Boanerges

Early morning on the way out of Melide.

Some charmingly overgrown buildings.

Guarding his misty field.

In addition to running up to greet me, this guy bestowed upon me the purest expression of feline affection: the parting ankle-swipe.

Another Galacian pastoral tableau.

It’s hard to tell without an obvious frame of reference, but these ducks were huge.

In [town name] (home of these ducks), I stayed at albergue named for a nearby landmark called (taking some license here) The Bridge of the Smiths.

On Saturday I had to pick an albergue whose primary virtue was not being too close to Santiago. A lot of this phase was through nice wooded areas.

The route also passed around Santiago’s airport.

I ended up at an albergue with a fairly idyllic back garden.

The idyl was marred somewhat by a local celebration that involved someone covering Highway to Hell at 2 AM. As someone who sleeps poorly even in the absence of cover bands, I was fine, but it was amusing.

And then it was the final day. Also, it started raining pretty aggressively. Here I am in my poncho carrying on my legacy as probably the inventor of the mirror selfie.

Here is a surprisingly lush railway overpass just outside Santiago.

Here are Santiago's city limits.

Naturally, once you’re here you gravitate towards the cathedral.

Here is your boy looking (and feeling) like a drowned rat opposite the cathedral.

It's always charming to see where people remember Michael Ende’s number two novel.

Because I have been getting up too early for this entire trip, my main issue at this point was that the hostel I had booked wasn't going to open for another million years. Consequently, I went and got my compostela to kill time.

I try not to take pictures of individuals, but "Such Camino, much compostela; wow."

I'm sorry.