Reborn in Finisterre

In the Atlantic in Finisterre

Finisterre

At the pilgrim mass on Wednesday I met 2 Japanese ladies I had seen and walked with a few times on the Camino. They are Naoka and Rika, both of whom now live in Canada. They had also decided to go to Finisterre the following day, so we arranged to travel down together.
On Thursday morning we caught the bus to Finisterre, a journey of 3 hours.
The coastline to Finisterre is absolutely beautiful, just like the west coast of Scotland around Fort William.
I identified a lovely resort called San Francisco as a place where I would like to go and live when I retire.

When we arrived in Finsiterre we were welcomed by people offering accomodation.
I had a lovely room to myself in a house for €15.
It was the first decent sleep I have had for ages.

Naoka met some friends she had met along the way and we all went for some lunch.
While we were there I met Ian, an English guy I had met on the very first day from St Jean to Rocevalles.
It was so good meeting up with him, and so we were able to chat about our caminos.

We all decided to go up to the lighthouse for sunset. We took a bottle of wine and some goodies to eat, but the weather wasn´t going to co-operate and the clouds started to roll in off the Atlantic.
We still drank the wine though :-)

Yesterday morning we returned to Santiago. This time the bus took 3,5hours to return.
Once back in santiago I met up with a young Korean girl whom I had met early on in the camino.
She was so excited to see me and gave me a big hug.

I am now walking around Santiago killing time until my train leaves tonight for Mdrid.
This time tomorrow I will be boarding my plane back to South Africa.

Happy birthday Andrew :-)

Santiago

Well - my camino has now officially finished.
This morning I walked the final 4kms into Santiago, went to the Pilgrim office and received my Compostella, then went to the cathedral for the Pilgrim mass, and hugged the statue of St. James.

I was hoping to be able to post a photo here, but this internet cafe doesn´t seem to allow that.

I am staying in a very nice place tonight. It is called Seminario Mejor. It is an old seminary that has been turned into a hotel. It is about 25m from one of the cathedral entrances. The cost is only €23 per night and includes breakfast. The breakfast looked really good this morning. Not bad at all.

Tomorrow I am going to take the bus to Finisterre and stay there the night.
I will return to Santiago on Friday, stay the night at the same hotel, then catch the train out on Saturday night.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my family and friends who gave me the necessary encouragement to complete this camino. It has been a long walk, but a job well done.

O Pedrouzo

The final stretch.
I have decided that I won´t have time to walk to Finisterre, but will go there on Thursday by bus instead.
I´ll stay overnight there, then come back to Santiago on Friday, and then leave on Saturday for my long journey home.
This time next week I will be back home :-)

Arzua

I thought I was going to get a good night´s sleep in the Pension last night -ha!
There was a fiesta on, so there was a lot of noise with drunken revellers still going strong in the early parts of the morning.
When it was time to leave there wasn´t a soul about, even though it was going on for 9am.
I hadn´t paid for my night´s stay, so I left a note saying I would send the money later when I got back to South Africa. When I arrived at the alberge here in Arzua I got the young lady who runs the place to phone the pension for me. She said that they had received my note, and it was ok.
They are very laid back here in Spain.

There is nothing to write about Arzua, its just a small stop-off town on the way to Santiago.
Just before entering the town there was the 40km marker, so Santiago is very close.
What most people do, and so will I, is stay tomorrow night in O Pedrouzo, then the following day head to Monte de Gozo which is 4,5kms away from Santiago. There is a huge alberge there. Then one sets off from there early the next morning and arrive in Santiago in time to receive the Compostela, and then go to the Pilgrim Mass in the Cathedral at 12 noon.

Melide

It was raining again this morning so it was an uncomfortable walk.
I got as far as Melide, 12km, and decided to pack it in for the day.
I quickly phoned Ricardo to tell him that I was staying here, and booked into a pension.
How nice it is to have a decent bed, clean sheets, a private bathroom with proper towels.

I tried to have a nap but was disturbed by fireworks and music and horns hooting.
There was a fiesta on the go - St Cristobal fiesta.
In the main street of the town there was a large open van all decorated with a band playing and a priest showering blessings on all the trucks of the neighbourhood. They all drove past, decorated and hooters blaring.

