Distance travelled: 28 kilometers

An alternate title for this post could be, “Halloween on the Coast of Death, at the End of the World.” While dramatic, it is no exaggeration. This was Halloween; this section of the Atlantic coast is called the Coast of Death; and, as explained previously, Fisterra translates to “end of the earth” or, said differently, “end of the world”.

It was also the end of my Camino in Spain.

I began walking once there was faint light. Another day of walking in the rain awaited.

Not long out of town, I got my final climb of the Camino. There was a nice, sustained hill for about 20 minutes. The first few hours of the walk mostly took me through forest, which looked remarkably appropriate for Halloween.

It was a tough walk because there was only one place to stop in the entire 28 kilometers – about halfway between the two towns. I got a coffee and escaped from the heavy mist, then continued along the coast for a while.

 

The second half of the walk was extremely difficult for me.

It began with feeling uncertain of the way. For a long stretch coming out of the town at the midway point, there were suddenly no signs, and no other pilgrims. I felt instinctively that I was heading in the right direction, and I was, but I got no validation of that for a long time – I think over half an hour.

Although the scenery was beautiful, and I’ve been a lover of the ocean all my life, it couldn’t make up for the fact that it was now raining quite hard. At one point, the rain was nearly horizontal. I was also hungry and tired, and I couldn’t tell how far I had to go – the route markers between Muxía and Fisterra no longer count down the kilometers for you since one marker serves the trail in both directions.

On top of that, I was in a lot of pain. A weekend in Santiago free of walking had not been enough to rest after the strain of the three very long final days into Santiago, and this was the third of another string of long days. (When I reached Fisterra, I’d walked 225.7 kilometers in my past seven days of walking – that’s 140 miles.) My feet (which were, of course, wet) and my hips hurt with each step I took, and today even my back was feeling tired.

As I approached Fisterra – at seemingly a snail’s pace – I started to think, “why did I do this to myself?”

I grew increasingly angry and frustrated. After all: wasn’t I on the Camino at this moment because, ultimately, I was spectacularly burned out after a couple of tough years in Big Law? You wouldn’t be wrong to question whether walking 900 kilometers is physically advisable at such a time. What on earth had made me think that, after walking 779 kilometers to arrive in Santiago, I needed to walk another 121 kilometers in four days?

When the answer came, I knew it was the reason the Camino had pushed me to choose to do this rather than go to Portugal with Lou and Shawn.

Why had I done this to myself? For two very simple and obvious reasons:

• As I’d learned from finding out my enneagram type in La Faba, I’m extremely motivated by external validation. I wanted to be able to say – for others, not for myself – that I had walked all the way across Spain. I wanted that glory.
• By the same token, I’m not a fan of backing down on a goal to which I’ve committed. Deciding not to walk to the coast would have felt like failure. I always rise to a challenge, unless I have a very good reason to decide not to.

Recognizing these reasons led to a couple of extremely important conclusions, and when I think about lessons of the Camino that have stayed in my mind and truly influenced my decisions in the past few months, these are the first that come to mind.

Consistently rising to the challenge has made me very successful in numerous ways, but it comes with a cost. This was not the first time in my life I’d been burned out, and I’ve struggled with mental health in the past as well. But despite my longstanding awareness of my tendency to do this, I’d never had this opportunity to see such a quick connection between a bad choice and its correspondingly bad consequence. My body was tired, and walking to the coast could easily have caused myself serious injury, yet I did it anyway, and despite having spent a great deal of the past five weeks thinking about burnout and my need to make different choices! I had still been blind to the extent of this inadvertent tendency towards self-destruction until this moment! Deciding to walk to the coast proved that I will almost literally run myself into the ground because of how I prioritize external validation, competition, and achievement. The pain I felt in this moment was the Camino’s way of reminding me that I need to work – actively work – at taking care of myself, which starts with altering my motivations and priorities.

Changing habits that are not only life-long but also subconscious is not the work of days, weeks, or months. This will need to be my focus for a long time, and possibly forever. But I’ve been putting this into practice; as a result of my reflections on this last day, I changed my plans for my next professional pursuit from something that would have been very spiritually rewarding but otherwise a different version of a familiar story: long hours and high stress. Instead, I pursued a job that doesn’t involve “saving the world”, but it does offer a real chance of work/life balance and a few other things that also support the broader vision of the life I want to build for myself. It’s one step in the right direction.

Anyway, having this huge “aha!” moment didn’t suddenly make my pain, hunger, exhaustion, or frustration go away, but I did feel a sense of peace in having seen, once again and in rather a grand finale fashion, how the Camino continued to provide for me. I didn’t turn around from Negreira three days before because I felt there was a lesson to be learned; this was it.

Arriving in Fisterra was anti-climatic. I regretted not having stopped walking in Santiago just because my arrival there had been so glorious – the weather was fine, and I felt tired but so powerful. In Fisterra, it was raining AND foggy; I couldn’t see the ocean. And I felt anything but powerful! I dragged myself to the albergue where Sam and Rosa were staying, dropped my backpack, and then went to find the two of them. A nice lunch, glass of vermouth, and very engaging conversation turned my afternoon around.

