The Last Miles

According to the plan we left a quick 9 km stage for the last day, and excepted a beautiful not too tired entry to Santiago. Planned some sightseeing for the afternoon and a fresh start to Finisterra on the next morning. It wasn’t the plan’s fault that it became the longest 9 km of our life…

In a nice canteen (where I bought the shell with the yellow arrow) we ate an empanada (pie) and got some free tapas made of eggs. Unfortunately one of the two was blown (I suspect the egg). Monika got fever and was sick by the evening, I spent the half night with cramps in the loo I could go to sleep with a pill against fever only. Next morning it was Carolina’s turn in the toilet, only Nathan was more or less OK. The irony in the whole thing is that we took a 4 bed room with a toilet for saving some money… Well it was peak time in the bathroom!

 
We laugh yet

The planned early morning start was of course out of question, and we could walk slowly only, and often had to rest. We arrived in Santiago around 1 PM, checked in the first suitable hostel we found in the town and had a short rest. Well the rest went so well, we practically fainted and slept 3 hours. The last 3 km to the Cathedral was still very hard even without the bags, but the delight even bigger! We made it! 35 days, 870 km walking, enormous effort, but we made it!

  
The End

In the following days we looked around in the city, admired the Cathedral, hugged the statue of St. James, checked his urn, and participated on the pilgrim’s mass where at the end the biggest censer was swung. Here it is:

We met Pierre again, it is how the story became full: he was the very first pilgrim we met, and it was so good to meet him and say goodbye! Unfortunately neither strength nor time we left to continue the trip until Finisterra. We sad goodbye to Carolina and Nathan with whom we spend the last 5 days together in good and bad and headed to North, to La Coruña. Based on the lefleats Coruña looked very promising which pays back genorously the one day we could spare for it. It was spectacular indeed.

The pilgrims hopefully bring luck and fill out a lottery ticket for an old lady in a bus stop

When in La Coruna we walked along the rocky coast to the Roman lighthouse we realized that this is our Finisterra, our end of the world, even if it is on the North not the West. We can go home now.

The 5th Week

During the last days it became clear for us how many people complete only the last 100 km. Everyone can get the Compostela, the certificate about completing the Camino who finishes the last 100 km on foot or the last 200 km on bike or horse, hehe. :)) Even tourist agencies organize trips to the last 100 km with package shipping and pre-booked accommodation. That’s why fresh people appeared on the road in clean cloths, sport shoes and with a miniature day pack.

One of the last stages looked quite hard: in 40 km there are no facilities you have to carry all your food and water. In between there is only one accommodation for 14 people only (while during the last days we easily filled up places for 40 people) and it doesn’t provide any food either. We knew we could not get into the first 14 and somehow we had to break up this stage - but it seemed that nobody smells business in the steady flow of the pilgrims. It was hard, but thanks for the persistent effort of Carolina we managed to find a guest house in a village (casa rural) about 4 km from our path. We agreed with the hosts that they will pick us up somewhere on the road and would take us back to the same exact point. In this way we don’t have to walk a meter more than necessary.

 
Waitng for the pick-up

I’ve only seen in Australia anything similar: the smaller-bigger farms create a village but without any village center. If there was a postman on bike here he could easily enter for the Tour de France that’s how big the distances are here. Our host told us the their village, Regüela comprises two farms all together, their and the neighbour’s farm. Though it was only 4 km we winded for almost a quarter of an hour on the narrow one-lane roads, when we finally arrived to the beautifully renovated farm house.

The guest house is owned by a family, very nice people. When they learned that it was Nathan’s birthday they gave us a free round at the bar. That night Spain played against Chile and because everyone enjoyed the match (including the family) we could only have dinner after 11 PM.

Two days later our path merged into the French Way at Arzúa 40 km from Santiago. All of the sudden we were many. They said in Arzúa the beds in the council owned albuerge (the cheap pilgrim’s hostel) filled up by noon, and we couldn’t get in to the private albuerge at 3 PM. Luckily we found two rooms at an old lady. I think by 6 PM all the beds were taken in the town.
The Way became different too, the pilgrim doesn’t miss anything here. In every few km there is a bar or a buffet, next to the road vending machines are lined up and at every step accommodation is offered on signs. You have to eschew your solitary mood as well. Actually the road was so crowded that we hardly had to check the signs at all, most of time we only followed the people in front of us!

