Arca O Pedrouzo to Santiago

June 17- Arca O Perouzo to Santiago de Compostela
We did it! Got to Santiago yesterday sometime after lunch. (Didn't think to look at the time). It rained for much of today but not heavily. We walked down onto the main square, Praza do Obradoiro, to the music of a bagpiper who was standing playing just up from the square. Anyone who wasn't already in tears is almost certainly crying after that. Met up with several people we had met during the walk of course. It's always a very emotional scene as people start to realize that it's done and they did it.

The rain has lifted for awhile.

 This picture is from a previous trip. For some reason I didn't take one this year.

The cathedral has been here in one form or another for over 800 years.

One of the things that has been most touching for me, apart from walking with my own wonderful son, has been to be walking with a couple from the Canary Islands and their dog Flynn. The man is blind, his wife gives an running commentary of what they are passing through and she is seeing. He walks with one hand on her shoulder and the other holding Flynn, his most beautiful guide dog. Flynn is a shiny black, flat-coat retriever who loves everyone. I can barely grasp the courage it must have taken for them to make this trip. But that's their story.

As for these two old broads - we did what we did - over 1200 kilometers and as someone else said we walked 'efi' of those 1200+ kilometers - certainly not meeting the original goal but still a grand celebration of fortunate good health. Although I didn't think so while I was walking, I know I will walk again. In a couple of years, when my bank account allows,  I'll tackle the 1000 mile goal again and see if I can actually do it. Otherwise I'll never know.
(For those who don't know the 'efi' expression, it's 'every fricking inch' or something like that).

And what a special treat for me to have my son here as we walked into Santiago. I've always thought that coming into town with someone you love would be really special - and it sure was!

Although the botafumeiro was swung (is that even English?) on two different occasions today. I was feeling quite ill and didn't see it either time.  Clearly not my destiny to see that big incense pot swing. Here's a sample of a street scene in Santiago which is becoming more and more common. While we were there, several of these were always in one place or another around the historic part of the city. Very nicely done actually. Santiago is full of ways to happily part you with any money you have left over!

Arzúa to Arco O Pedrouzo

June 16th - Arzúa to Arco O Pedrouzo
Down to less than 40 kilometers at the beginning of this day and to less than 20 by the end of the day. OOps - didn't finish this post - will have to go back and look at my handwritten notes.

Melide to Arzúa

June 15 - Melide to Arzúa

What an amazing experience it is for me to have my grown kids spend some time with me on the camino. My daughter spent 10 days  in 2005 and it was so wonderful to have her there with me. Now my son and his wife started this section of the camino with me in Saint Jean Pied-de-Port and my son has come back to end it with me. A really special treat for me to have the three of them here with me. 

Today was a somewhat short but really pleasant day of walking - sometimes out in the hot sun, sometimes in the cool shade of the paths that are like tunnels through the trees. We passed through village after village where we sometimes stopped to eat or drink. The names continue to sound a bit strange - Carballal, Barriero, A Peroxa, Boente, Castañeda and Ribadiso do Baixo.  We are beginning to regularly pass through eucalytus forest plantations which smell wonderful! And as usual, up and up we go and down and down we go.

It is very different walking in this section where there are  so many people who started in Sarria and have only a five or six day journey. It seems a bit sad to me that they have missed out on the camaraderie of the longer journey although I must say they all look so much cleaner and stylish than the longer term walkers look! We regularly run into people we have met earlier on the path and enjoy lunch breaks or pre-dinner breaks with them. Yesterday after the walk we ran into a couple we had met at Orisson. As it happens they are no longer a couple but are still good friends and are finishing the camino together. We sat with them for the evening and had a mixture of silly laughs and more serious camino conversations with them over drinks and small bits of food.

Our lovely albergue lady gave us a small room to ourselves for the same price as the dorm and then folded all of our laundry for us when it was dry. We stayed at the Albergue da Fonte which was just great. The woman in charge was so helpful and kind.

Palas de Rei to Melide

June  14th - Palas de Rei to Melide
Another hot day making our short walk of 13 or 14 kilometers seem much longer. I think now that the end is in sight we are starting to realize that we're tired in a way that one night of sleep is not going to solve. Even though we're past all the large mountains our days still involve a lot of  ups and downs. Our villages today included Sn Juliàn, Outeiro da Ponte, Pontecampaña, Casanova, Mato, O Coto and a lovely little spot just over an old Roman bridge called Furelos. I notice however that I hardly ever take pictures of the towns - just the rocks and trees and weeds and things. You just can't take the country out of the girl it seems.

 I could have looked at this reflection for hours.

 I'm totally in love with the intricate shapes of the old oak trees which never seem to show up as well in my pictures as in real life.

 Clearly I have a thing for rock walls.

