Tonight is my last night in the comfort of my own home. By this time tomorrow, I will have checked into my hostel in Bordeaux, the first of six weeks of bunk beds, temperamental showers and creaky metal lockers. Six weeks is as long as a half term – I have to keep reminding myself of that fact. Six weeks is a very long time to be on the road. But my bag is nearly packed and I’m starting to get itchy feet. Let’s hope that’s the only condition my feet suffer from over the next month and a half!
That’s me – a much younger version of me, that is – on my first Camino, some six years ago. A lot has changed since then! Back then, I was still a humble teaching assistant, without the PGCE or the workload that comes with it. I couldn’t walk more than a week or so of the Camino because I was being ousted from my house on site, which had caught the eye of an ambitious young minister, and I had my PGCE Numeracy skills test to revise for (which was nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be). The girl I was with at the time would also not have been overly keen on me staying away so long, so it was only an eight day affair, from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Logroño.
I considered various Caminos this summer, including the Norte and the Plata. The fiendish heat forecast for the summer put me off the Plata, which would have taken me through easily my favourite regions of Spain – Andalucía and Extremadura – and the tarmac trails and relatively high cost ultimately dissuaded me from the Norte. Rumours are currently circulating that they’re filming the sequel to Martin Sheen’s The Way on the Norte this summer, so I think I’ve made the right choice.
I’ve done the Francés before, so why am I doing it again? For the same reason I second-guessed the Plata: you are more likely to find people on the Francés, and it’s the people who make or break the Camino. I met an ensemble cast of characters on my last run: Mikkel the Dane, Domenico the Carabiniere, the Professor, Mamasita the German drunkard and Simas, who walked with me to the end of the road in Fisterra. People from all walks of life can be found on the Camino, and especially on the Francés, which is by far the most affordable of all the available options.
But I’m not doing the same route. Not entirely. This year I’m starting in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, some sixty-five kilometres to the east of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. The Camino Aragonés – by some accounts, the “original” Camino Francés – starts a few days’ march to the south at the pass of Somport, but I want to enjoy the unbridled majesty of the Pyrenees, so rather than catching a bus to the border, I’m going to walk the last few days of the Chemin d’Arles, one of the French pilgrim roads that leads up into the mountains.
The more popular Napoleon Route from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port begins with a monstrously steep climb up and over Lepoeder summit at the western edge of the Pyrenees. I walked that way years ago with three Italian guys. One of them had done the Aragonés before and was full of praise for its natural beauty, and so it is to him, I suppose, that I owe the seeds of this itinerary.
The scenery on the Napoleon route is spectacular, and the elevation is certainly nothing to sniff at, but if memory serves, it felt more like a giant hill than a mountain (or, at the very least, a Scottish highland). The Camino Aragonés, on the other hand, cuts straight through the heart of the Pyrenees.
I’m rather picky when it comes to mountains, largely on account of having been dreadfully spoilt by a year in the rugged limestone-scarred hills of the Sierra de Grazalema as a kid. Unless it’s sheer, craggy and haunted by the hulking shadows of an eagle, it’s not mountain enough for me.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and see a lammergeier – easily identifiable by their diamond-shaped tails. Maybe. Right now, I’d settle for some mountain air. My flat has only one window that can open, and all the others are frosted and quintuple-glazed – one of the downsides of living attached to a boarding house.
After Somport, the Camino Aragonés winds down to the Aragonese city of Jaca before arcing around to the west. I’ll be joining the Camino Francés at Puente La Reina, after which I will be on familiar territory as far as León. The meseta is legendarily testing, but I wouldn’t walk it any other time of year. There’s something powerful about taking the pilgrim road straight across the Sun’s anvil.
Well, I suppose I’d better start packing my bag, and then try to get some sleep. I’ve a routine to get into, after all. See you on the other side. BB x
Reports written. Exams marked and feedback given. A couple of workshops with the Y12s on character strengths and interview skills given. With the exception of six lessons at the start of next week, the school year is all but finished. I had nothing to do this afternoon, so I popped into town to get some Camino supplies. In two weeks’ time I’ll be on the road, and for six weeks at that – the longest adventure I’ll have ever taken – so I need to make sure everything is in place.
One thing I won’t be short of this time is stamp space. The credenciales I ordered from Santiago have arrived: two, plus a freebie with the guide I ordered to the Camino Primitivo. Each one has space for about 78 stamps, so even if I collect three stamps per day every day across those six weeks, two should cover it nicely. I can hold onto the spare for myself, or give it to a pilgrim who is running low. I’ll take all three in any event.
