To the Ends of the Earth, and Beyond

My birthday celebration turned out way better than I expected.  In Santiago, a city of several thousands, plus several thousand tourists, I ran into Javier, the one person who I had made a good friendship with on Camino.  He was at the Pilgrim´s Office with his father, who had made the 7 hour drive from Pamplona to meet him at the end of the road.  So we agreed to meet up for dinner, and Javier´s father insisted on treating.  We shared a Galician dinner of octopus with spiced pimiento powder, and something akin to a paella, all accompanied with some wonderful local wine.  Over dinner, Javier and his dad, also Javier, instructed me a little more on Galician culture and we determined that it seems most likely that my last name, Agudelo, is of Galician origin.  After dinner, Javier Jr. and I celebrated arriving and my birthday over a beer, Estrella Galicia, a smooth lager ubiquitously on tap.  Whatever comes out of a tap, by the way, is called "caña", as opposed to "clara", which is tap beer with tonic.  yuck.

 

I returned to my posh rented room in an apartment, a welcome change from sleeping in bunks or on the floor.  However, sleeping alone brought a strange feeling of solitude.  The end of el Camino would mean that I would no longer have a guaranteed infrastructure of places to stay, and people to share with whom I knew already had something in common with me.  I guess that´s one of the scary and amazing things about solo traveling, that at some point, it´s like Little Nemo when he goes off the end of the reef.  When that security net is taken away, then it´s just you and your wits.

 

Twenty kilometers into my ride out of Santiago into the unkown, my knee started bothering me a bit, and I stopped to stretch a little.  It´s the unspoken code that whe you see a cyclist on the side of the road, you stop and inquire.  So it was that this Italian guy wearing spandex shorts with a print making them look like cutoff jeans stopped to ask if all was well.  I told him I was just resting a bit, and that was that.  About 10km later I caught up to him again, and I asked him where he was headed.  He said he hoped to arrive to Fisterra, as the net of pilgrim hostels continued there.  As that was also tentatively my destination, we rode together.  We traded names, his Giovanni Bautista, from Torino.  He had actually ridden from Torino (!), putting in 2400km in 18 days, over three mountain ranges, and on this day he had started from about 50km before Santiago, so he had more legs than I did.

 

Uncertain of how far Fisterra was, we stopped at Noia to check my map.  The map was actually of no help because the road along the coast is much longer than it looks, weaving and winding its way in and out of bay towns whose existence seems to be only fishing.  So we continued on the road, the Atlantic Ocean to our left.  This was the first time the Atlantic Ocean had been on this side of the road for me as I headed north.  That, however, was a secondary thought, because my main concern was dealing with the brutal headwinds.  We finally arrived at a sign disappointingly telling us that Fisterra was 80km away, much too long to add to our day.  Feeling slightly defeated, we decided to make for Corcubion, where there was supposedly another pilgrim´s hostel.  In Galicia, pilgrim´s hostels are free, so we had incentive to make it there.

 

The road was beautiful, but the headwinds and constant hills made it difficult to really focus.  I imagine this is a bit what the Pacific Highway road is like.  If you´re going with the wind, it must be perfect.  Against the wind, that invisible foe makes uphills seem like trying to penetrate a wall, and makes downhills slow down to about normal pace.  That notwithstanding, having Giovanni there was great to keep my mind off the wind.  He told me his father had built up his bike and guaranteed that it would make it to Santiago.  The bike had nothing fancy.  A classy Italian steel frame, with simple Campagnolo components, a basic touring rack and panniers.  He was carrying surprisingly little for such an epic journey, and that inspired me to trim some of my belongings.  Also, I realized my bike still needed some more wear and tear until I felt really confident with it.  I had a scary moment where my left pedal somehow came loose and I tore off the first thread off the crank.  Fortunately by threading it from the other side, I was able to get it back in no problem.

 

Arriving in Corcubion, we were told that there was no room left.  We had hoped that beyond Santiago, these albergues would be basically empty, but we were wrong. The bad news were compounded when the guy running the place also said we couldn´t camp there.  Added to the tone with which he refused us, it made it extra easy to just say goodbye, and put our heads down and make for Fisterre.  We arrived at almost 9pm, which lucky for us is still light-ish outside.  Immediately, there was a sense of welcome from the people in the albergue.  We had arrived at the end of the road, the end of the journey, the end of the earth.

 

Fisterra literally means "end of the earth" in Galician.  The Romans thought this was the end od the earth because it´s where the sun disappeared.  It´s not quite the westernmost point in Europe (a penninsula near Lisbon takes that cake), but it´s close.  Legend has it that this has been a place where pagans have journeyed to for hundreds of years before the Chrisitan pilgrimmages to Santiago began, leading many to believe that the pilgrimmage to Santiago was actually just a Christian myth fabricated to get pagans into the religion.  Regardless, the place is full of a certain kind of culture, largely in part because it´s full of a certain kind of people.  It´s a windy coastal town, making for tough residents who can take some sand in their eye and keep going.  The travelers who come here are interested in something more than Santiago.  They are interested in touching something deeper in history, and deeper within themselves.  And Fisterra becomes a little of a meeting point for these travelers, who let loose and party a bit while they´re here.

 

After a genuine pasta dinner cooked by Giovanni (he insisted on cooking me "real" italian pasta, and in his panniers he even had some special virgin olive oil and spices), we decided to walk around and look for the party.  By then, it was late, but it was a Friday and we figured the party would be thriving.  If it was, we just failed to find it, and fatigued, we decided to just head to the lighthouse that marks the end of the promontory that is the end of the earth.  I am happy to report that basically the entire time that we chatted, I mustered some version of Italian that was intelligible to him.  I´m sure one out of every four words was actually some spanish-ism, but that didn´t seem to bother him.  When we arrived at the lighthouse, we reflecteda bit on what it meant to have arrived, before we realized that it was about 1am, and we should head back to get some rest.

