Enjoying Fisterre

Our first night at the Hotel Ancora was the noisest night I´ve spent on the entire Camino but we have now moved to a quiet, cooler back room and all is good. After John left, we headed to the beach to enjoy the sun and the ocean. The fact that no one had beach wear or bathing suits is apparently not a concern for most of the European pilgrims, we retained our Canadian modesty.

Charlotte Jensen, a Danish lady who is now living in Spain and who had just finished her Camino, invited us to join a group who had planned lunch at an amazing and very, very upscale beachside restaurant that specializes in seafood and in particular shellfish. What another stroke of serendipity! This was an eating delight for seafood lovers. Dayton shared the ´owners special´which gave them three platters of different shellfish (scallops with crab, clams, razor clams and a freebie of barnacles), a platter of two types of fish (bass and something else with its head still there), a platter of potatoes and another of salad and a couple of bottles of white wine - all for about €40.00 each.

Last night was equally interesting as we joined Liane and Jürgen, from Düsseldorf, for a walk to another beach where we enjoyed some wine and cheese, the sunset and a fire which Jürgen built so that they could burn their Camino underwear and socks. Great fun.

Done and done in!!

Friday, May 29 Cabo de Fisterre - the end of the world!

My Fisterre certificate will have to have an asterix beside it because I had to throw in the camino towel this morning. We left Oliveiroa at our usual 6:15am with me hobbling along using my hiking sticks almost as crutches. After 20 minutes we had gone less than a half a kilometre and realized there was no way I could get through 31kms so my gift to Dayton was to turn around and let him go on alone. He can walk at least 6kms an hour and I was struggling to get 2kms an hour at this point.

I went back to the cafe in Oliveiroa and had breakfast with the late starters then took a taxi to Fisterre. We did drive pass Dayton around 8am when he was doing a little road walking; we beeped, waved and kept on going. In Fisterre, a German lady I had met in Ponferrada many days ago, recommended her hotel so I booked into it, left my mochilla (backpack) and headed back down to the port. It was serendipity that, as I was limping into the town centre, there was John calling out a welcome. The camino does provide some things and friends is one of those things. He had taken the bus into town yesterday and had sent an email that he would meet us but we didn´t have internet so this was a complete surprise.

We limped around town together and waited for Dayton to arrive, which he did at 1:10pm!! With me, we would still be walking until sunset. I did manage to struggle my way the 3kms to the Cabo do Fisterre which is the official end of the world I guess. While we were taking pictues at the Cabo do Fisterre, I received a text message from Courtney encouraging me and telling me I could finish it all but, if not, to be proud of what how much I had already accomplished. It gave me a moment of disappointment to realize I didn´t get it all done but I did walk over 850kms and 500kms of those were with a wrecked ankle.

Then we hitched a ride for me back into town.

So now we are all done and done in and seriously beat up. As I said, the Camino is humbling especially if you have the audacity to think you´re in good shape. Now we will take the next week to enjoy some R & R in these lovely oceanside pueblos. John leaves tomorrow to make his way to Madrid and has changed his flight for an earlier departure. We will stay in Fisterre a few days then go to O Coruña for a few more and then decide where to go next. Should be fun.

Brutal long hot day!

Only 31kms to go and it´s not looking good! My ankle is beyond painful. I just can´t get it to work. We left the alberque at 6:20am, me full of meds ( I will need dialysis at the end of this) and were off to a great start but then we missed a sign at the first village and added a couple of kms detour down into a valley and then had to double back UP to find the markers. By that time all those who had started after a leisurely breakfast had gone ahead.

Just as some say "golf is a great walk ruined", well today was a beautiful walk ruined by the stress of worrying that we there´d be no room at the inn. This day was so hot and, having turned a 33 kms day into a 37kms day, Dayton and I were hot, dehydrated and exhausted when we got to Olveiroa. It was especially hard for Dayton who had to keep waiting, in the hot sun, for me to catch up, again and again and again. The good news was that there was a bed for us; no hot showers or toilet paper, but at least a bed. They say "the camino provides" but damn I wish it would provide what I consider a few necessities of life. However, there´s never been a lack of wine so guess I shouldn´t complain.

Where you go, I will go.

Today we set out at 6:30am across the deserted dark cathedral square and headed out of town on our three day trek to Fisterre. As I was following Dayton, who was as usual 100 metres ahead of me, I recalled that in our wedding service we used the passage from the Book of Ruth "whither thou goest, I will go" or "where you go, I will follow" and now, almost 28 years later, I am following Dayton to the end of the world and how neat is that!

The walk today was along a lovely pathway cutting through eucalyptus and pine trees and bordered by ferns and foxgloves. I am becoming a trail snail and just like the walk from Arca into Santiago every single person on their way to Fisterre passed us, well me anyway. This is a major problem as there are not many spaces in the few alberques along this route. This is going to be bit of a rat race.

