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12.4 miles, elevation 345′ 

Surreal! I do not walk tomorrow!!! I have arrived. I can’t wrap my mind around it yet; I made the trek. The trail filled up fast all day with peregrinos from all “Ways”. Met Giancarlo, a 28 year law student, who walked from Barcelona. He lead traditional Spanish songs along the trek. 

The town’s along the final day were not terribly impressive although there were creative crosses handmade and stuck in a fence that were interesting, notes and colorful graffiti tastefully done, and many concha markers painted and festive, and just a cool, worldly, peaceful vibe. Jerrie and Rene bought me a beer at a neat rustic cafe in the woods. Monica and Serena bought me a beer later in the day, and I touched bases with the 20 or so peregrinos I had walked with in the last 34 days. It was a road party.

It brought tears to my eyes when I said goodbye to people I had not known a few weeks ago. Serena and Monica and I have walked together the last few days and parting at the Cathedral was very difficult; sad and sentimental. They taught me so much. Serena’s feet were hamburger and all she could do was smile like a Cheshire Cat. Her attitude-absolutely priceless. Monica’s wit, wisdom and sense of humor often carried the day. The emotions that rose to the surface I have felt only one other time in my life and that was in Sri Lanka my next stop.

Santiango’s old town and the Cathedral plaza and museums and all the winding streets around it are definitely worth the price of admission: the walk, the pain, the suffering.  What a cool finale to an amazing time on the road.

         

         
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15.8 miles, 367′ elevation

   The Day was a blur of activity for now the trail is a constant flow of people. Peregrinos from the Primotivo and the Franes weave together. Student groups singing and general chatter and conversations comparing the different paths. Hearing from many about the other two I’m comfortable I made the correct choice. Many are just walking the last 100 km, even less. No judgements here.

Spoke with a few Aussies, few Brits, and walked with a Brit and an Italian for most of the day. They had crossed paths near Bilbao and remained together, often camping, which is technically illegal. Boars actually attracted their tent a couple of nights. And dogs also have been a problem. A hearty duo. Monica and Serena.

Grey day with wind and a bit of rain. Not much to photo day. Tired.

  

       

15.8 miles, 354′ elevation

Left Sobrado at zero dark thirty, 6am. Slept fitfully and not well. The Hotel San Marcos, though centrally located and clean, had mushy beds that bowed like bananas when you lay down. It never does my back justice when I’m forced to look up at my feet amid saggy middle portion of the mattress. Also, my mind decided to race onward to memories of Sri Lanka and the next stage of this odyssey. So rather than toss and turn, I headed down the Camino. Plus, the Way  grows progressively more crowded and if I wanted any solitude, which I did, the earlier was better.

Farms, farms, farms and more farms…towns of one building. The sun rose over the mountains in front of me as the misty, cotton like, wispy clouds ascended and disappeared. Arzua has one Main Street with a couple of spider side avenues branching off. You can sense the closeness of Santiago. The little shops have more and more Camino touristy stuff. I must be within 40 km.

  
                 

22.3 miles, 1268′ elevation

The journey today took me through some interesting geography. First a high plateau that reminded me of parts of the Easter slope of the Sierras. Granite and pine and scrub oak and manzanita for two or three peaceful and flat miles. Then through a series of tiny old Galician farms until finally, finally Sobrado Dos Monxes, which features a Cistercian Monastery of Santa Maria De Sobrado built originally in 1142. An awesome structure and the center and purpose of the town itself. Still has 22 monks working and caring for this immense complex.

Today was more about the gaggle of peregrino I caught up to, passed, or ran into along the way. The confluence of the Primotivo and the Frances, the two other main Spanish ways is actually in two more days, but peregrinos are crisscrossing Ways now, so the paths are fuller of pilgrims. I find myself saying hello/ goodbye frequently to people I meet, talk, walk with only to see them again in a day, two or even longer down the road.   

Met a young bright-eyed, energetic filmmaker, who does environmental, organic, communal living type ‘shorts’ all around the world on varied spectrum of subjects.  I spent the last hour watching a few of them on YouTube. She gives one hope that there still exists integrity in media and journalism. Honest, open-minded factual film can be made without selling out or slanting the bent of any facts.