While I was watching that Noako and Rika (two Japanese ladies I have met along the way) came along, all wet and bedraggled. They have also booked into the same pension.
We will go and have dinner later on.
The speciality of Melide is pulpo (octopus), so I will try that.

Tomorrow I will take it easy again and walk to Arzua, which is only 13kms away.
I plan on reaching Santiago on Wednesday.

Palas de Rei

It was a bit cool and misty when I left this morning but about 5km from Palas de Rei it turned into a steady drizzle.
For the first time since the first day I had to pull on my poncho. I am also wearing my fleece, its that cold.
The sign outside the pharmacy went from 18C to 14C in about half an hour.

There were hundreds of people walking along today, mostly schoolkids.
I guess thats the problem with coming on the camino when the schools are on holiday.
Ricardo and I have quite a good system worked out.
He likes to leave early when its still dark, so he shoots ahead and gets to an alberge nice and early.
He then reserves a place for me and phones me to let me know which alberge to head for.
That way we make sure we get a place.
Thats also a reason why I haven´t been pampering myself by staying in a hotel, I can´t let Ricardo down. He´s such a nice chap.

There really isn´t a whole lot to do in this town except eat, drink and relax. I am becoming good at all three activities - lol.

They like us here.



I guess because we let them win the World Cup, lol.

On the way from Barbadelo to Portomarin I met another 2 South Africans. That is12 I have met now. The last 2 were a mother and daughter from Cape Twon.

Today was one of those days when I met up with people I have met since I started walking again in Astorga.

It is nice to meet up again with people you have walked a while with.

This evening in the church there was a classial music concert. A young man played the flute and then the guitar. He also sand a number of songs from different lands. I recognised 2 Hindi numbers he sand, plus a Hebrew one.

Tomorrow I will walk 22km to Palas de Rei.

This morning I was checking my speed against the km markers. In Galicia there are countdown markers every 0,5km. I was averaging 4,8km\hr which is pretty fast.

Of course I didn´t keep up that average as I then stopped and had coffee and something to eat.

I haven´t slept too well the last 2 nights because of noisy snorers, so if I don´t get a decent night´s sleep tonight I will check into a pension tomorrow night. It will be worth the extra cost to get a decent night sleep.

Yesterday I paid €6 and had all my clothes washed in a washing machine and dried in a dryer, so at least I have nice clean clothes.

Sarria

I am in Sarria at the moment. Just popped into an internet cafe.
I´m not stopping here, but will carry on another 5 kms to Barbadelo.
Its still early, just after 12pm so I can stop for lunch on the way and still get there nice and early.
I can then have a sleep.
I didn´t sleep last night as there were 2 people in the monastery dormitory who snored loud the whole night.
Even with earplugs in you could hear them.
Everyone complained this morning about the noise they made.

When I arrived in Samos yesterday I was a bit too early to book into the dorm so I went to a bar for a beer, where I met up with Ricardo again.
There was also 2 ladies with a South African flag.
The one lady lives in Balito and works at the North Coast Crawford College. Her name is Maureen Thompson. The other lady (Estelle) now lives in Pretoria but lived in ´Toti for years.

I have met a total of 10 South Africans now on the Camino - all white - lol.

Spanish underwear

If you ever watch Rafa Nadal playing tennis you will notice that he is always tugging at his underpants.
Well, today I was walking behind 4 young teenage Spanish girls for a while, and I´m not kidding, every 2 minutes they were tugging at their underwear.
What is it about Spanish underwear, does it ride up constantly, or is tugging at one´s underwear just a Spanish characterisitc?

Samos

Today I walked the most delightful walk on a peaceful, shady walk to Samos where I met up with Ricardo again. Galicia is so beautiful - just like walking through Scotland or parts of KZN.

We are staying in the monastery - lol. It is very spartan but will be a good experience.
This afternoon we went on a tour of the monastery.
It is dedicated to St. Benedict who is the patron saint of Europe. Now you know Andrew :-)

Tomorrow we walk through Sarria on to Barbadelo, just 5 kms on th eother side of Sarria. Sarria marks the 100km that one has to walk in order to get a Compostella in Santiago.

I probably have only another 5 days to walk till I reach Santiago, so I am planning on maybe continuing to walk to Finisterre as  I don catch the train from Santiago to Madrid until the 16th.