Am I hoping to meet some people around my age? Of course I am. There weren’t all that many the last time I did the Camino in the summer of ’23 (compared to the spring, that is) but maybe I just timed it wrong. Being a teacher, summer is all I really have to work with, so summer it is.
I’ve been walking in my new Keane sandals, and they’re as reliable as ever. I have some new Merino wool socks that should help with the prevention of blisters, and I have dug up my supplies of Compeed blister plasters from whatever hole they’d disappeared into since the last Camino – I was surprised by how many I still had. I didn’t pick up a First Aid kit today, but that might be an airport job, as there are useful implements that I wouldn’t be able to take through security anyway.
Not too much to report. It might not be such a bad idea to get back into the habit of blogging daily before I go – writing requires regular exercise, just like training for a hike. Maybe I’ll try to do something with the books I’ve been reading. That might be illuminating. BB x
It’s been nearly a year since I left my post at Worth School and moved to the West Country. I’m supposed to be making a start on my Year 9 reports tonight, but it’s my birthday, for pity’s sake – I could use a break. Between house duties, calendar committee meetings, end of year speaking exams, invigilation, improv workshops and regular teaching, I’ve barely had time to sit down today.
The summer holidays are drawing near. My original plan was to spend them learning to drive, but I’ve kicked that can down the road for another year. This year has been hard work, and the last thing I need is to give myself something to dread once a week for every week of the summer holidays. I’ve never been good at doing things I don’t enjoy, and I really don’t enjoy driving. My last instructor was a vocal and humourless Brexiteer, who reminded me a lot of the father of an ex-girlfriend, and just a few lessons with him pretty much put me off driving since.
It’s a hurdle I definitely need to overcome, but not this summer. I need something uplifting after the manic year I’ve had, and I firmly believe there’s no cure like the Camino. So tonight I’m booking my flight to Bordeaux so I can do what I’ve never really done before: a full run at the Camino Francés.
Well – I suppose that’s not strictly true. I’m planning to start in Somport this time and begin with the Camino Aragonés, joining the Camino Francés proper a week later. I’ve also pencilled into my plans to travel north from León via the Salvadorana to Oviedo and then walk the last stretch along the toughest and oldest of all the Caminos, the Camino Primitivo. It will take me around six weeks, in all likelihood. Six weeks that will be tough on the feet but good on the heart. Six tiring but purposeful (and very affordable) weeks in the most beautiful country on earth, meeting people from all around the world and telling stories. What’s not to like?
I will, of course, be back to journaling as I go, so expect a flurry of activity on here towards the end of this month. You can follow me on my journey if you’d like. There’ll be stages that I’ve done before, but it’ll be a very different cast of characters this summer, and it’s so often the people that make the stories.
It’s also now mandatory to collect two stamps a day, so I’ve already ordered my credencial. I’ve ordered three, on the logic that the two I had last time only just got me to Fisterra, and that was with careful rationing toward the end – and over a fragmented span of five weeks. Over six, I can afford to go stamp-hunting with a little more reckless abandon. And who doesn’t love the stamp-collecting element of the Camino?
Escapism? Absolutely. But for once, perfectly justifiable. I don’t say it often, but I could use a holiday. BB x
2023 begin much like it is today: wet and windy. In keeping with the last seven years, the year began somewhere new: this time, in an AirBnB in Wilpshire, some two hundred and thirty-five miles from home. It had been a wonderful New Year’s Eve, but a fleeting one: cracks were starting to form in my relationship. I decided to ignore them and looked inwards instead. A few weeks later I saw a pheasant on a stroll around Wakehurst and had no idea that the very same bird would seek me out when things began to unravel several months later. Hindsight is a curious thing.
February
The villagers of South Willingham lost their bid to save the local forest from being turned into a bike park. I know it will bring much-needed money to the area, but a part of my heart always breaks a little when somebody carves up another patch of the earth for human entertainment. I wandered among the trees and soaked in the winter light. No footpath leads through the woods, so I might be the last person to do so. I also passed my driving theory test, but didn’t tell anybody about that for a while.
March
The man who doesn’t take a day off unless he’s dead or dying was very nearly brought down by a fever this term, reaching its peak the day of the House Music final. My very conscientious partner drove all the way up to my place to drop off a get-well-soon care package and gave me clear instructions to rest, but I dragged myself to the school theatre to support my boys in their bid for victory – and was not disappointed. Rutherford took home the House Music shield for the first time in over a decade. I didn’t fully recover until the following Monday, but I rode the high of their success for months afterward.
