That is the Camino done for this year, so I must rather sadly (I admit) stop sending these thoughts and pictures into the ether. It has been fun, and I have really appreciated the comments I have read and just knowing people are following my progress.
I wish I had something profound to say at this moment, but all i can think is that we all have to follow our dreams, and i think the Camino is about finding out which particular bright star/dream/idea inspires you to keep moving forwards. For me I am realising that I need space to myself, and both love and fear people. I let very few people close.
But the love and kindness I have received from people I have met are what will stay with me most potently, especially from the Spanish people I have met on buses and in shops.
My great faith that most people in the world are lovely and good has not been shaken, and that gives me huge joy and confidence that I can walk out on more less-trodden paths and have more adventures!
I have attached a picture of me at Campceberros, and a sunrise on the same day. I would really like to go here again... It was a beautiful location and there was lots to see.
So until the next trip, Buen Camino amigos!!
P.S. I will post soon with distances between my stops for anyone interested. If you have any questions while it is fresh in my mind, email me at: rachel@eveling.net
Having got thoroughly hot after exploring Madrid, it was still too early to go to the train station.
So I stopped for a cool white wine in a lovely bar on Calle Leon, which had 150 year old tiles on the wall (example attached).
Then I saw a place on a map called Plaza de Lavapies, and I decided to go there and see if I could wash my feet. A bit random I know, but I feel surprisingly chilled out at the moment! For once in my life I am NOT going to be 2 hours early for my flight.
Anyway Plaza de Lavapies is certainly not a place to wash your feet, unless you bring your own water, soap and towel. There isn't even a fountain there!
However, it does seem to be the centre of (central) Madrid's Afro-Caribbean and Indian community. So there were shops selling Bob Marley memorabilia, and masses of Indian restaurants and curry houses. Most strange.
The Spanish areas seemed to be in siesta mode, but the area near Lavapies was lively.
Anyway my feet are still very hot as I am wearing my walking socks and shoes today. But I feel as if I am finally slowing down.
I can really see why the Spanish people have siestas.... It is too hot to do anything at the moment.
An English woman has just come into this bar saying that her 2 friends are drunk and she is looking for some weed for them. She doesn't speak any English...I am NOT going to get involved!!
I suppose cities have their own kind of beauty too...
I am off for a brief exploration of Madrid this morning - A walk around Sol and Opera areas - before my flight home this evening.
Wow!! This reminds me of the Moscow underground system, only it is cleaner....
The Madrid train and underground system is modern, efficient, rapid and quiet. Announcements are in Spanish and English. Countdowns to trains arriving are in minutes too.
I woke up at 7.30 and was at 'Sol' metro station by 9, having left my rucksack at Chamartin train station (5 minutes the hotel). It turns out - by luck - Chamartin was a good choice off place to stay, as it is near the airport (2 stops in the train) as well as near the town centre.
So far I have seen and been approached by lots of beggars in Madrid, and I am glad of the money belt under my shorts... There are also lots of people buying gold in the streets.
It is going to be really, really hot today in Madrid, and the light is very intense. I will have to be careful with my money and phone: after the Camino this feels like a dangerous place...
This is clearly some building of importance though!
I have to say that despite some initial scepticism, I am very impressed with Madrid.
An absolute MUST-SEE is the 'Yglesia de S. Francisco el Grande'. This is gloriously beautiful inside, perfectly symmetrical, and bursting with light, colour, powerful sculptures and art by the likes of Goya. It is much more beautiful than Madrid Cathedral.
Just walking around the main streets is quite awesome: there are huge old buildings everywhere. It is very busy with locals and tourists, but there is a big and prominent police presence too.
The other good place to go on a hot afternoon is the 'Parque del Retiro', where the attached photo is taken. There are lots of big trees to provide shade, a lake to row on, ice-cream to buy, and best of all there are enough people around for it to feel safe.
Someone just tried to sell me some rosemary for luck! That will make my husband,laugh - we have a garden full of it! And I have got many more seeds from plants and trees I have passed, to bring home and,try to grow in sunny, sandy Wiltshire!
The train is at A Gudina.... It seems very strange to be here again. I keep passing places I recognise, and it seems so long ago that I was walking here even though it was only a few weeks ago.
I have this odd feeling my memories of the journey will be erased if I go backwards. I know thats impossible but something feels a bit wrong about going back to Madrid so quickly and easily when the trip out to Fisterra was so much slower and harder.
Next stop..... Puebla de Sanabria.
