Hola from the ends of the earth!
As your comments of success have guessed, we did indeed make with all our appendages to
Santiago! I took Sil´s suggestion and took a big deep breath in front of the cathedral and thought about how many others had stood in my exact spot, with sore shins, tired shoulders, and maybe sandaled feet and felt what I was feeling in some capacity. Pretty amazing.
The cathedral itself looks pretty gloomy to me, but it was more what it represented than what it actually was. We haven´t gone in yet because we caught an early bus to Finnisterra. We are going back to Santiago Sunday and will go Monday morning I believe.
The actual hike into Santiago was pretty normal. It drizzled all day, but nothing too heavy. Had some good talks about Nigerian email con artists and the vigilantes that punish them. We didn´t bath in the river because we felt pretty clean from all the rain. The locals seemed pretty disappointed about it :(
We got in around 4pm to Santiago and headed for the only open alburgue- Seminario Menor. After getting a bit lost, we found it only to discover it closed!! Till April 2009! We thought it was pretty bizarre not to have an open alburgue in the one town that pretty much every pilgrim will stay at. I´m not quite clear on that.
We asked a young fellow with a backpack to point us towards the cathedral and we wandered that direction (justin telling me the whole way that his feet were done walking). In the pilgrim´s office is where you get the ticket out of purgatory for walking the camino. HOWEVER, we failed to qualify!! Eek!! They have you fill out your information and ask if the pilgrimage was religious, religious and other, or not religious at all. Being the honest pilgrims that we are we said not religious. She double checked that with us and then gave us a certificate of completion more or less instead of the get out of jail free card. Oh well. We´ll have to rely on our good hearts instead.
From the pilgrim´s office we found nice, cheap accomodations across the street. There were some other pilgrims we knew there as well. It was 13 euros a piece for a private room with shared bath. Not too shabby.
The only problem was that we were right on a main street in the old town. About an hour after we checked in we heard someone screaming at the TOP of their lungs in French. On and on for at least an hour. We peaked out our window and saw who it was: the young fellow with the backpack who we had asked for directions screaming in French. We never found out what he was so angry about.
We had a cheap meal out that night, before crashing. Friday morning we walked to the bus station and took a 3 hour bus to
Finisterre/Fisterra.
We found a great place to stay here because the alburgue does not take pilgrims who took the bus here. It is only 10 euros a person for a private room, with a kitchen, free washing machine, and a bathroom with a bath tub!! It´s called Pension fin da terra, and you can get info at the Re100 gift store near the harbor for anyone headed that way.
I feel a bit ill today so have been taking it easy. I took my first hot bath in a year today and read. Leading the good life over here!
It feels very nice to rest our tired bodies and be by the ocean. It´s a HOT 60 F here, woo dog.
Justin and I were both impressed by how tired we are. We thought after a month of walking we´d be roaring to go, but our feet especially feel very burnt out. (Justin´s understandably so.) My leg muscles do feel stronger and my endurance is higher. But my shoulders and feet still feel sore. I remember a German guy in Logroño telling me that. He had been walking 40-50 km a day since Germany and said that he was surprised at that: no matter how long or how far he goes, his feet still get sore. Good to know.
We both have really loved the
Galicia province of Spain. It has a very different feel from the rest of Spain. They believe in witches here and other spirits too I think. Maybe Sil can tell me what the little raised houses with crosses on both end are? We haven´t figured that out yet.
On a totally unrelated note, Justin wanted to add that we met a Dutch guy about a week back who kept commenting on all the ¨snorking¨in the alburgues. Justin loves this new word for snoring and would like as many people to start using it as possible.
Also I can´t remember if I wrote about Justin´s melting his last pair of American flip flops?? He put them over the heaters to dry and left them over night. In the morning they were all curled up on the ends. Oops! He flattened them out a bit, but has since switched to his back up pair. Maybe he´ll find something in Dublin.
Ok that´s all for now! Thanks Sil for the biking links! Thanks to everyone SOO much again for following and all the comments.
abrazos y amor para todos!