I had six more kilometers of walking to do. Just like in Muxía, the route markers in Fisterra lead you to a point beyond the main town. In Fisterra, kilometer 0 is a lighthouse, at truly the furthest point of land. (Remember: this was where people thought the world ended before Columbus discovered America.) The lighthouse is three kilometers beyond town. I didn’t bring my backpack this time, but I did find the strength to do that walk.

For all these pictures below: you’re supposed to be able to see the ocean. It couldn’t have been more than 30 meters below!

Like arriving in Santiago, this was a surreal moment. I couldn’t believe that the next morning I’d board a bus and drive back to Santiago, covering all the distance I’d walked in a little over an hour. And after another weekend in Santiago, I’d be on my way back to Paris, and my time as a resident of Europe would really be down to final days. There was a lot to contemplate as I walked back into town.

I had one more thing to do before I called it quits for the day. I had to return one of Ramón’s painted stones to the ocean from which it came! I had it with me, and since I couldn’t actually see the ocean from the path (even though it was right there), I decided to throw the stone into the water from a point in town where I’d be able to see it hit the water.

As I’d done when laying my stone at the base of the Iron Cross, I took a moment to hold this one – which was so beautiful! – and reflect with gratitude on my encounters with Ramón and the many other pilgrims who’d crossed paths with me, once or continuously, and from whom I’d received so many lessons and so much love. I prayed for all of us and our safe return to our homes, where hopefully we’d find ways to translate the enlightenment of the Camino to our everyday lives, and the lives of those around us. I kissed the stone, and then I threw it as far as I could. Since I did this in an inlet, I’d like to think it’s still somewhere near when it landed.

Back at the albergue – and after getting caught in another downpour on the way home – I finally took a shower and discovered that I had a horrible rash on my thighs; my skin had had enough of spending hours in the rain! As per usual, other pilgrims came to the rescue and provided something like a diaper rash cream for me to slather on before we went to dinner, which was a three-course pumpkin feast at a very hippie albergue on the other end of town. It was really delicious: we had pumpkin soup, pumpkin risotto, and finally something like a pumpkin bread/cake. Plus wine, of course, and lively music! It was a super fun way to end what had been a very emotionally charged day.

Distance traveled: 31.6 kilometers

About an hour past Olveiroa, pilgrims face a literal fork in the road. There are two coastal towns on this Camino: Fisterra and Muxía. They are practically the same distance from Olveiroa (Fisterra is slightly further). I had always intended to walk to Fisterra first and then walk up the coast to Muxía; Fisterra is definitely the more popular destination of the two towns. This is in large part due to its name: Fisterra, or Finisterre as it’s anglicized, literally means “the end of the earth”. Before the discovery of the Americas, this was the edge of the known world. People have been walking to Fisterra even longer than they’ve been walking to Santiago.

At this point it was October 30. For some reason, during my last couple of hours of walking the day before, I’d started to think that I should reverse my plan and go to Muxía first. That way, I could spend Halloween night at “the end of the world” (which is how it will show up if you tag the place on Instagram). That seemed appropriate! Fisterra is also famous for its sunsets, and that seemed like a great way to end my Camino.

Therefore, when I got to the fork in the road, I took what in this case was literally the road less traveled by and headed for Muxía.

I ended up walking the rest of the way with Chad, a young guy from Missouri who I’d been seeing since leaving León but never spoken with. The conversation ebbed and flowed; we didn’t have much in common other than our shared pilgrim experience, but I think we were glad for each other’s company given that it was raining. It wasn’t the worst rain I’d experienced, but it was steady. Thankfully, it was much warmer than it had been on the other rainy days, so it was much more comfortable from that perspective.

Our first view of the Atlantic came without warning, while we were still six or seven kilometers outside of town. It was a surreal moment, just as much as arriving in Santiago had been. As of that moment, it was finally accurate to say that I’d walked across Spain. I literally started this journey in France and now had reached the opposite end of Spain!

As usual, it felt like it took forever to actually get into town; it was probably another hour of walking from the point where we first spotted the ocean. When we finally got into town, we saw a couple of French pilgrims at the bottom of a staircase that led directly into the water. Pilgrims are encouraged to cleanse themselves (probably spiritually as well as physically) in the ocean and, more practically, to let the salt water soothe their aching muscles. The French guys assured me that the water wasn’t cold – they had been swimming – so I took off my shoes and socks, handed my phone to Chad to document the moment, and waded in. I stood in water that came up to my knees, and it felt great. Had I been with my other Camino friends, I might well have gone for an actual swim, but in that moment I felt like the brief encounter with the water was sufficient and decided to keep going.

Rather than go to my albergue, I kept my backpack on and continued to the edge of town, at the end of the peninsula. (The Camino markers lead to this point, too.) Here, there is a small church and then a series of interesting rock formations. It is said that the Virgin Mary came to see Saint James here in Spain, arriving in a stone boat (remember, I stayed in a place called the Stone Boat in Rabanal del Camino and said it was significant!) and landing here in Muxía. The rocks are supposedly the remnants of her boat. I confess, I never did figure out which was which (you’re supposed to be able to see specific parts of the boat). Nonetheless, the place has an air of holiness and power about it, not least because it is the end of another Camino! The way markers end at kilometer 0 here.