I have a sort of Bilbo Baggins feeling too about going home. He must have felt bigger and different in some way when he got back to Bag End. I think I feel a bit stronger as well; in any case I certainly have intentions to be an improvement on the Rachel who left home on 6 August. I have made a few private resolutions.
It is about a 40 minute walk from the bus station to the East of Santiago to the train station to the South-west. However I had 3 hours to kill, so have eaten my last mixed salad and drunk yet another delicious coffee con leche.
I walked back through the square outside the Cathedral which was ABSOLUTEY PACKED!! It was quite daunting, and must be even more so if you have just quietly arrived from one of the lesser known Caminos e.g. Silleda! No wonder some pilgrims can't face S de C and go straight on to Fisterra or Muxia.
ANYWAY, to cut a long story short, I left my last pebble brazenly in the middle of the square in the middle of all the crowds, glory, and exhausted pilgrims. It has got "i pebble" written on it. I have no idea what will happen to this pebble, but think it might have a few adventures and could tell a few stories. Andrew gave me the pebble, and I think a simple and unassuming pebble really deserves such an amazing view. One thing that comes across very clearly after a long walk is the importance of the simple, strong, silent things in life. Like pebbles perhaps. And some men... And quality toilet paper! Seats. Cold water. Hot water. Etc. Etc.
The pebble is by this carved stone exactly in the centre of the square. You can't miss it, so if anyone else sees it please let me know! The other object in the photo is a cigarette butt, and I really hope that gets tidied away.
I am enjoying the use of free Wi-Fi at both the train and the bus stations in S de C, and the fact that a kind Cafe owner allowed me to charge my phone with their electricity.
The journey from Fisterra to S se C was scary. The road was bendy, the driver consistently broke the speed limit, and the driver also made and answered calls on his mobile phone for the duration. Nightmare!! I got white knuckles, and had to resort to reading my book to stay calm.
I had good company though - A Spanish secondary school teacher called Christina. We compared notes, and she gave me some "Queso tito". This is a Galician speciality - a cheese shaped like a breast. O.K.
It tasted nice..
The bus journey took nearly 4 hours, and stopped everywhere. It just kept picking up passengers until they were standing in the aisle, and then he phoned up for back-up; a minibus that took some of the extra people and drove off with them.
This seems to be a sad moment for many pilgrims. There was a very tearful farewell to a girl from 3 other pilgrims. I can only imagine what they have experienced together.
It is one sad thing about my own experience; I didn't really meet many people moving at the same rate as me, so I didn't find myself part of a Camino 'family'. Perhaps next time....
The Monbus was punctual and efficient. Bikes were thrown into the hold, rucksacks and,panniers were chucked on top, pilgrims and tourists piled in. It will be chaos untangling everything at the other end!
The cost of a single to Santiago de C is Euro 12.70. The trip is supposed to take about 3 hours. The bus is about half full.
The attached photo has the times, accurate in August 2012 as far as I am aware.
I had supper with Ted from Texas and his "friend" (i cannot get her name!) from Pensford in Somerset. This is one of those weird coincidences... Pensford is a tiny, tiny village near Bristol that most British people will not have heard of, so to meet someone from there in Spain almost beggars belief. Anyway she is younger than me so she didn't get "The dap" (a punishment for naughty children that I experienced a few times), but she rang the bells at Publow Church, and remembers the dinner ladies at Pensford school! Weird..
Ted met the woman from Pensford on the Camino and they are an item now! Ted is writing a book about cooking and friendship, based on his experiences on the Camino Frances. We had lots of discussion about a title for his book, and he seems to like "A Journey about food and friendship". A nice man. Also in the process of changing his life plan after walking, talking, and meeting people.
Among other things we talked about Tracy Chapman's album "Crossroads" - I must get this one!
Afterwards i was on my own again and I found a lovely bar full of flotsam and jetsam, playing British music from the,1970s. I was happy and in my element. I strongly recommend this bar, which is on the same road as the municipal albergue, but a bit further up on the left. I gave them my badge "Good Planets Are Hard To Find". Look for the shells hanging from the ceiling and the Ludo game stuck to the ceiling too and you have it!
And so to bed. I will be sorry to leave Galicia. The seagulls haven't been quiet since I arrived here. But I feel I know Fisterra pretty well. The weather has mostly been great in Galicia.
The beach at Fisterra is a place to share with lived ones. I wished my husband had been there with me.
But I'll be home on Friday, so it wasn't the end of the world that he wasn't at the end of the world with me!
These are just a few more images from Fisterra point/lighthouse.
I thought today I would visit Fisterra's other beach for a change. But first of all I explored Fisterra town and found an older part in the centre where the real people of Fisterra live! There were banks, fridge shops and homes.