Arrival in Galicia

I entered Galicia in the company of a family from Barcelona. The daughter´s name is Claudia, the mother´s Yolanda, and the father, who was taking the shot is Juan.

Yo y mi amigo Ricardo

I met Ricardo a few days ago and our paths keep on crossong. He is Spanish but now lives in Belgium. He is 48 years old, worked in the mines in Belgium for 10 years and is now on a full pension. These European countries sure know how to look after their citizens.

O Cebreiro

Last night was spent in the most amazing albergue. We had a wonderful dinner consisting of butternut squash soup, followed by tuna salad, followed by spaghetti, followed by baked custard. Of course, there was the usual bread, wine and water.

At 6am we were woken up with music resounding around the hostel.
There were pictures of the Dalai Lama and various Buddhas and Buddhist prayer flags.
We left after a lovely breakfast to Buddhist chants.
A very different experience.

Just before O Cebreiro we entered Galicia.
Being in O Cebreiro was like being in Scotland. Everything was Celtic with even Celtic music being played on the bagpipes,
The scenery is spectacular.

I continued on after O Cebreiro to Fonfria, another 12 kms.

Villafranca - Ruitelan

It was an easy walk today to Ruitelan. I was going to go only to Vega de Valacarce, but I arrived there too early so I decided to walk a little further. Apparently tomorrow its quite a steep climb up to O Cebreiro.

There were 2 different routs out of Villafranca - one hard, the other harder - lol
The difficult route takes you over the mountains which would have been nice to do as the scenery would have been spectacular. The guide, however, warns that it can be dangerous as it is steep, especially coming down. I have already had one fall this walk, so I didn´t want to chance it. I also didn´t see anyone else taking that route and one thing I learned from the Mountain Backpackers Club is that you shouldn´t do such walks alone.
The route everyone was taking was very picturesque as it followed the Rio Valacarce. It was nice to hear the river running by as you walk along. This route also takes you through all the small villages on the way.

I can´t believe that it is 3 weeks since I arrived in Spain already. The time is flying past.

Love to everyone.

Ponferrada - Villafranca

This is the Knight Templar castle in Ponferrada - very interesting seeing as how I am a Knight Templar. There was a lot of interesting manuscripts on display in the exhibition hall, including the order to exterminate the KTs.

The walk today was 23 kms to Villafranca del Bierzo, mostly through vineyards. There was quite a lot of uphill and it was hot again.
I had lunch in Cacabelos, spreading my stuff beneath a lovely tree in the town plaza. After eating I lay down in the shade, put my head on my backpack and slept for an hour. I bet the townsfolk must have thought I was terrible - lol - but I don´t care - I´m a peregrino.

Tomorrow I enter Galicia. I feel quite excited about that

Janis and Anna

These are two German girls who invited me to come and sit with them because they said I looked lonely by myself. The girl on the left is Janis (her father is an American GI living in Germany who liked Janis Joplin), she is 19 years old. The girl on the right is Anna who is 21 years old. When they heard that I had a son who was turning 19 soon they said I must take their photo and put it on my blog so that Andrew can see what he is missing by not coming on the Camino with me - lol

Rabanal - Riego de Ambros - Ponferrada

There was no internet last night so I have to catch up 2 days.
The walk from Rabanal del Camino to Riego de Ambros was fantastic. It was up all the way until the highest point on the Camino. Just before reaching the highest point (1515m) one reaches the Cruz de Ferro. One is supposed to bring a stone from your home country and place it at the base. Well, I didn´t have one, so I just deposited a South African coin instead.

The walk in the mountains was amazing. The paths are like those in the berg, but the scenery is just stupendous. Last night at dinner I met 2 other South Africans, both of them being of German origin, but now living in SA. Funnily enough they were both called Wolfgang, but one lives in Cape Town (Constantia) and the other in Pretoria.

The walk today from Riego de Ambros to Ponferrada was downhill all the way through the mountains.

I have just booked in at the alberge and am now going to go and get some lunch, after which I will visit the Knight Templar´s castle, and other sights. There is going to be a festival here tonight, but we have to be safely tucked up in our beds by 22:30 :-)

I am doing well and feeling very healthy. My shorts are actually starting to fall down as I walk, so I am taking that as a good sign. I can also feel that my spare tyre around my waist has gone down a bit.

More tomorrow.