Well, my dear reader, we left Padrón before the sun was fully awake, hoping to outpace the heat. The smoke of distant wildfires lingered faintly in the air — a reminder that even in beauty there are sorrows. Our task was clear: 27 kilometres stood between us and the great city of Santiago. Having learned from yesterday’s little navigational… “creative detour,” I was meticulous about asking directions. This time I wanted no adventures that involved climbing unnecessary mountains just for the scenery.
The Dossier had already warned me we would be climbing almost 1,500 feet today. That seemed quite enough exercise for one’s spiritual formation. The first 10 kilometres passed quickly, and before long we arrived in Parada de Francos. David and I had made a pact not to take a single photo until we reached a milestone marker in the single digits. Eventually, the road curved and there it was: Km 9.976. Naturally, we had our photo taken. It turned out to be something of a social hotspot—David soon found himself conscripted as the official photographer for every pilgrim within a hundred yards.
The day became a reunion tour. We bumped into so many friends made along the way: the “You’re the guy!” fellow who greeted David as though he were an old rugby mate; our delightful young friends from Rome; the couple from Charlotte; the gentleman from Barcelona who insisted on removing David’s hat to confirm his identity by the state of his baldness; two German ladies from our earlier walk into Padrón; and the entire Irish contingent, whose laughter could be heard long before we saw them.
The heat grew fierce, and soon we adopted a spiritual discipline of “bench discernment” — every wooden plank or stone slab that looked remotely sit-able was received as a sign from the Lord to pause and rest. This worked well until David became uncharacteristically unwilling to stop at all. His focus sharpened, his pace quickened, and I realised the truth: he wanted to finish.
So I reached into my pastoral toolkit and deployed the magic words:
“David… we need to find a place where we can get a nice cold beer.”
His head lifted; he sniffed the air like a bloodhound on the trail. For a moment he was tempted by a burger joint, but then his eyes fixed on a Bar-Café up the street. We were barely a kilometre from our hotel, but the Spirit was clearly moving—so we stopped. I will testify before any court in the land that it was the finest, coldest beer I have ever tasted.
After showers and a brief resurrection of energy, we ventured out for dinner. At a place charmingly called Paris, we ordered Caldo de Mariscos and a grilled seafood platter for two. The caldo arrived first—rich, fragrant, and utterly filling. My appetite, already diminished by the heat, politely excused itself and went to bed early. David, bless him, soldiered on and consumed about 90% of the seafood platter without complaint or visible injury.
We returned to our room in the soft evening air, exhausted but content. David slipped into a seafood-induced coma, and I wasn’t far behind.
Tomorrow, dear reader, we will walk the last short distance to the Cathedral, receive our Compostela, and join the great cloud of witnesses in the Pilgrim’s Mass. It will be a day of thanksgiving—another step, and perhaps the most important, in the journey God has been walking with us all along.