April
Seeking answers, I sought out the Camino – and the Camino provided. Within days I had found an incredible cast of characters, and had the Easter holidays been longer, I would have gone with them all the way to the end. I walked a hundred and thirty kilometres in just under a week with a Brit, a Dane, a Canadian, a Spaniard, a Dutch girl, a couple of Californians and the most charismatic Italian I have ever encountered – and I have encountered more than a few. I told myself I would be back to finish the job, but I didn’t think at the time that I would throw myself back at the Camino a few months later.
May
Matters of the heart came to a head. I drifted back to Wakehurst and sat on a grassy bank near the American plantation to clear my head. The pheasant appeared and sat beside me, keeping me company for the best part of half an hour. Say what you like, but animals seem to have a sixth sense for when humans are in distress. My mother’s cat made a beeline for my brother when he was in the doldrums in much the same way. It did not heal my heart but it did a lot to patch it back together. In the meantime, I went at my living room and restructured the place, hoping to find a new sense of direction by altering my perspective and my surroundings. It’s a lot easier to move a bookcase around when you don’t possess several hundred books, though.
June
I broke things off with her and felt awful about it – but seventy-eight reports, a bout of vomiting sickness in the boarding house and preparations for the school trip to Seville helped me stay on track. The Leavers’ Ball was more of an event than a formality this year, seeing as it meant saying farewell to a cohort of students who had joined the school at the same time I had. An immensely nostalgic music tour to Salzburg rounded out the month and found me playing the violin at the same bandstand I had played back in 2006, some seventeen years ago. In a very up-and-down year, June was a particularly erratic rollercoaster of a month.
July
I’m quite convinced that the answer to most questions can be found on the Camino, and I had unfinished business from the Easter holidays, so a mere two days after returning from Austria I was back on a plane and bound for Bilbao once again. You’ve probably followed me on that particular journey already, but if you haven’t, you can always start again right here. Three weeks and nearly five hundred kilometres later, I arrived at the end of the world and stared across the Atlantic to America. Someday soon, I’ll take my adventures across that ocean. But not yet.
August
August was a quiet month. August always is. I popped up to London a couple of times and saw some old friends, which was much needed – I have distanced myself from a lot of old acquaintances after the way they upbraided me over the Gospel Choir fiasco, and it took quite a bit of courage to resurface, even though it’s been some two years since. The social current flows fast in the capital city. London remains a charming place to visit, but I’m sure glad I don’t live up there. I’m a lot better at dealing with cities than I used to be, but I’m definitely a country boy at heart.
September
Term started late this year, meaning August was already over by the time the students returned. It wasn’t a scorcher like last summer, but the warm weather stayed with us for quite some time. A new wave of weekend activities and a house camera kept me busy at weekends, and I finally managed to host a party in the flat over the first Exeat of the year, using the old projector to beam karaoke onto one of my walls. I also got back into drawing, completing a giant poster for one of the walls.
October
Storms Agnes and Babet tore across the British Isles and put an abrupt end to the long summer days. Sussex remained relatively stable while the roads of the Lincolnshire Wolds turned into rivers. I spent the October half term with my parents and even made it to Manchester to see my brother’s first ever publicly exhibited artwork on the first floor of a fancy riverside hotel. I also wrote a pantomime for my school, but internal politics made it impossible to get off the ground. At least I have the backbone of a script that I can carry over to whichever school I head to next.
November
We lost the first round of House Music, but only by a single point – so there’s hope for my boys yet. More importantly, I bit the bullet and started learning to drive. Finding the time to schedule in two hours of driving during a working week is ridiculous – and probably the biggest reason I’ve put it off for so many years – but, steadily, I’m starting to get the hang of it. Or rather, I was, until a combination of sickness and cover lessons made it impossible to schedule in the last two lessons of term. Here’s hoping I can pick up where I left off in the new year.
December
December hurtled around at the speed it always does, though this year the last stretch did seem longer than usual. I managed to strong-arm Riu Riu Chiu back into the Carol Service at last, which the kids seemed to love, and helped to draw up the motion for the Students vs. Alumni debate, though I was not especially fond of the heavy economical slant in which it dragged the proceedings. My brother spent Christmas with his partner, so it was just my mother and father and I this year. Midnight Mass was bizarre – half an hour of forced carols before the Mass itself began at midnight (rather than the usual 11.45pm start) – but, traditions must be maintained. I blew the dust off Duolingo and got back into learning Italian after more than a year’s hiatus, though I daresay I’ve picked up a little in that time from my students.