 
Traffic Jam

 
Plenty of offers

  
Everything for the Pilgrim

The 4th week, already in Galicia

Yesterday we finished our 4th week. So far we’ve completed 743 km, 27,2 km on daily average. The average daily cumulative elevation gain is 600 meters, and the all time c.e. gain is the impossible 16 thousand meters.

Here in the last state, Galicia, it is printed on the milestones how much left until Santiago – it says we have to walk 125 km more only! (And of course seventy something until Finisterra :) ) The weather is awesome, quite sweaty, but everything is good which is not rain! :)

In our the last day in Asturias we finally lost our way and fortunately took a few kilometer longer costal ‘variante’. As we turn our back to the sea when we turn to the inland and towards Santiago it was a beautiful farewell: there were rocky coast, small coves and the inevitable fields, grazing lands and cows. :)

Galicia again a new world. The whole is a large farmland, where you don’t know where the first few farms made village ends and the next one begins. These farms rarely thicken to a village or town, as for the pilgrim hostels are scarce too. Luckily we always managed to finish the daily stage under 29 km. The path most of the time is straight, there are no insane detours like in Asturias and the slopes are quite mild so far as well.

We are more and more though, you can feel that Santiago is only 10 days ahead, many people only has this much time for the Camino, here we are among the old ones with our 28 days, hehe. Here is for example a 16 people high school group, but they occupy 16 places in the ‘albergue’ if we cannot overtake them.

If new week, new characters are around. First the retired Canadian microbiologist, Jozef, with amazing stories who this year came to be a ‘hospitalero’ (host) in one the refugees. The Italian Gizella who walks at astonishing speed, as she has to catch her flight home in Sunday. Here are the Spanish sisters, one of them has been living in Sicily for 7 years now and they spend their holiday here together. Or the journalist couple from New York, Carolina and Nathan, who spend the last weeks of their world around trip here, walking 10 days to Santiago.

Mobil office, Jozef and Carolina

 
Proper sized mugs at last! In the middle Nathan

 
In the middle an Austrian girl, Martina 

 
And I’m here too! :)

Rest in Luarca

We had a holiday in the beautiful seaside town Luarca:

More pictures at the usual place: http://picasaweb.google.com/mikola.akos/

The 3rd Week

Today we finished our 21st day and have two more weeks to go. According our measuring we have completed 550 km on the way (with backpacks), and another 36 km during sightseeing and while we were looking for shops or restaurants. The book says there is 300 km more until Santiago, plus 75 km until Finisterra, the end of the world. :)

The weather has been improved since my last entry and despite all the forecasts it doesn’t rain all day which is a definite progress. Yesterday it was cloudy but the sun could shine through the clouds sometimes, while today it rained often. We always managed to find a doorway or a fence and avoided to get soaking wet.

Waiting for the easing

We endure the march quite well, but there are very difficult days when we get up the same tired as we went to bed the previous night…

Monika stopped for a moment, and it was too good for words to sit dawn and then to recline. I could have fallen asleep in a minute…

Asturias During Record Rain

We’ve been walking in rain for three days now and the forecast is not good at all. We didn’t expect record rainfall and don’t have fully waterproof equipment either. The raincoat protects only our upper body, all elsewhere we got soaking wet after an hour, then we walk the next 4-6 hours like this.

 
Landscape in rain

 
Purse, mobile, camera in snack bag, in the backpack everything in separate nylon bags

The life stopped in all Asturias, the festivals and fiestas cannot be held because of the rain either. In a few villages the flooding water washed away the road, a few houses and the embankment under rails. The fields are under water, the houses are in water, and the Camino is soaking wet too.

  
Big water

According to our book we should complete 30+ kms, but our sodden feet cannot bear the long stages, so we restructured the plans. If the Camino goes off-road then we sometimes walk ankle deep mud, that’s why we followed only the main road today – but even the 20+ kms is soul-killing like this. So we are waiting the good weather.

 
Mud everywhere

At the first time I even enjoyed this… :)

The Second Week

The 15 km before Bilbao and the next two days were shockingly ugly compared to the previous week. The only exception is Portugalete center and the world heritage transporter bridge.

(Our first glitch on the road: both of my SD cards went wrong at the same time. One is readable by the camera only (this one contains the pictures), the other one is accessible only by the computer. Once I get the pics out of the card I post them. I bought a third card already, we have photos again since Asturia! :)
Update: I can copy out photos one by one from the card, so there are photos for this post!)