After this, I finally went back into town and to my albergue, which was lovely and very clean. I washed my clothes and then had a quiet and delicious dinner alone at a seafood restaurant. It was hard to believe that I only had one more full day of walking ahead.

Distance traveled: 33.3 kilometers

I woke up the next morning feeling back to normal – ready to walk on. I had a quick breakfast in the albergue and hit the road around the same time as all the other pilgrims, so unlike the day before, I wasn’t walking alone. I fell into step with a British guy named Peter who I’d met the day I left León, and we ended up walking most of the day together. We had light rain most of the morning that cleared up in the afternoon, and I arrived in Olveiroa in sunlight. The route had a decent number of climbs as we wove through forests and valleys.

I ended up having dinner in Olveiroa with the British woman with whom I’d walked into Santiago; her husband had met her there, and they were walking this bit together. I was grateful for dinner companions and for a day that had been full of conversation generally.

Also, this happened today. I’ve been wearing a FitBit for a while, but obviously, doing the Camino helped advance me to this accomplishment much faster!

Distance traveled: 21.9 kilometers

Despite having spent the entire time en route to Santiago fully planning to continue walking all the way to Fisterra on the Atlantic Coast, I ultimately really agonized over whether or not to do this. My friend Lou and his husband Shawn had rented a car and invited me to join them for a few days of driving around in Portugal, and it was a very tempting offer for numerous reasons, one of which was that it was supposed to rain the entire week, so walking didn’t sound like the best idea. Staying in hotels and eating great meals and generally feeling like I was on vacation were also tempting, and of course, Lou and Shawn would have been great company. I also figured that spending a few days with them could have been useful on a spiritual level, given that they are both retired Lutheran ministers! (I had already found so much of the counsel I received from Lou and Chuck – also a former minister – to be extraordinarily helpful and instructive.)

On the other hand, I worried that I’d regret it if I didn’t keep walking. Aside from the fact that I’d been planning to walk to the coast all this time, I felt so empowered physically thanks to the three very long last days I’d done; it was almost like the entire 33 days had been a test that I had finally passed, and now I could coast (no pun intended). I knew I wanted to do this walk to the coast and that, realistically, I had no idea when I’d actually be back and able to do it. And, as I had been saying to the other pilgrims who’d originally planned to continue to the coast and then backed out when they saw the weather forecast: if we’d had this weather a week ago while we were still on our way to Santiago, we wouldn’t have stopped walking!

I’m someone who approaches major decisions logically (usually with a robust pro/con list) as well as with my gut, and ultimately, it’s usually my gut feeling that wins the day. Even on this Monday morning when I was to leave Santiago, my gut still wasn’t sure, and I took my indecision to mean that I should just default to my original plan. I had a leisurely breakfast with Shawn and Lou, checked out of my hotel, put on my backpack for the first time in 65 hours, and started walking west out of the city.

After the nearly 40 kilometers that I’d walked on Friday to reach Santiago, this was a very short day. I was alone for nearly the entire walk; it was well over an hour after I left Santiago before I encountered another pilgrim. That was jarring, not only because no other portion of the Camino had been that isolated but also just because I’d spent the past 48 hours in such a social and celebratory mode, surrounded by most of my Camino friends! The part of me that had started to wonder if perhaps I wasn’t actually an introverted extrovert (rather than an extroverted introvert) grew more convinced that I’d transformed into a person who was dependent on others for energy.

The walk was pretty uninteresting. I passed through a series of towns (which generally felt far more modern and less isolated than the ones that characterized most of the rest of the Camino), and most of the time I was just walking on the side of the road.

As the day went on, I grew more and more unsettled. I don’t know if it was the isolation or some combination of other unknown factors, but by the time I arrived in Negreira, I was in a state just below full-blown panic. It’s hard to explain – I just felt very much that I was in the wrong place, and it was physically uncomfortable. I checked into an albergue and then sat on my bed, texting my mom, Adam, Lou, and Sam. “Should I just come back to Santiago?” Mom told me to trust my gut and go back. Adam told me that whatever I chose would be the right decision. Lou offered to come pick me up. Sam (who was a day ahead of me with Rosa) told me she understood what I was saying and suggested that I take a taxi to where they were. Ultimately, I decided that this was just another challenge of the Camino that I needed to let develop. I’d stay where I was, and if I didn’t feel any better in the morning, I’d reverse course and walk back to Santiago.

The rest of the day was just as solitary as the walk had been. Although there were others in my albergue, no one was speaking to each other. I saw one guy who I’d seen on and off since the day I left León, but I’d never spoken to him and wasn’t in the mood to try. I ended up reading, napping, and then eating a nice meal alone in a restaurant that had a Real Madrid game playing on TV. I felt more normal at that point but still unsure of what the next day would bring.

Distance traveled: 39.1 kilometers (24.3 miles) – my longest day!

I didn’t start the day thinking that I would end up in Santiago. My plan was to do what I’d done for my arrivals in Burgos and León: stop about 10 kilometers outside of town and have an easy walk in the next morning.

