even pace felt lovely. It was wise to take things slowly, given Dad's back, but even if we wanted to pick up the pace, the throngs of walkers all doing the last leg of the journey continually slowed us down.
It wasn't the nicest part of the ride. Heading into any large town you're bound to see some of its industry and ruins on the outskirts. Not to mention the odd suburb, but the Camino path, to its credit, did a lot to avoid most of these areas and we were mostly treated to the small farms and villages that we had become used to.
A few hills still managed to get in our way but overall this was a good day to be on the bikes and we thoroughly enjoyed the last few hours with them. And heading into the town itself, once we'd gotten through the new parts of town, Santiago quickly became a beautiful maze of gothic churches and ancient alleyways.
We had to dismount the bikes for the last leg of the journey and getting lost here was almost inevitable. We lost sight of our friendly yellow arrows somewhere in the new town's shopping district and my plan of just heading towards the largest steeple came a cropper when we accidentally followed a large party of people into the grounds of church and were promptly locked in.
It just looked like part of the town and a road around the building blocking our way.
We had to backtrack and figure out a way of opening the large wooden automatic doors before continuing on, but we were close to the end.
In fact, it was just round the next corner and before we knew it we were in the enormous square at the centre of Santiago looking at some stunning old buildings.
Finally.
Done. Time to rest and have a beer.
And that's the trip. A few (really) tough days riding and we made it to one of northern Spain's most beautiful cities. Not bad going really. Sure, the ride was sometimes gruelling, but it never stopped being fun. Unless you count the time my pedal fell off. That wasn't fun.
Macs Adventures has been great and they offer a ton of holidays, too. Some as hard as this and others a bit easier. We might give it a while before we sign up to something quite this hard again. But that certainly doesn't mean we won't.
For now, I'm going to rest my legs. On Monday I've got to cycle to work!
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