 

    

       

                 

22.5 miles, 1247′ elevation          

“This mystery seems insoluble for the very reasons that make it soluble: the excessive, outré nature of the circumstances.” E.A.Poe

I finished The Club Dumas by Spanish author, Arturo Perez-Reverte last evening. A who dunnit in a classical literary book hunt, dealing with demonology and Alexander Dumas’ writing and life and times. Far fetched, historical, funny, lyrical, fact and clearly fiction, but worth the read.

I suffered today. The weather was hot and humid and over seven hours long. Walked with a whole host of peregrinos I’ve met over the month: Jerriie, Rene (from Holland), Mike and Ellen( live in Barcelona- Mike’s from London, Ellen from Barcelona), Serrena from South Africa, and Bettany from Croetia. Time and distance passed pleasantly with fellow travelers until I was forced to press on alone. I left the gang at a cafe in Baamonde and forged on for 7 more miles to meet another taxi at “the old school in Santa Leocadia”, which was on no map of the seventeen I have and no one else could find it on GPS or any of their maps. A limp of faith.

This portion took me up and through a national forest, where I saw nary a soul in any of the farms, hamlets, or vinyards. Walking during siesta  time can seem like a scene from a zombie/apocalypse horror film. Quite eerie; only the sounds of a few birds, the multitude of dogs brief barks as I pass, and malodorous scents of cow dung and sheep poop.

I had difficulty finding Santa Leocadia. There were signs to a rural Albergue, advertising food and drink, and parched and hungry  I walked there. The woman running the ancient Galician farm Albergue pronounced; “This is Santa Leocadia!” Even though really, it remained 1 km away.  Everything is ” 1 km away!” Had a beer, and followed her directions back to this ruin of a four building town, complete with the obligatory cemetery and dilapidated church, and there, the hollow halls of an old, empty stone school house, and sure as sheepshit,  a white unmarked citron sedan awaited. 

“Señor Lorenzo?” The dark suited fourtiesh driver asked, dawning his sunglasses and opening the rear, passenger door. Why of course I am! Hell, at that point, like stealing someone else’s limo at the airport, I would have said “Yes, I’m Señor Trump!” It’s uncanny and hard to explain how strange this phenomena is following a seven hour walk!? He wisked me away to a hotel in nearby Parga. I shall be returned tomorrow morning.

               

15.1 miles, 2,500′ elevation

The lovely female driver, Elizabeth, picked me up from the monastery at 8:00 am and drove me back to where I stopped, Abadin, and had left  the rest of the peregrinos yesterday afternoon.  It was major league foggy! Cold! Windy! I found a rare open cafe and had a cafe con leche(grande) and a breakfast roll I’ve grown fond of filled with light chocolate, and an aqua pequena and I began walking.

More cattle ranches, larger farms, vinyards,  and at one point I actually followed a herd of cows as a rancher moved them from one field to the next. Talk about walking lightly to avoid cattle land mines. There was shit everywhere.

Caught up with Michael, a Brit who teaches English in Barcelona, and his girlfriend, Ahelenna(sp?). He has the great wit and she the incredible charm. Then caught Jerriie and Rene, the two Dutch guys. 

Nothing totally exciting today except the conversation. Multi-cultural anecdotal yarns and ways. Fun for the entire family. One interesting conversation involved the Camino del Norte Concha shell signs. In all other states in Spain, the main part of the shell connotes the direction to go to Santiago de Compostela, and the spines, the various “ways” one could/would/may walk there. So the direction points the way for peregrinos, pilgrims, to walk and follow to arrive at the inner part of the shell(Santiago).  In Galicia and only in Galicia, the concha shell  is turned around. Meaning that the spines of the shell point the way a  peregrino needs to walk, opposite of all the previous signs for over 400 miles.

Unesco just deemed “Camino del Norte” official historical status, which means……I have NO idea. But one of the comments along the route today suggested that the Unesco consultant in Galicia must have been one of the first major governmental agents to substantiate, verify and absolutely establish and identify himself as Dyslexic! For four previous Spanish states,  and who knows how many thousands of Santiago Concha signs, now and only now they are opposite or backwards. Hard to imagine and or to explain the confusion this has caused over the years to peregrinos. 

                

17.6 miles, 2,589′ elevation

Walked out of Hospederia del Seminario de Santa Catalina at 7:50 am destined for Abadin, knowing full well a taxi would meet me at the “Town Hall” and bring me back to Mondonedo and the massive, impressive, eerily quiet Santa Catalina Monastery. “Groundhog Day” all over again!

