Madrid to Greenville

As we rode east on Paseo de Prado, we passed a number of monuments that we didn’t get to on our promenade the previous day.

We turned right into a tunnel leading to A-2, a main expressway leaving the city in the direction of the huge airport (MAD) in the Madrid district of Barajas.

The Uber driver dropped us off at the hotel entrance, we walked a few steps with our backpacks to the registration desk at 11:25 and were offered a room upgrade and a room key and went immediately to our best accommodation for Camino2024. It was a great way to begin the transition from the Camino to our life at home.

We had access to an executive lounge which was open all day and offered food and snacks and drinks which we turned into dinner around 6:00.

We thoroughly enjoyed our accommodations from our 11:30 checkin to check-out at 8:30 the next morning, with a great night’s sleep in the comfortable king bed in between.

The Hotel Shuttle delivered us to the T-4 terminal at 8:45 where we checked our packs at the American Airlines reception area (no waiting in line), cleared security without incident and walked to our flight’s boarding area and waited until boarding at 11:40 a.m.

The trip across the Atlantic seemed excessively longer than usual. As it turned out, it was, taking 8:45 minutes in the air with a 120 mph headwind. This made the return trip almost 2hr longer than the trip on the same route with the wind behind us two months earlier going in the opposite direction.

By the time we landed, deplaned, cleared customs, collected and rechecked our packs, cleared TSA and made our way to our connecting flight to Greenville, we were the last to board our flight and as soon as we were buckled in, the plane pulled away from the gate.

The trip to Greenville was too long also. It took 25 minutes to taxi from the gate to the queue line for takeoff, Another 20 minutes for the 7 planes in front of us in the queue to lift off.

The actual flight only took 20 minutes from lift off to touch down in Greenville. Add another 10 minutes for a short taxi and letting us off the plane. Then another 25 minutes to wait in the GSP baggage claim area for our packs to be unloaded from the plane and make their way to Jim’s waiting hands at the turnstile.

Our friend and neighbor, Caren, picked us up at the GSP airport, drove us home and welcomed us home after 60 days of Camino2024.

A quick walk-through our home revealed it was just about the same way we left it. We luckily escaped the damage suffered by so many Hurricane Helene victims in the Carolinas and Virginia.

For our family and friends that shared Camino2024 with us via the blog, we hope you were able to enjoy our account of the experience and understand why we have continued to revisit the Camino de Santiago de Compostela now for the 6th time.

Post Camino2024 reflections will follow.