Sarria

Tuesday, June 24
We made it into Sarria today. Sarria is just over 100 kilometers from Santiago, the minimum distance one needs to walk to receive their certificate, a Compostella, for making it to Santiago. It is also about a 5 day walk so many people who only have a week start here. So there are a lot of pilgrims in town, but the town is generally prepared for, actually depends on all these pilgrims. We walked into town at 11:45 and saw that there was a noon Mass, and decided to stay, but there seemed to be a larger than usual crowd, and we remembered that today is the feast of The Birth of John the Baptist - the towns patron saint. Soon a band came marching down the street with the towns VIPs, more and more people showed up until there was barely standing room in the small church. So that was nice. After Mass there was of course, the procession with the statue of John the Baptist on a big wheeled platform through the streets. We are happy to have caught some of the celebration.
Fr Paul's leg is getting better, though he's still walking slowly and carefully. We stopped after about 8 miles to make this a short day and take some time to rest. Tomorrow we'll see how far we can get with a full days walking.