 

The morning saw us up early, as Mikaela, the pretty Italian albergue manager wanted us out by 8:30.  So we were off, and I was completely uncertain with what to do with my day.  I had planned a day off, but Fisterrra didn´t seem to be at my speed for the day of rest.  It was a mixture of too windy, too touristy, and maybe just a bit too solitary for what I had hoped.  So I headed for the lighthouse with Giovanni again, this time by bike, and we took some obligatory snapshots.  He had to leave to catch a bus back to Santiago, leaving me alone to figure out what to do.  Giovanni had mentioned that there was one more city called Muxia where the Camiino ended, again, and that there was an albergue there maybe worth the trip.  I wanted to give my legs a rest, but a short ride would be fine by me.

 

I stayed at the lighthouse and found a quite place to rest and think.  I found a stone bench facing the rising sun over the water.  No one was around.  It seemed for a moment as if everything stood still while I made up my mind.  I read a bit of "Memorias del Fuego", the first in trilogy of books by Eduardo Galeano about the formation of a Latin American history.  Reading about how 500+ years ago there were sailors who set off into that same uncertain ocean that sat before my eyes made me think about what it must take to make that journey.  I could look at the ocean, and know that Boston was on the other side, but without that knowledge the ocean must have seemed like outer space.  Of course, I´m not a sailor, nor do I know much about what sailors lives were like five centuries ago, but I can gather that at least these men were basically risking their lives for the promise of riches beyond their wildest dreams.  They found those riches, and the riches are now scattered throught Spanish churches and museums.

 

After a bit of extra sleep, I decided Muxia was where I wanted to end up.  First I stopped by the beach to pick up some actual Fisterra seashells for my niece, Katie.  The only gift I brought her back from Colombia was a seashell from Cabo de la Vela, one of the northernmost settlements in Colombia.  She has too many toys, and anything that I would buy her would pale in comparison with something in her toybox.  When I gave her the Colombian seashell, her eyes lit up, and immediately I knew that I would be bringing her seashells from other places in the world I visited, starting with this.  I found two ideal shells, small enough they wont encumber my minimalist traveling, but pretty enough that I know her eyes will light up again.

 

The two hour ride to Muxia flew by, and I keep up a high cadence to give my knees some rest.  From the moment I arrived, the city was more welcoming, the water was more beautiful, and the people were more smiley.  I had arrived in the city for its first annual artisan fair.  All the locals were dressed up in medieval costume, and everything from bakers to potters to fish-net makers were out in the street.  It was the perfect atmostphere to spend a day.  I walked around, learning about the town and its wonderful history.  Although out of the way from El Camino, this town claims to its name being the historic and religious beginning and end of El Camino.  The guy at the tourist office gave the 10-minute speech on how it was on this beach that, while the Apostle James was pondering returning to the holy land because his mission of converting pagans in this region was proving unsuccesful, the Virgin Mary appeared in a boat encouraging him to continue.  There are some large stones on the beach which are supposed to be the petrified parts of the boat that carried the Virgin.  There is also an enormous monument marking the end of the Camino, something that Fisterra can´t really claim.

 

There´s really nothing like a small town fair to give you a sense of what the people are like.  One person quoted me that the state of Galicia, which has no major cities outside of Santiago and Coruña, spends 6 million euros annually on fireworks.  Who knows if that´s true, but the sentiment, which is that people here live well and celebrate well, certainly seemed true.  People, in and out of costume, walked with big smiles on their faces, happy to engage in conversation, and happy to see other people happy.  I heard some wonderful music, a mixture of scottish, irish, and german with bagpipes, flutes, accordeons, and drums.  For lack of finding one restaurant that appealed to me, I decided to much on things from many establishments.  First was the "pollo preñao", a little roll cooked in a stone oven with a chorizo inside.  Then there was the "empanada de pulpo", sliced up octopus in a crusty empanada.  Not to be missed was the "cocido gallego", a greasy few slices of pork meat with potatoes.  The meat turned out to be pork ears, nose, and tongue.  I might not have eaten it had I known first, but it was stil good. To top things off I had a chocolate and cherry crepe.  By that time, I could eat no more, and I had received comments from two locals who were wondering where I was putting all that food. Gas in the tank, baby.  Gas in the tank.

 

For beinga town of six thousand and no industry other than fishing, this certainly seemed like a town that was doing well for itself.  Maybe the first annual fair is a sign of how this little town is marketing itself as a bit more of a tourist destination, an reaping the benefits of such.  It had a decently sized supermarket, but it had not yet lots the small local markets, fruit vendors, and bakeries.  Another sign of prosperity was the alebergue in Muxia, a modern building that had only opened up less than a year ago.  With motion-sensored lights and lots of natural lighting, the building seemed like it belonged in a larger city.  Keeping to its small town roots, though, it closed at 11pm, so I had an early night in, which was good for getting some good rest. I was out of there by 9am the next morning after a lazy breakfast.

 

Two full days have passed since, and I am doing well, today in Viveiro on the northeastern shore of Galicia.  I have not written because I have not found internet.  I have maxed out this place, because they are soon to close, and daylight is dying, so I need to run to set up my tent for the night.  But hopefully tomorrow I will be able to recap the last couple days as well, which have included the first bit of real strong rain, the first night of camping outside of a camping area, topless sunbathing, meeting other colombians, and the first mountain pass.

 

I´m afraid I won´t be able to post more photos until I get to Burgos, which will hopefully be next Sunday.  Also, a general big shout out to all those who sent me birthday love.  Though I´m far away, I felt the many hugs and well wishes sent my way.