Santiago to Fisterra

A brief posting for in an hour I am meeting a fellow peregrino for a last beer. He returns home tonight, and tomorrow I begin my way back to Madrid, via Zamora, Avila, and Salamanca to return to the real world next week.

Today was the obligatory bus trip to "fin del mundo." it was a glorious day for the long bus rides. Despite being mid-October, it looks and feels like beach weather. School is in session, and vacation season has ended, so the beautiful bits of beach between Noia and Fisterra were almost empty. A little hazy, it was still a nearly perfect day to walk to the lighthouse and look over the edge of the earth!

Fisterra itself was bustling with numerous peregrinos who made the trip by bus and many more who walked. Two weeks ago I debated walking, but after the climb to O Cebreiro, I decided that would be stretching my luck and my leg muscles too far. I am glad I took the bus and walked the final kms to the faro.

There will be no more postings until I return to the US.

Santiago!

Arrived early this afternoon in Santiago, and what a complicated set of feelings! Happy to have achieved the goal; glad I do not have to face any more 30 + km days anytime soon; relieved my knees will not need to make any steep descents for awhile; sad that I am unlikely to ever again encounter most of the fascinating and wonderful people who have walked on my schedule and been albergue, meal, and trail companions. Those who have never walked the Camino will never know the magnificence of the experience! The walking can be painful and occasionally difficult, but oh the rewards. It will take many weeks to sort my photos, notes and feelings to make full sense of the experience, but all complaints to the contrary, the rewards far exceed the time and effort expended.

An unexpected reward late this afternoon--in addition to seeing many of my Camino companions for a final time--was the swinging of the botafumier at the 6 pm mass. This is the second time my Camino has ended with that awesome display, a fitting coda to a fantastic month.

Arca (O Pino)--Turgrinos

Almost at the end of a dry Camino, not a drop of rain in 31 days. The heat in the first two weeks was difficult, but rain is worse so all who have been on my schedule should be thankful. Today was a comfortable day for walking, and tomorrow promises to be a fine day for the final 20 km into Santiago.

This walk I have been watching turgrinos. The turgrino phenomenon is both fascinating and annoying. Prior to starting, I mostly thought of those who walk a week ot two, using the albergues as inexpensive housing while vacationing. There are many who do so east of Burgos, but not many on the meseta. Having no intention of walking the whole Camino, even in installments as many Europeans do, they crowd the trail and use albergue beds, creating inconvenuences for those intending to go the distance as pilgrims.

In the final 100 km there is a quite different kind of turgrino. These "pilgrims" come in herds off tour busses. The bus driver deposits them at a bar with instructiona to get a sello. They then walk three to five easy km to another bar where they get a second sello in their credencials, climb back on the bus and are carried to a private albergue or hostal for the night. They walk perhaps 20 km but have a credencial allowing them to "earn" a Compostela. Yesterday I counted six such groups, including one where all of the turgrinos wore yellow scaeves.

Portomarin

The rumors are true. A very large number of additional pilgrims, from listening most of them from Spain, join at Sarria in order to walk the 100 km required for the Compostela. Already crowded in tis exceptionally warm autumn, the Camino is almost like a one-way city street. Never today was I out of earshot of chattering peregrinos, and it was rare when no one was nearby. I fear that may be the rule all the remaining four days.

Lots of rather rude people on the path including the Frenchman playing a "boom box" with some of the most vulgar American rap "music" one can imagine. An Irish woman told him he was seriously offending English speakers, but he just shrugged and went on, blasting the noise as he moved forward. Cell phones are ubiquitous along with banal "I am on the Camino" calls to people back home. Why one needs to do this while walking, I will never know. Finally, and most distressingly, the shedding of trash is truly horrific with used tissues in almost every semi-hidden place. Perhaps it is time to institute standards of conduct for peregrinos on the Camino.

Triacastela

Amazing how quickly a week passes when walking the Camino! That is especially true with three difficult days in a row: 1. The steep downhill from Foncebadon to Molinaseca; 2. The long slog through Ponferrada to Villafranca del Bierzo; and 3. The exhilirating but exhausting climb to O Cebreiro. Those are behind me, and now all that remains is the final week through Galicia into Santiago.

It was distressing to se what a tourist trap O Cebreiro has become. Trinket sellers and overpriced food places (4 Euros for a breakfast consisting of a cafe con leche and 2 piece of toast) dominate, and three tour busses with guides speaking English arrived when I was having a beer. It is a lovely village with my favorite church on the Camino. Sadly, it cannot be reserved just for peregrinos.

The weather remains warm to outright hot as it is this afternoon. The Camino remains crowded with albergues full or nearly so. There seems always to be a peregrino or two in sight ahead, and a turn shows one just behind. The mixture of people walking is fascinatibg. Geographically the Spanish, French, and others from the Continent are most numerous, and half the population of Ireland seem to be walking, but the relative absence of those from the US is puzzling.
Canadians are numerous, I have met a dozen or more from BC and even a half dozen from New Brunswick. Many French-Canadians are also on the route. In contrast I have met fewer than a dozen from the US since leaving Pamplona. A great thesis topic would be the mix of nationalities on the Camino.

Leon

Frog, mule and now lion, a veritable zoo. Of course the origins of the names may have little or nothing to do with their current links to familiar animals. While the lion is a symbol of modern Leon (sorry for the absence of accents; have not figured out how to do them on the iPhone), and lions in one form or another are almost ubiquitous in the art works representing the city, the origin of the name is from the Roman term for legion and not linked to large cats.

With glorious weather, a relaxed Sunday afternoon has been spent seeing a few of the highlights of Leon. Great luck allowed a visit to the cathedral without the expected Sunday crowd. Even greater luck brought me ino the Museo de Leon's annex at San Marcos, the church next to the Parador. Its three rooms, the sanctuary, the coro, and the chapter room, are awe inspiring examples of the gothic. Leon is a treasure house for fans of romanesque and gothic architecture, and San Marcos is one of its greatest jewels. I am only sorry that i did not discover it on earlier visits to the city.

Tomorrow back to serious walking and on toward Hospital de Orbigo.

Mansilla de las Mulas

Frogs followed by mules, the great fun of toponomy!

A badly needed light walking day, actually the second in a row. The trek into Leon tomorrow is not a distance challenge either, though it is a challenge to deal with urban places after a week of hamlets, villages and small towns. I almost wish there were a way to avoid cities on the Camino, but each one of the big cities does have charm and importance to the route.

Great steps toward increasing the safety of peregrinos have certainly been made since 2001. While too many crossings of busy roads remain, the walker rarely has to contend with more than a few meters of roadside walking. On todays walk, an overpass brings the peregrino into Mansilla across the busy highway, and a it earlier in the day's walk it was no longer necessary to cross the busy RENFE line at grade. The danger to the pedestrian peregrino is now more from speed crazed bicyclists intent on reaching Santiago day after tomorrow but insisting on riding on the senda rather than the parallell road.