I bumped into Martin from Germany again, eating his breakfast (pan, cheese, ham, olives etc courtesy of 'Froiz') in the shade. He had slept on the rocks at end of Fisterra lighthouse point last night, all on his own, on a very windy night. He said it was cold, but he saw about 30 shooting stars. Wow!! I envy him that experience. It was Martin's 3rd night in a row sleeping outdoors. He said his legs hurt in the night too, and that he found it hard to sleep quietly in albergues, as he kept tossing and,turning.
The day is really hot again, and I got a lunch together and went to the 'other' beach. I got straight into the sea, which had much smaller waves but was more sea-weedy. The water was lovely. However, afterwards I just couldn't warm up, as the wind had picked up to something approaching a gale. Many people were packing up and going home. It was a shame. Quel astima!
So now it is about 3 and I have warmed up at last.
The weather is really hot, and with a high burn factor I should think.
I spent a delightful few hours at the beach -Praia Mar De For a - and got a bit burnt. I read the book on my phone and occasionally braved the sea, which was quite violent with big waves and strong pulls and pushes!
I was just returning to town, rather red, at 7 p.m. when I bumped into American Brook and her friends. They had whisky, ice, real glasses, food etc. I stayed with them until the sun set. Then we all stumbled back in the dark, rather the worse for wear!
I had this idea that you could walk back from the lighthouse to the lovely beach on the west without going back into central Fisterra. It worked out in the end, but a good map would have helped! Pilgrims and other tourists would definitely enjoy this walk, and it is certainly off the beaten track.
I only passed 2 other people; a Portugese couple looking for the 'sacred stones'. I passed these later, but only realised about 1 km further on, when I reached the mirador. The view from there was spectacular, as the attached photo shows. There was also an information board (which is how I knew I'd passed the sacred stones) and a picnic table. Nice!
From the top I could see both Fisterre's beaches, and eventually zig-zagged down to my intended destination. I was really hot by then and fully ready to be bashed around by the waves!
When I got to the end I heard lovely guitar music and saw pilgrims taking off some old clothes and putting them on a fire. It was spontaneous, but I decided at that moment to burn my hat. So I took off the yellow arrow I was given in the outskirts of Seville in April, and thought about the hat for a few minutes. It was a real friend and my husband bought it for me at a show a few years ago. Then I put it on the fire and watched it burn.
I didn't blog much yesterday but will try to catch up this morning.
After a slow morning mooching around the market I bought stuff for a picnic and started the 3.5 km walk to the lighthouse at The End Of The World. It was really hot and quite a slog.
When I arrived there the place was packed with tourists and I felt quite out of place.
However I spoke to some other pilgrims, especially Greg from Canada who teaches line-dancing in London. He was quite emotional about his walk from St Jean and had decided 2 days ago to give up his job and change his life completely.
I also met a rather chunky German who had walked all the way from St Jean too. And he must have been very chunky at the start!
Pilgrims were very much in a minority until I got to the very end, past the lighthouse museum and touristy bits....
There are pilgrims strewn around in all the quietest spots near the sea, making sandwiches from things bought in the supermarket, drinking coffee, sleeping, eating fruit, and greeting fellow pilgrims with delight.
The weather in Finisterra today is already very hot - and it looks like predictions of 27 def C will be justified.
It is market day here, which is fun. Most of the stalls sell clothes, but there is also luscious fruit at really low cost. I have bought a peach, a nectarine, and an Orange for 75 cents.
I'm feeling rather lethargic today but want to pack some fruit and drink, my swimming costume and hotel towel, sun cream etc., and walk to the lighthouse.
I will take my hat and find out if I am allowed to burn it, although I am undecided about actually doing so..
The to a beach, for more swimming and sunbathing.
Everything will be done really SLOWLY today! I feel rather achy and stiff, why I must have been every day. It is only now that I have time to notice it.
So many things are all in the head!
And the Sun is out.
What will I follow when I get to the end of the yellow arrows?
I bought the 'Atrix' intensive moisturizer in Spain after getting a bit red in Ourense , but brought the other things with me. The travel plug was made by Andrew from a circle of pond-liner and was essential on at least 4 occasions. The pen-knife was great for sandwiches and opening wine bottles (they don't seem to have screw top bottles here!)
Perhaps the lipsyl is a girlie luxury like the moisturizer, but I wouldn't do without at least one spare lipsyl in Spain, in August.
My waterproof trousers were not used once, but I am too inherently British to travel without them, especially to a Celtic place like Galicia.