I had clearly ended up in an albergue with new pilgrims. Around 7:30 a.m., I was in the common area outside my room continuing to pack my bag, while precisely no one else was awake. This was completely outside the norm; everyone should have been up and moving at this time! Finally, just as I was about to leave, a man came out and said “you’re getting an early start.” I couldn’t help myself; I said “actually, you’re all starting late.”

I was anxious to beat the crowds on the trail, but I still stopped in a nearby cafe for a coffee and pastry before I got going. It was still dark when I started heading out of town, and it wasn’t for another 25 minutes or so that I finally got the first glimpse of daylight on the horizon.

There were a few other pilgrims on the path, but not as many as I’d expected. It was a welcome change. Apparently, I’d just had good timing. About an hour after leaving, I got a text message from Jean-Pierre (who, as it turned out, had also spent the night in Arzúa) saying “the whole world is on the trail right now!” I managed to stay ahead of that wave the whole day.

The majority of the walk went through trees, which was lovely. We’d noticed that Galicia had lots of different plants and, in particular, some very colorful mushrooms.

We did, here and elsewhere on the Camino, have to go through the occasional tunnel under a road, and these were often filled with pilgrim-related graffiti. I liked the message of this one a lot:

In the afternoon, I passed through a particularly beautiful bit of forest. Once again, I chose to play a bit of music to enhance the moment. When I took this picture, I was listening to one of the songs from “Sister Act”, and something about that song was perfect for this moment – a combination of worship and fun energy. Something about it gave me a little shiver.

I’d gradually started to toy with the idea of going all the way to Santiago. It was Friday, and the weather was lovely: after spending the day before entirely in the rain, today was mostly sunny. I wasn’t sure what kind of weather I’d have the following morning, and I so liked the idea of arriving in Santiago in the sun! Plus, I knew that my friends Javier and Becky had arrived that morning, so I’d have people to greet me when I arrived. I kept thinking about it.

When I arrived at the town where I’d originally planned on stopping, something just told me to keep going. I didn’t feel done, and suddenly nothing sounded better than arriving in Santiago and having a celebratory Friday night! Plus, I wanted to see if I could handle the extra distance. I was so proud of myself for the distance I’d covered in the past two days; if I made it all the way to Santiago today, that would mean I’d done the last 110 kilometers of the Camino in only three days!

I did decide to stop for a beer before continuing. I was sore and thought I might as well try to take the edge off. I set my backpack down at a table near a man and a woman who were also drinking beer, and they asked me if I was planning to go all the way to Santiago that day. I told them yes, and they invited me to join them. They had met on the Camino del Norte and, like me, had decided at the last minute to finish their journey today.

After our beers, the three of us set off together (the two of them at a pretty brisk pace, but I stayed with them), and, eventually, we reached the edge of the plateau and found ourselves looking out over Santiago de Compostela. Although smaller in terms of population than either Burgos or León, Santiago de Compostela is still a legitimate city, and seeing it beneath us made us realize that, as was so often the case on the Camino, we still had quite a way to go before we would actually arrive at the end. Still – there it was!!!

It probably took us the better part of an hour – possibly a bit more – to reach the cathedral from that initial lookout point. We walked through quite a bit of the city to get into that historic center. My hips and feet were hurting pretty badly at this point, but I continued to feel I’d made the right decision in going all the way. It felt great to be pushing myself like that at the very end, and the weather continued to be lovely.

Finally, when we were about 10 minutes from the cathedral, we started to see more signs of the Camino. Within the city limits, the stone markers with the Camino symbol and yellow arrows had vanished, and we’d been following a trail of brass scallop shells set in the sidewalk. As we entered the historic center, we passed this inscription in multiple languages:

The path leads you behind and then alongside the cathedral until, after passing through an archway where there is almost always someone playing some sort of music, you emerge into the grand plaza in front of the cathedral.

This is, predictably, an emotional moment for many pilgrims. I had no particular expectations for my reaction to my arrival other than that I figured I’d be pretty excited, which of course I was. It was such a surreal moment that I think I was incapable of feeling and thinking the complete range of appropriate reactions. I had never really doubted that I would make it here, either before or since beginning the journey, so while I certainly felt grateful to have arrived, I didn’t feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude or relief for the physical act itself. I did feel a great deal of gratitude for the friends I’d made, the lessons I’d learned, and the experiences I’d had over the course of the past 34 days.

Javier and Becky found me in the plaza shortly after my arrival and gave me congratulatory hugs. I could spend hours of every day in that plaza. If you remember the opening scene of “Love Actually” when Hugh Grant is narrating footage of the arrivals area of Heathrow airport, it’s like that. Pilgrims arrive, and other pilgrims greet them. People shout, cry, laugh, jump for joy, and/or collapse. It’s the best form of people watching imaginable.

My next step was to collect my Compostela (certificate of pilgrimage). Javier and Becky led me around the corner to the pilgrim office, where I took a number, and then we sat at a nearby cafe and ordered a celebratory bottle of Cava while I waited. (The system is electronic, so you can check where you are in line on your phone.)