 The little bridge at Furelos - which actually looks much better when you can see the beauty of the village on the other side.

 As my son was meeting us today to walk the last three days of the camino with me we decided to stay in the same hotel he had chosen - the Carlos 96. We were happy to see that it was at the beginning of town and it was wonderful to have an elevator take us up two floors instead of the usual walk required in an albergue. Our room was clean with fresh sheets, a bathtub and shower that no one else would use that night and was a welcome relief. After cleaning up we headed to the centre of town to eat some "pulpo" (octopus) for lunch as is the pilgrim tradition in this town of about 7500 people. We also took a look at the little church that has its door on the 10 Euro bill and at the cross which is supposedly the oldest cross on the camino, dating back to the 14th century.

When my son came we sat in the restaurant area of the bar, drinking tea, beer, wine and water according to people's preferences and chatted with a friend we had met earlier. We eventually decided to have lunch at the hotel restaurant which was only 8 Euros for soup, a half chicken and fires and dessert, plus wine, bread and water. At the end of the day the waiter made a queimada, which has a variety of traditions attached, o e of which is that it is a witches brew. It is made from grape skins, apples, oranges and grappa and maybe other alcohols and set on fire for a half hour. It's quite a dramatic sight as he lifts the spoon up high and the fire along with it. i don't know if any witchlike incantations were used. He really wanted us to taste it so we did, and as you might imagine  it is completely disgusting but a fun process to watch.

Tomorrow we will start out on the last 55 kilometers of our journey. We are both REALLY looking forward to getting home.

Gonzar to Palas de Rei

June 14 - Gonzar to Palas de Rei 
It has been written that the woods outside of Gonzar which were used as a welcoming outdoor brothel during the middle ages.  I must admit that as I was passing by that area I was wondering what kind of woods might have been here at that time. Now there are scrubby pine trees, very close together, pokey bushes and thick underbrush, none of which, in my imagination at least, are at all conducive to that kind of outdoor activity. Undressed, one could get seriously injured in that unfriendly, prickly environment!

For many years however, Gonzar has been a simple dairy farming community and although that still continues, the number of  'peregrinos' passing through looking for coffee, food and a place to sleep has diversified the local economy. At our lovely little albergue at Casa Garcia, our waitress was actually a young Romanian woman who has moved there with her husband to live. The rooms in our albergue were made of stone and the beds were tucked in little nooks with about 12 to a room. The food was delicious. We had a churrasco - a barbequed steak- that was wonderful although it probably  took me about three days to digest it was so huge!

Unfortunately there was a bit of a nasty incident while we were there. A young American woman and her husband left her jacket on her bed while they were out in the restaurant section. When they returned her jacket was gone along with her camera, some money and her bank card which were all in the pockets. Hindsight is  so easy of course and she knew she shouldn't have left it there but it is really easy to get lulled into a sense of security among the 'pilgrim' community where things really do feel safe. The thing that upset her most was her pictures as they had walked from Saint Jean Pied-de-Port and she was crying (who wouldn't be) while she was talking with the police. Strangely, about an hour later someone brought her camera in saying it had been found on a neighbour's windowsill. From everything that happened it seemed like it was a couple of guys travelling in a car, pretending to be pilgrims. But the reality is that most albergues are always open and anyone could come in off the street. It was really a shame to have this happen to them in the last few days of their camino but served as a good warning to everyone else.

The whole camino has been an amazing sensory experience. The sounds of the birds, the perfumed air, the food, the volume that everyone uses to speak in, cowbells in the distance, music in the bars and some albergues, the inimitable reminder of the cuckoo along the way. This particular area is full of the perfume of mock orange blossoms and roses, heavily overlaid with a very pervasive smell of cow manure! It's beautiful walking through the little villages but you sure have to watch where you step.  The cows are frequently walked through the streets. One of the only advantages of walking in June rather than in early May is that in June the cow plops generally don't spread more than about 3 feet, whereas in May one cow plop can cover a good 15 feet in all directions!

This is also the area of the horreo - a little fancy storage shed on stilts. Essentially everyone has at least one in the back yard and they are traditionally used to store corn away from rats and other corn predators.  Here's one on a misty morning.

 

Ferreiros to Gonzar

June 13- Ferreiros to Gonzar
A day of some climbing, again only a final elevation gain of 250 meters or so but we also  went up and down it so many times  it felt like we did three times that much. We also went down over 300 meters before ascending again and again. It felt like a fairly strenuous day but I think that much of that was because it is finally getting very hot during the day and the heat is much harder to walk in - at least for me. W passed through several small villages, each one different from the other with names  such as Mirallos, Pena, As Rozas, Moimentos, Vilachá, Mercadoiro but crossed the big blue bridge to Portomarín for lunch.

