John Brier Brierley’s guidebook to the Camino Frances warns that those entering the square of the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela will feel a variety of emotions on a scale from elated to depressed. When I arrived at the end of the Camino on Thursday I couldn’t really put myself anywhere on that scale. We arrived in time for mass but instead found ourselves just taking off our packs and sitting on the ground in the center of the cathedral. I wanted to be the kind of person who was overcome with emotion and fell to her knees, or even the person who wiped away a single stoic tear. Instead I just wondered how we were going find the apartment Tracie booked for us; I just wanted to know where I could take off my backpack and sleep. I couldn’t bring myself to feel much of anything at all.

While in Santiago I wasn’t really the ideal pilgrim. I got my Compostela and put it in a protective little tube, but I didn’t go to mass or hug Santiago or even enter the Cathedral. I barely looked at it. I kept telling myself I would go to the next mass, would see the statue of Santiago later that night, but I avoided it for two days. I couldn’t big myself to do any end-of-pilgrimage activities because my pilgrimage didn’t really feel over. I had been planning to go to Porto with a small group of people but suddenly it didn’t feel like an option; I had to keep walking. So the next morning I woke up early and laced up my boots, leaving before I had a chance to change my mind. Part of my really wanted to go to Porto and sit in cafés and wear normal clothes, but something more insistent was telling me I wasn’t done yet. I hadn’t had my big emotional ‘The Way’-esque breakthrough yet. Time to go to Finisterre.

The first day was beautiful despite intermittent rain; the route is green and surrounded by woods and stone ruins covered in moss and vines. Spent the night in albergue where I didn’t recognize a soul, which was more depressing than the impending storms. Being alone on the road is easy, being alone at night is hard. I had a long conversation with a German man entirely in Spanish because it was easier for him to understand than English. The next day again I walked alone, and after 33 kilometers on asphalt roads in rain I limped gratefully into the first albergue in Olveiroa. I planned to get to Finisterra the next day. 31 kilometers was a long day but I had already walked many longer ones. But on the third day, after just 15 kilometers, I was reduced to a hobbling wreck. The tendon on the front of my right ankle hurt so badly with every step that I was biting the inside of my cheek to distract form the pain. This thing that had never bothered me before was suddenly so bad I could barely walk.

Upon approaching Cee, a city just about halfway between Olveiroa and Finisterra, I considered stopping early because of the pain–something I have never done before on the Camino. Stopping at 11:30 was so difficult I actually started limping toward the Camino again, but immediately ran into a man I had met the night before, Jens, who encouraged me to stop with him in the next town. I wanted to say no, but as we walked toward the door of the albergue I was on the verge of tears with pain. I had walked eight hundred kilometers, across the entire country of Spain. I had reached Santiago de Compostela in good health, and now for so,3 reason everything was falling to shit. Why right now? Why could I not just make it the last 14 kilometers to the ocean?

Sitting in my albergue there are a few people I recognize, friends of Brian. One of them sighs and says to me, “I don’t know, my brain is just kind of in pieces right now.” Another looks at her blistered feet, which had been completely intact in Santiago and developed blisters only in the last two days. A third realizes he’s lost some clothing and laments, “Ugh, everything is falling apart!” I echo the sentiment. It seems like everyone who continues on this route is encountering hardships they didn’t really expect to have to face after a month of walking. One boy looks at the girl sitting across the room wistfully. They fell in love on the Camino and the walk to Finisterre is likely the last time they will ever spend together. The relationships people have formed are ending, their bodies are starting to weaken, and they’re losing the stoicism  and mental fortitude that got them to Santiago.

Maybe that’s the beauty of the walk to Finisterre. We’re all here because we weren’t ready to stop in Santiago. We didn’t get enough to feel satisfied and go home. We’re still chasing that last little bit of change, and the Camino provides. I didn’t get what I needed after 800 kilometers so the Camino kicked it up a notch. Maybe what I needed to was a little more hardship. Maybe that will be what it takes to convince me I’m finished.

Tracie looks up from her cell phone and laughs, turning the heads of everyone still sitting in our room in O Pedruouzo.

“The guy from our airbnb messaged me and his translation is really weird.” She reads a few sentences about details and number of occupants and then drops the last sentence, “The city is on party.”

We all smirk and laugh. “What did he mean? Is he trying to say is has a nice nightlife or something?”

“I don’t know, it just says ‘The city is on party.’

The next day is an all out balls-to-the wall drag race to Santiago, dodging crowds and heading straight for the cahedral. We heard they might swing the botofumero today so we are determined to make it to mass. Entering the city we lose Tracie and Michele somehwere. I pass a little girl running down the street holding a mickey mouse balloon. Huh. That’s odd. Don’t have enough time to care, gotta get to the cathedral. Another balloon…okay. A guy playing the guitar…a music stage being set up…crowds of people in every alley. The  some people inform us that today is a holiday; the feast of the ascension, sort of a thing for Catholic people. Neat fun fact, explains the crowds and the botofumero.

But it’s not until after dinner that I fully understand what the hell is up. We walk through the streets, following a line of neon light banners to a huge, loud, crazy, cotton-candy-smelling carnival. There are rides nauseating enough to make preteens embarrass themselves in front of their crushes, stands selling every imaginable form of sugar, and a ferris wheel going way too fast. And I’m allowed to dictate that; I’m from Chicago so I am the authority on ferris wheels in this particular city. And this one is going to fast there is a man screaming his lungs out and covering his mouth, presumably to keep the vomit in. Ferris wheels should be the most boring ride in the park but this one breaks all the rules. The rides are emblazoned with every single copyrighted character the artists could think up, but nobody gives a damn. They’re far too busy devouring coca cola flavored cotton candy, spun into clouds so huge they make me want to grab my rain pants.

We look at each other and someone finally says, “The city is on party.”