A couple of people ahead of me in line must not have shown up, because suddenly my number was being called. I learned in that moment that it is possible to sprint 40 yards with a 25-pound backpack on and after you’ve walked nearly 40 kilometers already that day! But I made it inside and went straight to a desk, where I presented my pilgrim passport – filled with stamps from each place I’d stayed, plus a few others – and filled out a brief form to indicate who I was, where I’d come from, and what had motivated my pilgrimage (I checked the boxes for religious and personal reasons).

There are two types of certificates available, and most people get them both. The Compostela is the official certificate of your pilgrimage; it’s written in Latin, and if your name has a Latin equivalent, they will write that on the certificate. (I swear this is true: the woman typed in “Kendra” to see if there was a Latin version, and she said “mierda” – “shit” – when, of course, there wasn’t a result.)

The Compostela is given to anyone who has completed the last 100 kilometers of the Camino on foot, bicycle, or horseback. That’s the only requirement. It doesn’t say anything about how far you’ve come, and for that, people get the distance certificate, which is written in Spanish and provides the number of kilometers you’ve walked from your starting point. Officially, it’s 779 kilometers from Saint Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago de Compostela. That’s 484 miles, and I walked the entire way. Spread out across the number of days I walked, I averaged 23.6 kilometers (14.6 miles) per day en route to Santiago.

Certificates safely in hand, it was time to figure out a place to stay. I had planned to stay at a pilgrim hotel (a converted monastery) near the cathedral and had made reservations for Saturday and Sunday nights; I ended up just adding an extra night. What a beautiful view of the sunset I had from my simple room:

I joined Javier and Becky to meet up with a larger group of American pilgrims for dinner. It was nice to meet some additional people and to be in a large party – it really felt more like a celebration! I had a pizza and then was very ready to go to bed. Before I did, as was usual, I synced my Fitbit to my phone and learned that there’s a special badge for people who walk 55,000 steps in a day: the Platform Shoe badge.

And finally: here’s the map showing my completed journey across Spain to Santiago de Compostela!

Don’t worry, I’m not done yet. I stayed in Santiago until Monday morning, and then I had four more days of walking to get to and down the coast. Stay tuned!

Distance traveled: 36.4 kilometers

I have almost no pictures from this day, which is primarily because it was another one spent almost entirely in the rain. I had a special waterproof bag for my phone, but it wasn’t particularly easy to use the phone while in the bag, so I think I must have just left my phone alone for most of the day. This was identical to the day I’d walked from Ponferrada to Villafranca del Bierzo, except that this day was 10 kilometers longer!

Once again, I set off early in the morning. I’m not sure what my motivation was – I knew it was going to rain all day, and it was already raining when I left; maybe I wanted to get ahead of the swarms of new pilgrims, which proved to be impossible.

I stopped in the next major town for breakfast, and who should happen to come into the cafe while I was eating but Ramón, my Spanish Camino dad from two days before! We were happy to find each other again and walked together for a couple of hours. I found that the rain made me tired, so I let Ramón do most of the talking, and I just exercised my listening skills. He has a beautiful perspective on the world.

Ramón and I ducked into a restaurant just before the town of Leboreiro to warm up, and as I ducked under the awning to take off my backpack, I saw another familiar face: Jean-Pierre, my French Camino dad! This was a really heart-warming moment for me. I hadn’t interacted a lot with him one-on-one while his wife and their friend had still been with him, but he seemed genuinely delighted to see me. I had never gotten around to exchanging contact information with any of them, so I immediately gave Jean-Pierre my number and told him to keep in touch. He had found another small group of French pilgrims, and they were planning to stop in the town beyond the one I’d been thinking to aim for. I decided running into Jean-Pierre again was a sign to go further, and I told him I’d try to make it to the same place.

Switching from Spanish to French to Spanish again was a lot for my tired brain to handle during that break, but the coffee and tortilla española soon gave me a boost. After our snack, Ramón bid me a fond farewell and set off ahead of me; I wouldn’t see him again.

I walked alone for the rest of the afternoon. I found humor in seeing the clumps of new pilgrims walking together in matching, fresh-out-of-the-packaging gear from a European athletic supply chain. It was pretty easy to distinguish them from those of us who’d been walking much longer!

I finally arrived in the town where Jean-Pierre had indicated he was going to stop, but I never saw a sign for the albergue he’d mentioned (or indeed, any albergue), so I kept going. And before I knew it, I’d arrived in Arzúa… a full 10 kilometers beyond where I’d originally thought to stay the night. I found an albergue with no trouble (this is a large town) and did what I could to allow all of my soaking items of clothing to dry; there wasn’t a washer or dryer in the albergue, so the best I could do was string everything up around my bottom bunk.

In the evening, I ventured out for some dinner and decided to forego Spanish food in favor of some good, old fashioned pizza. This pizza place had rave reviews, and that seemed like just the way to treat myself after surviving an extremely long and wet day. Three other younger pilgrims ended up joining me at my table. Two of them had been walking on the Camino del Norte, the route that goes along the northern coast; their route had just connected with ours that day, and it was interesting to hear about their experiences. One of them turned out to be the boyfriend of a German woman I’d met back in Carrión de los Condes! The other was a young Swedish guy who indicated that he planned to go all the way into Santiago – nearly 40 kilometers – the next day. The rest of us thought that sounded nuts – why go so far in one day? I’d heard that the best strategy was to stay in one of the towns five or ten kilometers outside of Santiago so that you could have a nice, quick walk and arrive in Santiago mid-morning, relatively fresh.