I´m losing it on the hills now too. I used to think I was a little mountain goat on the hills with the best defence being a good offense so I would just attack the hill busting up it as hard as I could. Now I´m like the Little Engine that Could (or couldn´t).......I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. Instead of getting stronger and stronger, I´m fading. This camino is humbling.

What a Difference a Day Makes!

Our second morning in Santiago was warm and wonderful and full of fun and couldn´t have been more drastically different than our dismal and dreary arrival the day before. After an unhurried breakfast, at 9:30am, we walked the 50 steps from our hotel to the major square in front of the cathedral and started taking pictures and greeting people as they arrived.

John was the first and then there was just a steady stream of those with whom we had walked all along our camino. We seemed to have met everyone - Wayne and Andre from Quebec, Emilio from Spain, Ingelise from Denmark, Jill from California and the Camino documentary the camera crew that was tracking her and others, Liane and Jurgen from Germany, Bruce from Vancouver, Anne from Boston, Son and James from Korea and Martin from Germany. Martin was the first person we met in Orisson at the start of our pilgrimmage but he walks fast and he left us behind early on. We met up with him in the cathedral and we all went out for café con leches before the noon hour pilgrims´mass.

It was especially neat to see how emotional some pilgrims were to receive communion at this mass. One woman was sobbing as she returned to her seat. At the same time, I was elbowed out of the communion line by those who wanted to get to communion faster. Imagine! A Korean priest, who had just finished his camino, assisted with the mass and another pilgrim sang two songs, one Ave Maria just as mass finished. Absolutely amazing.

The afternoon was spent in the garden plaza right outside our hotel which turned out to be a prime spot because everyone passed through there and stayed for a drink or two or three or for the afternoon.

It was just a great afternoon and just how the camino should finish.

Slogging into Santiago!

Tuesday, May 26, Cathedral in Santiago!

After 31 days of walking, our wet, weary and very squishy entrance into Santiago was more than somewhat of an anti-climax then the grand excited entrance I had invisioned. You would think by now I would learn not to make assumptions.

We once again layered up with raincoats, backpack covers, hats and ponchos and left Arca at 6:20am in the pouring rain and the rain didn´t let up all day. I even had rubber gloves over my thermal gloves. The Gortex water-proofing in my hiking boots surrendered to the rain after the first hour and I spent the next three and a half hours sloshing and slogging my way along the trail. Once again those assumptions I make! Imagine, I assumed that waterproof boots would keep my feet dry. Dayton´s boots weren´t waterproof to start with so his feet were wet even sooner than mine. I can´t describe much of the scenery along the way because the hoods from the poncho and raincoat result in total tunnel vision so I spent the entire morning just looking at my leaking boots. I could have been on the Bruce Trail or in Komoka.

There was a steady stream of ponchoed pilgrims slopping their way into Santiago and Dayton made note that every one of them passed us along the way. It was busy enough that there was never a moment of privacy so there was never an opportunity for a much needed pit stop. The only café abierto was around San Marcos and the line up for everything, from the washroom to getting a café or bocadillo, was so long that we just kept going. By this time Dayton´s poncho had ripped to shreds so he just stuffed it in a dumpster and soaked up the rain some more.
At Lavacolla pilgrims traditionally wash off the weeks of accumulated dirt and sweat before arriving at the Cathedral but at that point we were so wet that washing would have been superfluous. Just to emphasize how wet it was...I had taped my toes with mefix in the morning and when I took my boots off in Santiago the mefix was floating in my socks!

It took about an hour to get from the first sign post on the outskirts of Santiago to the Cathedral. We took a couple of obligatory pictures and headed straight for the line up to get our credentials stamped and our Compostela certificates. The wait was just over one hour! Then we just headed out into the rain again to find our hotel. The Hotel Babantes is ideally located just steps from the Cathedral but I foolishly decided to save some €uros and booked a small rather than large double room. I should have remembered that in Europe small means really, really small. Regardless, it´s luxurious compared to the alberques we´ve been sharing with hundreds of others. And the real bonus is that Dayton discovered we can get CNN in English on our TV not that we really want to get hit with the reality of world crises but it is good to hear English spoken.

We had a great ITALIAN dinner at a restaurant right across from our hotel and I´m voting to go there again tomorrow. I actually had spinach- a green vegetable. Other than lettuce it´s the only green vegetable I´ve been served here.

So tomorrow, it´s meet people coming into town and we think John will be one of them, go to the Pilgrims´Mass, shop for souvenirs that weigh less than 1/4kg., so no one expect much, and then get our stuff dry enough we hope to head out on our three day walk to Fisterre, the end of the world. Personally, I don´t think those ´big girl underpants´( the ones that are used to get up, get on with it and tough it out) are going to be dried in time.