The Last 100
Once you’re past O Cebreiro and, on top of the Alto do Poio, celebrated the last massive incline with a cup of beer and a smoke, you’ll be entering the “Last 100.” Technically, they start after Sarria, but many pilgrims take the train to either Sarria or Triacastela to walk from there.
From here, stages become rather monotonously prescriptive: Sarria to Portomarin, Portomarin to Palas del Rei, Palas del Rei to Arzúa, Arzúa to Lavacolla or Santiago, Lavacolla to Santiago. Or, if you’re a weekend pilgrim, you’ll probably walk 35 kilometer for three days, skip Portomarin and Lavacolla.
A number of things will happen on those last 100:
- The number of pilgrims will go up tremendously. Those aren’t the sternly spiritual faced ones from earlier stages, they’ll be whole school years walking together and singing and laughing. Groups of friends partying until 5am, sleeping for an hour under the stars, and going back to walking for the day to reach the next party. In short: this ain’t your Camino, but it is a Camino they’re waking. Judge not, lest you’ll be judged (Matthew 7:1-2 for the religious).
- Crime goes up. Wherever there are 200’000+ people passing through, pickpockets, con people, thieves, and robbers are not that far. It’s fertile picking, between drunk Gen Z groups and exhausted Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port ones. Watch your belongings. Be careful. Distrust strangers.
- Good rooms are fought for. If you’re not in the first 150 pilgrims arriving at whatever stage you are doing, you’ll be taking less than stellar rooms. No one has to sleep outside, a vibrant pilgrimage-tourism industry ensures it, but the later you arrive the shittier and more expensive the accommodation.
- Whiners on every corner. People complaining about the parties, the singing, crying that “Jesus did not walk from Sarria” (no shit, Sherlock, he also didn’t walk from SjPdP and for sure would not have flown Lufthansa if he had), and more. Your Camino challenge is now to ignore the singing, the parties, and the whining. Good luck, though you should be a trained “ignorer” after 25 days on the Camino by now.
For me, those last 100 are a nostalgic and not very joyful time. Santiago de Compostela isn’t my final destination, meaning I have another six to ten days of Camino ahead of me, but it’s the end of many of the great things that make the Way so special to me: the solitude, the friendships, the Meseta and its many amazing effects on a person’s mind and soul.