We decided to quit walking on October 29th. The temperature continued to fall and me being the fair weather outdoors woman that I am decided that we were not equipped to continue. Rob deferred to me because he was only still there for me and would have left from the beginning as he likes to point out. We only had 2 days left before our planned departure from the Camino anyway. Leaving early was a bitter disappointment but in the long run we did not regret it. The weather did only get worse and further up the Camino they received a couple of inches of snow.

We made it to Estella and spent the night. The next morning we caught a bus toward Madrid. We did not consider that we could have gone to Pamplona and caught a train. I guess that is for the next time. It took 6 hours to get to Madrid and upon arrival we had no idea where to go. We skulked around the bus station for an hour trying to figure out our destination and then made our way to the city center, near the museums.

Thank God for the metro! We took the first hotel we found on our return to street level, it was quite nice, and very near the front of the party district. We checked in, dropped our packs and went for food. After spending 2 weeks traveling we knew that meals were always an adventure because of our poor language skills. We chose to skip the fun and grabbed a bucket of chicken from KFC and went back to our room armed with chicken and a bottle of wine.

We spent another day in Madrid. Then spent 2 days at the airport trying to catch a stand-by flight home. Again, thank God for the Metro! We were not the only people attempting the stand-by from Madrid. We learned a great lesson. Always have return tickets from Spain.

So at last we made it home. Weary and sore to be sure, but time heals the body as well as the mind. We have been caught up in the allure of the Camino de Santiago. And we will go back.