Portomarín is a town which was completely moved in 1950 so that the river could be raised and the area flooded. They say that when the water is a bit low in the late summer you can see the old buildings under the water. That must be really creepy for anyone who lived there - seeing their old houses under water. After a good lunch and a visit to the pharmacy we headed back down to carry on to Gonzar and Casa Garcia for the night.

 Walking over to Portomarin.

 I don't remember where these are exactly - somewhere around here, but as you can see the insects are HUGE in this area!

Sarria to Ferreiros

June 12 - Sarria to Ferreiros

The albergue just outside of Sarria, called Paloma y Leña was a really nice albergue, especially if you had a bottom bunk. Each bed had it's own plugin and there was a little table between the beds with a pretty little lamp on it and lots of room to put stuff. The top bunk, however, had nothing- not even a place to put the backpack. The only spot on the floor either forced me to put my butt in the face of the person in the bottom bunk or get hit by the door every time someone came out of the bathroom. So I slept with it at the foot of my bed - not ideal! And if I wanted to plug anything in I had to leave it sitting on the pillow of the stranger in the bottom bunk. Not saying that endless plugins should be provided for the price we were paying. Just saying- they were provided for half of the people. But it's a nice albergue all the same and the meal was really nice.

Our walk took us uphill a couple of hundred meters but fairly gradually and we didn't feel it overly. We went through 5 or 6 smaller communities and had coffee, juice or food at two or three. The first community, Barbadelo was five kilometers away so although we had breakfast in Sarria, we still felt the need for more. Then we walked through Rente, Peruscallo, Belante, O Brea and several others which all looked to only have one family living in them.

 I'm not sure which of these next two posts is the official 100 kilometer point but I do know that the first is the one that was here the first time I walked ten years ago.

The countryside was beautiful in a pleasant, farming kind of way but we were hot and tired so were really glad to reach Ferreiros where we had not made a reservation and did not know whether or not we would have a bed.  I walked in with an American woman and as luck would have it, including her we got the last three beds. I was really impressed with this albergue for a couple of reasons. The first was that they had thought about the top  bunk people and provided shelves and plugins for the top bunks and a hook from the foot of the bed for hanging the backpack! Trust me it's bad enough to go up and down those foot killing ladders to get into bed without having to go down for every little thing you need out of the pack. I love this since I frequently end up on a top bunk.

 The other things were the showers and toilets. They were new and clean and very roomy. Many, many, many of them are so small you can't sit down or get up off the toilet without bashing your head against the door. All very entertaining and I'm not complaining, just commenting - but here at Casa Cruceiro there was lots of room and the doors went all the way to the floor instead of just down to the knees. Excellent!

Our meal was interesting and very tasty. We chose the Menu del Dia instead of the Pilgrims' menu. It was one €uro more but was a whole step above the Pilgrims' menu. I had heard this was usually the case but had never tested it out before

Filloval to Sarria's outskirts

June 10 - Filloval to Sarria's outskirts
We both had a pretty good sleep last night even though the first people were up before 5:00, back and forth to the bathroom, packing, whispering, crinkling. It was a nice day and although a bit misty in the morning, it was pretty much clear by the time we left. The people who own the albergue do a really nice job of trying to do everything they can to make sure people are comfortable and have what they need. They provide single use sheets and pillowcase for the bed. They have not overcrowded the albergue so there are 6 or 7 feet between the beds. The bathrooms are clean and spacious as are the showers which actually have room to hang the clothes you take off and the clean ones you want to put on. The bar serves really delicious food and the  woman who owns it keeps coming back and asking if you had enough or would like more. The servings are already very generous and it's obvious she puts a lot into it. For dinner she suggested a little variety from what we had ordered, saying "I think you'll like this or this is better, try this..." and she was right. The only problem was that we were stuffed!

It was a pretty steep downhill on the way down to Triacastela which was just 3 or 4 kilometers away. We needed to stop for a bank and a phone refill so hung around for 15 or 20 minutes while the stores opened and then we were on our way.

 We had two options today and we thought we picked the shorter one but somehow we missed it and ended up on the road to Samos. I had never been that way before so I didn't mind but it seemed as if we were walking forever. The road according to our map was 13 kilometers but it sure seemed longer!  Samos has a huge monastery  which is very impressive and one of the most famous monasteries in Spanish history. It was founded in the Visigothic era and the Benedictine rule was introduced in the tenth century. By the middle ages the monastery controlled over 300 lesser monsteries and 100 churches and drew its support from over 200 villages.

But being pratical, we ate lunch and moved on. We theoretically had only six more kilometers to go before we reached our Albergue but it took us over 3 hours so either we took a wrong turn (we didn't) or someone is counting funny. Much of the walk today was on a path through an old oak tree forest. We were kind of tunneled all day long by the trees. It was very beautiful.

 Some of these trees have a personality all of their own.