I also had a film canister of factor 20 cream, and I took some factor 30 as well. Both have been used and will have been essential.
The ibuleve maximum strength gel got me through the pain barrier on many days (probably all in the head but it worked for me).
I think the AUTUN mosquito repellent is completely useless.
After my lovely swim/sunbathe (not to mention the 30 km walk!) I've just eaten a meagre mixed salad without bread, but am having an orujo con hierbas in a nice small bar. You might be interested to know that the mixed salad was Euro 3.50 and the orujo is Euro 1.50
There is a football match going on in the bar (Pamplona versus the local team) and the locals are very interested and are winning. This town (?) must have the usual issues with tourism, fishing, rich and poor, all needing their own patch and for something good to happen...
This bar is nice, feels real and unpretentious.
I think you could get really ripped off in Finisterra, as some of the prices I have seen for food are quite outrageous!
There is a market in the morning and I plan to get some provisions there and then head for a local beach! Why not!
The weather since noon has been dry and hot, and is forecast to improve over the next few days. Hurrah !
Swimming and sun-bathing at this most wonderful west-facing beach feels like the perfect end to the walk.
And I haven't given those yellow arrows a second thought since I got here.
Happy days!
This is the evidence the poor pilgrims of old would take home with them to confirm their completion of their pilgrimage.
At S de C my name was 'latinized' to Rachelum Eveling for some reason!
Tonight, if I can summon up the energy, I am going to watch the sunset at the beach called Praia Mar de Fora. I will swim too, although the helpful staff at the municipal albergue tell me there is a lot of sea grass on the beach due to recent storms. Well we will see....
I am spending 3 nights and 2 full days in Finisterra, so I reckon I'll know the place quite well by Thursday when I start heading home again.
signs like this were fun, but my compass came in handy and I knew I was generally heading south with the sea in my right.
The weather this morning was very misty, but made walking easier than it would have been in hot weather!
So I have just arrived in Finisterra (well the outskirts) and have finally found a cafe. I missed the much anticipated cafe at Lires so have been going for 6 hours without a coffee. It is worth getting some advice about the way between Finisterra and Lires as I was told this afternoon that there are 2 routes.
Fortunately I had a coffee before I left, and had a lovely picnic of a cheese ans ham roll at the,bridge near Lires. I needed all my water as ir gas got very hot this afternoon, and I didn't see many fountains with drinkable water.
The navigation has been o.k., but with arrows only where required. You do have to concentrate and keep your eyes peeled, as I not only went astray myself, but met another lost pilgrim in the morning.
The route is full of variety. The only constant feature is that flat ground is not allowed: it must be either up or down. Luckily most pilgrims are pretty fit by the time they get to Finisterra! Psychologically anyway.
This is the best place to eat, drink and feel welcome in Muxia. Cheap and really good quality.
In 2008 Andrew and I had to strip off to cross this river. Now there is a bridge
I was looking back at my photos from this trip. This is where it all started on day 1: it seems like months ago.
This is the view from my room at the hotel at Muxia, and this is where I went swimming before the tide came in so far!
The water was coolish to start with but rather nice when you got used to it: I stayed in for about 30 minutes without getting too cold, and it was really refreshing, and doubtless excellent for the feet!
I bumped into Zousa and his cycling cohort earlier. They must have done the Vilaserio to Finisterra leg in one go, about 50 k I reckon,and quite a walk! It is quite strange how two walkers and 1 cyclist have stuck together every night in the same place for about 3 weeks. No wonder the cyclist always looks so fresh...
Zousa was quite irrepressible and still going on about swimming and bikinis. I don't know whether he is trying to tease me or whether he,really is a male chauvinist pig! Anyway it is his last night on the Camino and I hope he has a great time after his epic journey from St Jean Piet de Port!
I, on the other hand, am going to have an early night and make up for 2 nights' lost sleep.
I had a great lunch in town for 9 Euros. 3 courses, a drink and coffee are part of the deal. I had caldo gallego, followed by fish (a whole mackerel and a few potatoes), but gave the pudding a miss. I can never like flan unless I am starving! So I won't need any supper tonight, that's for sure.
The church at the end of the peninsula is another 2 km from Muxia'a centre but can't be missed. The whole site is extremely special, even if you can drive right to the end! The church is locked but you can look inside and see model ships hanging up so it must be dedicated to sailors.
The real reason for going to the end is to ait on the rocks and listen to the waves. Lots of pilgrims were there celebrating the end of their journey in different ways.
I just sat there and felt happy and quite emotional, but no profound or really interesting thoughts came to me, I'm afraid!
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