Before I went to bed last night I found out that the doors of the hostel wouldn't be open till 6am, I'd heard of this happening but hadn't experienced it yet so I knew I wouldn't be able leave as early as usual. On the upside though it meant I got to sleep a little longer so that was nice, I got up and got ready and ate before I left, ended up setting of around 6:20am. It was still dark outside but plenty of people were leaving around the same time which was odd for me but I got over it lol

As I walked around I could here someone approaching quite fast behind me, when they said 'hola' we both stopped as the voice sounded familiar. It was a German guy I'd met a couple of times in the trek so we ended up walking about 8.5km together till we reached Arzúa which is where I decided to stop for a coffee and a custard donut(the donut wasn't planned it just happened??) it was nice to refuel though.

As I left to walk out of the city there were just so many people around. They were everywhere, it was so busy I wasn't used to it all but I just had to get on with it and except that that's how it would be for the next few days. The morning passed very quickly, all I could think about was the fact that tomorrow I would be in Santiago(even typing it now I'm still in shock that it's so close!) it's just all mixed emotions it's quite hard to explain.I guess it's like anything tho you just get into a daily habit and it becomes the norm, which is how it's been for me for the last 24days. Having said all that I am so excited to walk into Santiago tomorrow and just sit there and look at the cathedral and soak it all up. I don't know how I'm going to react or feel but I know it will be an amazing experience as the whole Camino has been.

I decided to stop and have a juice in Santa Irene about 3.5km outside of where I'd be stopping for the day it was only just after 11am so I ordered some nibbles and chatted to my friend Cat for a little bit. Then the two German guys ended up sitting with me and having a drink before we all headed off again. We only walked together for a few minutes as I waned to enjoy the last few kilometres on my own and I was so glad I did as it was so peaceful.

I'd organised to meet all the guys at a certain hostel in Pedrouzo so I got there around 12:30 and the lady was looking at me like I had ten heads, she had either messed up the booking of had mistaken the name when it was booked under. So I just sat and waited for the others to arrive but I'd reserved another 5 beds just incase. Luckily though they arrived about an hour later and the lady did have the booking but it was for 7 people as they had Picked up another 3 people along the way. We all got settled and had showers and headed upstairs to chill out. It didn't take long till we were all talking about food, but because of where we were staying there was a lot of people and only a small kitchen so they said we should try cook early. It was now about 4pm and I was starving and had my heart set on pizza as I'd seen a pizzeria on the way into town. So they were all heading off to the supermarket to get food to cook so i just told them i needed to eat some thing now but I'll eat dinner with them also ????

The pizza was excellent, I just sat and thought about everything up till that point on the Camino, it was so relaxing to just sit and watch other pilgrims arrive into the town. I headed back up the hostel and to my delight they hadn't started to cook yet as I was so full and couldn't possibly have eaten again at that point. So we all had a few wines and then started cooking around 6:30, the conversation some how turned very quickly to 'why don't we all starting walking to Santiago tonight and beat the crowds' I mean it seemed like a great idea and everyone had good and bad points about doing it or not. I was considering it myself and thought it would be an amazing experience, but as I got up to wash I knew my mind had already been made up and I was just going to leave early in the morning as always and besides I didn't want to walk it all in the dark and miss out on what if been looking forward to. It didn't take long till everyone came to their senses and realised it would be best to just leave in the morning as we had all planed.

We continued having a good laugh and just chatting for ages after, but everyone was getting tired and we were all running high on different emotions. As I packed my bag and dressed my feet for the morning I didn't know how i felt, tomorrow I would walk into Santiago.

*768.00km down * 22.8km to Santiago