Although the day’s walk was long, it meanders along rural routes and through forested paths and farming villages. Near San Vicente I hooked up with Jerriie and Rene, two Guys from Holland. (Brother-in-laws). Jerriie, a civil engineer and Rene, recently retired pharmacist. Great guys! They had hoofed it from Holland.

We wandered along until a local woman near Lousada(tiny farming town) insisted we come in and have coffee. Losain, I believe her name was, walked the Camino del Norte, decided to relocate from Madrid, so she bought the farm…so to speak. She grew numerous things: oranges, corn, onions, apples and painted. She bought this original 150 year old farm house and planned to fix it up a bit. It was way cool!

We continued through the mountains and I walked with Jerriie, talking about world affairs, the right to die, terrorism, his bid and project( a 17 km chunal-sp?) under water in Holland. All sorts of things. Interesting guy. His brother-in-law kept falling behind and getting lost. Rene was memorizing a French poem and would wander off down the wrong pathway after he fell behind beyond the point where he could see us.

We had a few beers in Abadin, where we connected with 10 or so other peregrinos. They all stayed at an Albergue in Abadin, and I merely walked across the street to the “Town Hall” and met the taxi to take me back where I had just been. I yelled out the window to the peregrino clan: “Viva la Groundhog Day”. The absolute one and only, first standing ovation I have ever received. I explained earlier the weirdness of my itinerary and the taxi back tracking.   

                      

15.5 miles, 2,389′ elevation

Today I left the coast for the duration of the sojourn. That bums me out although it was a good day today. A driver from the tour company picked me up from Hotel EO, in Ribadeo and dropped me off where he picked me up yesterday, in Villamartin. 

I left the sea and entered the mountains. The overcast sky and a few rain drops presented great climbing weather. A thick forest of pine and eucalyptus with fern and vines of all kinds beneath. Throughout the morning I kept hearing gun fire. What sounded to my uneducated gun ears as shotgun blasts. Some far off and intermittently some pretty close. This gave me a few uncertain moments: was I walking into a seasonal hunting zone?

At the small farm hamlet of Gondan, I stopped at a corner house cafe and had an expresso y aqua pequena. I asked the bar keep and owner; “Que es disparer?”  What is the shooting? But really, literally I think I said; What is the shot? He clearly understood, and as I was attempting to explain a shot rang out and I pointed. He spoke quickly as most people here do. More like passionately. Anyway, he said something that sounded like 

“Disparon peregrino!” Which I interpreted as “They shoot pilgrims!”  Which was clearly in no guidebook I’d read, so I asked “Que?” What?” And he repeated more slowly; “Cerdo! Picureeno!”   I eventually looked it up and they were hunting small pig! 

This took my hiking thoughts to a recurrent theme in my life of “pigs”.  With an occasional, minor run in in my youth and later with Policemen. The P.I.G.S.-Polish-Irish-German-Society of my long time friends. And the couple of encounters in the Island of Serendipity. Playing the National Police Basketball team in Columbo, Sri Lanka for the Island Championship in 1985.( “the war within the war game”) And my near miss, running from wild boar outside Annaradnapura in the jungle along the levie. And finally, the story the Park Ranger told JP and I at Tiger Tops Natural Presevere in Southern Nepal about the Boar kicking the Bengal Tiger’s ass and being the dominant predator in the park and no one would pay to see the staked goat eaten by the 450 pound boar. 

  

                           

16 miles, 256′ elevation 

 The walk was a tad lame today. First of all I woke with a high left ankle sprain, and it really is quite a mystery. Rock hoping yesterday at Cathedal beach I guess, but nothing I remember.   That and I walked only to be brought back to the town; Ribadeo that I’ve spent two days in. When I arrived here I had a message from the company that arranged my hotels and that moves my luggage that that would be the case. A taxi met me at town hall in Lourenza.

Hit three tiny towns. In one they were celebrating the “Festival of Indianos” this is crazy and popular, which is probably why there were no rooms.. Apparently, in the 17 century a group from here left Villamartin Grande and traveled to the Barbados and other islands and returned with all sorts of what they were describing as “Indian” cultural dance, building ideas, food stuff and even song. The town dressed in period outfits and pretty much drank, danced and partied for this entire weekend. Honestly, it seemed strange; like a chance to play dress up for the whole town.

Otherwise an uneventful walking day. Tomorrow I begin the mountain section, so I hope the ankle feels better. 

                      

swam and ambled up the coastline