Each day, I took screen shots of both my Fitbit and iPhone step trackers. It was interesting to see how they did and did not align – there wasn’t one that was consistently more or less than the other in terms of steps or distance. Today, they were very aligned on the step count but had a three mile difference in distance traveled!

 

Distance traveled: 35.4 kilometers

I left the albergue at 6 a.m. and walked alone in the dark for about two hours. This included some time in the woods when my imagination wanted me to feel nervous but I knew logically that there weren’t likely to be any dangers lurking in the dark. The only surprise was encountering an Italian man who I’d been seeing since Ponferrada; he stood out in my mind as an incredibly graceful pilgrim. His style of walking was so distinctive that I could pick him out from far away. Each step seemed deliberately placed; he walked slowly. He was the one I’d found singing on my way to La Faba. On this morning, he was walking in the dark without any kind of light. I have no idea how he could see where he was going; it was pitch black in the forest! But I love that he was doing this.

It took a while to find a town that had an open cafe, and the one I found wasn’t particularly promising. The woman behind the counter didn’t start off very friendly and seemed startled to have a breakfast customer; she could only offer me coffee and some toast, which I was happy to take. As I was the only one there, we ended up talking a little bit more, and eventually she asked me how far I intended to go that day. I wasn’t sure, but I told her I’d been thinking of trying to make it to Ligonde, which would mean a 34 kilometer day. This sparked some interest. “In the town just past Ligonde, Airexe, is the best hospitalera [albergue manager] on the entire Camino. She is a friend of mine. I wonder, would you be willing to deliver a hug to her?” I gave her a big smile and my assurance that I would do my best to find this woman and deliver the hug. What a great mission for a pilgrim! I took it as a sign that I should try to get to Airexe that day. (Just for context, what that means is doing almost two days in one.)

Around lunchtime, I crossed a wide river into the town of Portomarín (the recommended stopping point for those setting out from Sarría). I kept going and ended up on some kind of alternate Camino path without ever having made a choice to do so; I followed the signs and then, sometime later, realized that the Camino markers I was seeing all noted that I was on the alternate route. I guess the real route takes you into the town, whereas I’d managed to avoid entering town and instead gone into some woods. I didn’t see another pilgrim for at least an hour.

When I finally came upon another town with dining options, I stopped for a late lunch and got quite a surprise: who should be in the restaurant but Bill, one of the members of my Camino family who I hadn’t seen since before our arrival in Burgos! Although we’d been in touch with him and Lou every day, it had never occurred to me that I might finally catch up to him. He had separated from Lou a day or two before and wasn’t sure where Lou was at that moment, but it was exciting to find someone who I hadn’t seen in such a long time (and who I’d been trailing for such a long time!).

I arrived in Airexe, which consists of two albergues and one restaurant, and headed into the municipal albergue, where I’d been told I could find this amazing hospitalera. Her daughter turned out to be the one on duty that day, and she told me that her mother was ill at home but that she would gladly deliver the hug to her. I accomplished my mission!

I set about my usual post-walk routines, including sending a message to my Camino family group on WhatsApp to report where I’d ended up for the day. A few minutes later, I got a message from Lou: purely by chance, he was in Airexe too! And so was Bill! The three of us had dinner (along with Lou’s husband and their friend, as well as a Canadian woman we met in the restaurant), and it was SO good to be reunited!

Distance traveled: 23 kilometers

Today felt longer than the 23 kilometers would suggest! This is the last “short” day of the Camino. The next three days were all very long.

It was a beautiful walk through a lot of forest. I’m mostly going to let the scenery speak for itself here.

Midway through the morning, a Spanish man in his late 60’s offered me a particularly enthusiastic “¡Buen Camino!”, and somehow we started talking. Ramón, who became my “Spanish Camino dad”, turned out to be a local Galician who regularly does portions of the Camino recreationally. We walked together for about an hour, and since he speaks only Spanish, this was quite a linguistic workout for me! (I’d been speaking a lot of Spanish with Raul as well, but Ramón speaks pretty quickly, so it was more challenging with him.) I asked him something that had been on my mind for a while: isn’t it annoying to be on the Camino in your own country yet unable to communicate with most of the other pilgrims because so many of them are anglophones? Ramón assured me that this was not the case for him. “I have found that I can have conversations with pilgrims even if we don’t speak the same language. Every pilgrim is experiencing and feeling the same things, and somehow, we find ways to communicate that to each other.”

Ramón was such a beacon of kindness and generosity. Before parting ways, we exchanged contact information, and he told me with complete sincerity: “if your mother and aunt ever come to do the Camino, they must come and stay with me and my wife.” (I had mentioned that they were keen to do the Camino at some point.) He also gave me three beautiful stones that he had painted. “Two are for your mother and aunt to return to me when they come. The third is for you to return to the water in Fisterra.” All three stones had come from the water, and he was anxious for them to return to the water at some point. Fisterra is the town on the Atlantic coast where my journey will end.