Not much later we left Basque Country to enter Cantabria. The landscape is fine countryside again, with more villages and smaller mountains. Unfortunately the path is mainly on concrete which exercised our feet greatly and made us limping by the and of the day. By now thanks to the Scholl relaxing balm and the gaining toughness we manage quite well on the asphalt.

There are many more pilgrims now, but sometimes we see familiar faces. We already met Hans and the two Italians and could talk a bit with Pierre. Our new friends are the Dutch Miriam and the two Hungarian Gyuri (“George and George” :) ). The two George are both psychologist (and ex-soldiers: one was a tank commander the other was a helicopter pilot) and have amazing stories. Miriam started her pilgrimage from home, she has been walking since February(!) and completed such 2500 kms. She had to have a month break in the winter because she got frost-blisters, but since then she is unstoppable.

 
On a ferry with the German Thomas and Miriam

Sea-looking cheap supper with Miriam

A morning cofee with George and George

And you? How many times?

The Irún-Bilbao stage is like a nice hike trail. It mainly leads in the mountains, often crosses farms and your feet only touch concrete when you are in the villages.

 
From one farm to another

Because of the length of the stages and the location of the accommodations the pilgrims stay together, we always met the same faces during the day and in the evenings. The Canadian Pierre, the German Hans and the athletic woman, a Belgian couple, the two Italians and the 5 cheerful Spanish were almost our only companion. Seeing their performance you wouldn’t tell that all of them are over 60, as they went at a very good pace. Most of them completed at least one Camino but for some of them it is the forth one. We heard of the “Camino addicts” but didn’t expect to meet them this soon! ;))

 
On the sides the two Italians. On the French pilgrim, to the right of Monika, you can see the typical pilgrim tan: the limbs are tanned, but the corpse and the feet are snow white. :))

Pierre is a real character: amazingly tanned, his grey curly hair is whitened by the sun, mischievous smiling eyes. He was the first one we met; on our day zero, waiting for the opening the pilgrim refugee in Irún. First we didn’t understand his question about from where we are coming – we start here, where the Camino starts, don’t we? :) Then we learnt that he started in France, was on his way for a month and was close to finish his thousandth kilometer already… Every day he left at least half an hour earlier than us and by the time we arrived to the refugee he already had a shower, washed his cloths and finished his first beers. ;))

With Pierre 


Drinking beer with Pierre, in the background a French and a Swiss pilgrim

Just before Bilbao we said goodbye for the Spanish who came only for a week and was to fly back to Barcelona and start working the next day (on Monday). As we crossed the industrial ring on our way the center, we were almost sure that we’d never see our pilgrim friends again - a new stage begins. Luckily we wasn’t right completely.

With the Spanish group

A typical day

We are still alive! We arrived to Bilbao in 6 days, completed 167 km and almost 5 thousand meters climbing. The terrain is like hiking in a hilly forest in addition the sea often appears from the right. The old, experienced fellow pilgrims told us that the Camino Norte is the toughest as you have to climb and descend a lot. We witness it! :) The climate is a bit rainy, cloudy, sometimes sunny – such oceanic.

 

Our typical day starts at 6.30-7 a.m., then a quick packing, breakfast (if provided) and leaving around 7.30-8 a.m. If breakfast is not included we first go to a bar and drink a café con leche and some pastry. Then 5-8 hours march what we break occasionally for a short meal and rest. If there are no villages in the stage we eat what we bring, otherwise the menu is a glass of beer and tapas (Monika often exchange the beer for a coffee). The tapas are better and there is a bigger variety than in Madrid. My favorite is the omelet and sausage sandwich, such perfect for hiking!

We arrive to the hostel between 3 and 5 p.m. If it opens at 4 we have to wait. After shower, cloths washing and some feet nursing at 6 we are ready for a supper. It is a fault as the restaurants open at 8, that’s why sometimes we live on tapas and wine (both are excellent!) :) Our stomach shrank enough that we happily get by on this diet for days before we start to linger for some proper meal. This time we wait until 8, but it is very trying as you are very hungry and want to be in bed very-very much. After 9 the pilgrim room gets very quiet everyone gets to the bed early, as they are dead tired and want to be fit for tomorrow.

We manage it but it always hurts somewhere. The downhill ruin your knees and heels while the concrete hurts your sole and ball. Before leaving I bought a pair of walking sticks (I just call them clutches :) ), with these I support my knees enough that I can complete the daily stages. The human body is wonderful, it is amazing how it heals itself, though every day another body part wearies.

A typical Albuerge (Pilgrim Hostel)