Land´s end

Mandy and I set off together from Oliveiroa and climbed up between stony hills topped with big new windmills. We passed scrubby patches of eucalyptus, but most of the trees had been cut or burned off in the not too far past. Stone walls ran up and down and across the slopes, I don´t know why. Later Eddy suggested that they might be firebreaks, but if that was the case they hadn´t been working well.

In the mornings Mandy likes to stop at the first available bar for coffee, and so after five kilometers we got in out of a light rain at a white two-story building all by itself on a ridge top beside a lonely road. A handwritten sign outside warned that the next opportunity for food and drink was fifteen kilometers distant. Mandy ordered her coffee and "tostadas" (toast), while I asked for a queso y tomate bocadillo (cheese and tomato on baguette). I thought 3.25 euros was a little pricey, but the woman behind the bar had cornered the local market.

An older peregrino, a man in his ffties, was already sitting at the bar when we arrived. He introduced himself as Johnny Walker, and then he pointed to his companion, just coming out of the bathroom with a lit cigarette in his hand, and said, "and hees name Jack Daniels." At these words, the second man let out a loud "huey!" in agreement and celebration. The first man was Dutch, and he had walked all the way from Holland, starting off on April 8th. He told us that he had walked the Camino two years ago, and all across Spain "everyday sunny and thirty-five degrees!" (ninety?) He was disappointed with all the rain--and it has rained a lot, twenty of my twenty-nine days on the Camino. But only twice did it rain all day, and several times the rain came after I had finished walking. If it had been ninety everyday the walk would have been much more difficult.

Salima and Eddy appeared as I was finishing eating. Mandy decided to have another coffee, but I went ahead alone. The fifteen kilometers to the next town led over and between mostly naked hills, along ridge tops...until suddenly the ocean came into view. A beautiful sight, the rugged coastline to the south, the sea stretching far far to the east. I descended steeply into the large town of Cee, on a narrow bay. There I found a small grocery store--my first in several days. Buying bananas was a huge pleasure. It had been more than two days since my last platano. I bought oranges and carrots too, bread and chocolate (I´ve become fond of the latter during my time on the Camino; everyone is always sharing chunks of the big bars, and this long ago convinced me to buy--and share--my own).

After I re-supplied I went down to the waterfront and sat on a bench and ate a banana, then the rest of my bocadillo, and breathed in the salt air. Before long Mandy, Salima, and Eddy arrived. Rather than go back into the town, we continued around the bay to the adjacent town of Corcubion. But when the path led steeply uphill towards a ridge, threatening to leave town before we came upon another tienda, I asked a man for directions to a grocery store, and he sent us back down another steep road. Right near the supermercado we came upon a film crew shooting a scene from a movie. A little unexpected.

The scene was short--a half dozen people dressed in the 1930s garb (headscarves and berets) simply walking along--a man carrying a pail of fish, a woman with a basket of eggs, another woman with milk, and, oh, a man on a bike. I watched them shoot the scene repeatedly, while the others shopped in the store. I asked one of the film crew, a young man with shoulder-length hair and sideburns and clearly not local, the name of the film. I think he said "Marina Negra."

From Corcubion I went on alone again. I passed over one more ridge and after four or so kilometers came down to Praia Langosteira, a long, white sand beach wrapping around to the town of Finesterre. A breakwater stretched ufrom the town, sheltering a number of fishing boats. Beyond was the last point of land, finished off with a lighthouse.

But first I went down to the water and had a wade. In that moment, more so than in Santiago, I thought my journey had been completed. I had come from the Pyrennees, through Navarre and Rioja, across la meseta, through hilly Galicia, and finally arrived at the Atlantic. At the start I had thought of the sea as my destination, but there was so much excitement just before and in Santiago among my fellow pilgrims that I had gotten caught up in that destination--and happily so. But the last three days (or the last two, anyway) had been among the best of the trip, the most beautiful, the most fulfilling. Finesterre was necssary.

Later, in the evening after we were settled in the town, we walked the last three kilometers out to the end of the narrow peninusla. There on a bush and boulder covered slope below the lighthouse, overlooking the sea, the peregrinos come to burn things. It´s tradition to sacrifice something important, or maybe just something you´ve used up. Eddy burned a shirt, but I forgot the pair of socks I intended to immolate (the ones I ought in Burgos). We all took lots of pictures of each other, then separated to our own rocks and thoughts. Later we walked back to town, backtracking after moving forward for nine hundred kilometers.