I arrived in the town of Sarría around lunchtime. Sarría marks the point that’s about 100 kilometers from Santiago, and since the requirement to get the official Compostela (certificate of pilgrimage) is only to do the last 100 kilometers, it’s the point from which many of those last-100-kilometer pilgrims join the rest of us. I knew the last few days of the journey would be a time for trying to check my judgment and exercise patience as the route became more crowded with people who, in my not-so-humble opinion, had no idea what it was like to be a “real” pilgrim who’d already walked over 600 kilometers.

I wasn’t anxious to stay in Sarría with all these other new pilgrims, so I continued on to the next hamlet, called Barbadelo. (However, whenever I next do the Camino, I think I’ll stay in Sarría. It’s a pretty big town and would have been a nice break from all the much smaller towns of the past and upcoming days.)

Barbadelo was a pretty small place, and the best-looking albergue was already booked up. (With pilgrims who’d arrived by bus. Just saying.) Adam and I joined a handful of other people staying in a mostly empty albergue at the edge of town but did come back to the larger one for dinner. The place had a Meseta-like vibe that I didn’t love, so I made the decision to leave early the next morning. Adam and I also decided it was time for us to go our separate ways – we had spent so much of the Camino together, and something was pushing me to do the last bit on my own.

 

Distance traveled: 25.7 km

The first 45 minutes of today was my favorite part of the entire Camino.

I set out from La Faba while it was still dark so that I’d get to see the sun rise as I climbed up to O Cebreiro. While the change in elevation was “only” 430 meters between La Faba and O Cebreiro, as you can see below, the route out of La Faba was pretty steep, just like the climb into La Faba the day before.

I left the village with Adam and a few other pilgrims who’d stayed at our albergue, but the moment we hit the trail, I got a burst of energy and motivation that powered me ahead of them. I found a happy rhythm tapping into both my lower and upper body muscles (thanks to the trekking poles), and it almost felt like I was flying up the mountain. This is what I could see looking back to the east as I approached the hamlet of La Laguna at the end of that steepest point:

The sky got brighter, and the path a bit less intense, as I continued up.

Somewhere between La Laguna and O Cebreiro, we crossed into Galicia, after so many days – since before Burgos! – in Castilla y León. We had finally arrived in the province where Santiago de Compostela is located!

From now on, our path markers will look like this, with very precise distances (down to three decimal places) to Santiago:

As I continued climbing, I found myself feeling more and more joyful. While the beauty of my surroundings certainly contributed to this, the main source of this joy came from within. I felt that each step forward and up, on one of the most challenging stretches of the entire route, symbolized a step I’d taken away from my struggles of the past couple of years – away from innumerable overnights in the office, physical and mental exhaustion, feeling like my head was being forced underwater while I struggled to come up for air. Each step, and the physical strength I used to accomplish it, reminded me that I had not been defeated. I had saved myself, and little by little over the course of the Camino, I’d started to come back to life. I felt a vitality and sense of connection with my truest self, and maybe even with God, that I hadn’t felt in such a long time. It’s hard to put into words just how powerful this was. I should have felt exhausted when I arrived at the top, especially considering how fast I climbed, but instead, I felt super energized. I felt I’d conquered an epic challenge. I wish I could start every morning in exactly this way.

We really were on top of a mountain at this point. Looking north and south, there were only valleys on either side. The clouds passed through quickly, allowing for some pretty cool video, particularly next to the statue above.

Now, I have to admit that once again, I kind of breezed through what is otherwise a pretty significant place. This has been a significant stop for pilgrims for centuries (perhaps they felt just like I did upon their arrival!). O Cebreiro is home to the oldest church on the entire Camino Francés; it dates back to the 9th century. I did not go in; I am not even certain that I saw it. I was on such a high from my climb that I was only focused on the scenery around me. I will do better next time.

Mark had spent the night here and was waiting for me and Adam to arrive in order to walk with us the rest of the day, so I headed to his little hotel after taking a lot of photos, and Adam arrived a short time later. We had a coffee and then began our descent into Galicia.

Galicia is often compared to England or to Brittany in France. It’s full of lush greenery, and it rains a lot. (As we’ll shortly learn, the weather can move in on you quickly.) It’s another region of Spain where the people speak something other than Spanish; here, it’s Gallego – essentially a blend of Spanish and Portuguese. (I was pleased to have studied both languages, which made my understanding of the Gallego I heard relatively easy.) There is a lot of agriculture, and we passed many cows over the next several hours.

As we neared lunchtime, the skies turned grey, and suddenly it began to rain again. We hadn’t been expecting this, so I had a fun moment of taking off my backpack and frantically trying to get all my rain gear on. Thankfully, about 10 minutes later we came upon a restaurant full of similarly wet pilgrims, and we managed to get a table and a hot bowl of caldo gallego – the typical Galician soup made with potatoes and green cabbage. It was the perfect thing for warming up!

We waited for the rain to pass, and fortunately we were able to go the rest of the day without any further showers.

We arrived in the town of Triacastela in the late afternoon and ended up in an albergue with a fireplace in the main room. We had a feast that night – Raul’s friend Joan (a guy from near Barcelona) was celebrating his birthday, so we got some octopus, which is one of the staples of Galician cooking. It was delicious!

Here are the stats for today. I don’t know if “Flights Climbed” includes down as well as up, but either way – that’s a lot of flights in a single day!

 

Distance traveled: 23.7 km

Happily, I awoke on this day to find that it was not raining – though clouds still threatened a passing shower or two in the course of the morning.

Adam, Mark, and I met for breakfast and then set off together on the path out of town. Here, too, there are two possible routes to take – one involves a steep and potentially treacherous hike through the hills; the other involves walking on the side of the road for a while. We all chose the latter!

(Interestingly, I just finished reading a book by a pilgrim who walked in the early 2000’s, and his account of this stretch on the road makes it sound incredibly dangerous. Things must have changed since then, though it’s hard to imagine that the road now could look that different. His account describes many near-misses with large trucks; perhaps because I was walking this on a Sunday, there wasn’t much traffic.)

I really hit my stride once we got out of town and had soon lost sight of Adam and Mark behind me. Perhaps the lack of rain added an extra spring to my step! I found myself in a good mood for no reason whatsoever and, for the first time, decided to listen to music. Rather than blocking out the world around me, my intention was to consciously form an association between this stretch of the Camino and a handful of songs on a playlist I made as I walked – I called it “Camino Autumn Appreciation”.

After several hours on the road (and a brief interlude through some forest, where I sung out loud for a bit before encountering an Italian man who was also singing, more beautifully), we finally left the main highway and returned to a more typical Camino footpath that led us through a couple of small towns. One in particular had quite a lot of cows, and I thought this scene of napping calves was adorable:

I knew that I had a hard final hour ahead of me when I got to the town of Las Herrerías, where these cows were. From there, it’s a nearly three kilometer climb up to La Faba, where I’d decided I was likely to stay for the night. (My friends Lou and Bill, now almost two days ahead of me, had relayed that they’d had a very pleasant stay at the German-run albergue there.) It seemed a good place to break up the climb to O Cebreiro. Although the Iron Cross is technically the highest point on the Camino, O Cebreiro feels much higher (and it’s only 200 meters below the Iron Cross) because the climb to it happens so suddenly, whereas we’d just gradually increased our elevation over a period of days before arriving at the Iron Cross. See below:

Right as I was starting the climb to La Faba, it began raining again. Fortunately, most of the path was through the woods, so it wasn’t quite the same downpour effect as the day before. However, because the previous day’s rain had also passed over this area, the path was incredibly muddy. (My friend Javier, who’d done this stretch the day before, had described the climb to O Cebreiro as “swimming upstream”.)

I once again found that I really loved climbing. The path to La Faba was really challenging, even aside from the rain and the mud. It’s never flat; it’s just a continuous and fairly steep angled path through the trees. Look how many equivalent flights of stairs I’d climbed by the time I arrived in La Faba (after an otherwise pretty flat day):

I passed quite a few people who had stopped for breathers on the way up. (And, in the book mentioned above, the author describes meeting people on this stretch who were crying and thinking seriously of giving up.) I just kept at it. Something about these climbs just triggered thoughts about how I’d spent the past two and a half years living in a fifth or sixth floor walk-up apartment, so without realizing it I’d been training for these parts of the Camino all of that time. I already knew I could do it.

Having passed so many people (and two people on horseback) on the climb, I was one of the first to arrive at the German albergue in La Faba. I took off my muddied shoes at the door and received a very kind welcome from the couple who had been volunteering there for the past two weeks; this was their last night before their replacements arrived. The place was, and remained, spotless despite the mud outside.

I had lunch in one of the two restaurants in town, a vegetarian place attached to the other albergue. I ended up at a table with two women from Bordeaux who, like so many other Europeans I’d met, had recently picked up where they’d left off on a previous Camino journey. It had been a few days since I’d last spoken French (I had last seen my friends Jean-Pierre, Dominique, and Marie-Claude the day before I arrived in León), so I was happy to chat with them for a few minutes before they went on their way; they were going all the way to O Cebreiro. So was Mark, who I ran into on my way out of lunch.

Back at my albergue, more people were starting to arrive, and I found Adam a few bunks from mine. We got into a conversation about one of the books he’d been reading, about the enneagram – a type of personality test (like Myers Briggs) that’s starting to get increased attention. Adam passed his tablet over to me, and I took the test to see which type I got. The results were really illuminating and sparked a great deal of reflection both on this day and throughout the rest of my time on the Camino. A few of the summary points really resonated with me: “Ambitious, competent, and energetic, [people of my personality type] can also be status-conscious and highly driven for advancement … [and] can also be overly concerned with their image and what others think of them. They typically have problems with workaholism and competitiveness.” This made SO much sense to me in the context of my reflections on how I’d been comparing myself to others, feeling rushed, and of course, how hard I’d worked in the past couple of years. These themes will appear in future posts and played a key role in a big lesson that I learned on my last day.