This time tomorrow I’ll be in Madrid. Since leaving university I’ve made a point of seeing in the New Year somewhere new, but this year, for the first time since we met, I can finally celebrate it with my Spanish family, so I’m headed for the pueblo to see in 2024. I haven’t seen some of my cousins since my youngest counsin’s first communion back in 2019, so it’s a reunion that’s been a long time coming. Here’s to a good one, folks. BB x
Finisterre. The End of the World. It’s a fitting place to end the Camino, which can sometimes feel like it really does go ever on and on, down from the door where it began. Well, here we are at the end of the road. Kilometre 0. My great quest for the summer is over.
With a good thirty-two kilometres between O Logoso and the seaside town of Fisterra, Simas and I set off early this morning. One last six o’clock start, an hour or so before the dawn, to end the Camino as it began: in the dark. The churring of nightjars echoed in the forest around us as far as Hospital, after which the road climbed up over a treeless moor before slowly beginning to descend toward the clouded horizon beyond.
We passed a few alarming signs declaring ‘territorio vákner’, which didn’t make a lot of sense until we stumbled upon an enormous sculpture in the woods of a wolf-man. The ‘vákner’ was, according to 15th century pilgrim lore, a Galician forerunner of the werewolf legend, and one of a number of terrible beasts that beset pilgrims in the forests after Santiago. The more you know!
Less fantastical, though by no means less legendary, we found a Tupperware box on one of the stone walls deeper in the woods containing a number of breakfast options: yoghurts, bananas and pastries, complete with plastic spoons in case of need. The invisible benefactor, an eleven-year old local boy, was trying to raise money for a trip to Madrid. I tipped him generously via his piggy bank and enjoyed the breakfast I otherwise might not have had this morning. What a little angel!
Shortly after leaving the forest, as though out of a dream, the sea came into view. I have been so excited to see the sea after three weeks on the road and saving it as a reward for the final day was definitely the right thing to do. We came down into the busy former whaling town of Cee and had a proper breakfast of churros con chocolate, for the princely sum of 3.75€. And that’s including Simas’ café con leche. I’m going to miss how cheap this country is.
Having killed an hour, we pressed on north and west through Corcubión, which was being kitted out for a medieval fair. We detoured a little to see the coast, and were guided back to the Camino by a friendly local afflicted by throat cancer, who pointed us back to the road using a robotic device at his throat. We had not gone much further than Estorde when the sun came out, causing the white sands of the beaches to shine out like a beacon. Given the gloomy forecast for the rest of the day, we took a chance and detoured once again to one of the coves, finding it deserted. And boy am I glad we did!
This was what I walked five hundred and sixty kilometres for: truly, the treasure at the end of the rainbow. There were no pots of gold, but there might as well have been diamonds in the water: each gentle wave kicked up clouds of white sand that glittered in the sunlight like a thousand twinkling stars. Sand eels and mullets darted in silver shoals nearby and a sandpiper scurried up and down the shoreline at a safe distance from us. The way the forests practically tumble right into the ocean, ringed with beaches that shine a purer white than anything the Mediterranean can muster… I’m amazed the Galician coast isn’t as heavy a hitter on the tourist trail as the Costa Brava. Amazed – and grateful. Because from some of the graffiti on the town walls – no a la Marbellización – it’s pretty clear the gallegos don’t want it to have that level of fame either.
A special mention should be made for saint number two of the journey: Nacho, a Valencian who had set himself up on the hill overlooking the Langosteira beach with two paella dishes full of home cooking that he was handing out to passers-by, free of charge. He was quite insistent on this last point, maintaining that though he was between jobs he had enough money by the grace of God to live on, and wanted to share his luck with the world. We had a good natter about what constitutes a real paella, but above all it was really uplifting to meet such a good-hearted man from my grandfather’s region – because while I’m proud to have Manchego heritage, my grandfather was actually born in Torrevieja, which means my immediate ancestry is actually Valencian. Go figure!
We reached Fisterra just after one and checked into the albergue municipal, which was already quickly filling up. It is as well that we did, too, as it landed us the final stamp in the credencial and an additional compostela for completing the final 100km of the Camino. After a quick nap we grabbed a table at O Pirata, a very characterful port-side seafood restaurant whose staff (and hangers-on) really did give off the right vibes as a motley crew rather than a team of restauranteurs. Between our waiter, who might well be the fastest-talking man in Spain, the chef with his black bandana and earring, and the three musicians sat outside, strumming guitars and clapping along – not to mention the seafood itself, which was delicious – it was easily the best meal of the whole Camino. Best of all, they threw in a free ego massage, telling me it wasn’t just the La Mancha shirt that gave away my Spanish heritage but also my ‘actitud’. I’ve actually managed to convince quite a few Spaniards that I’m a native on this Camino, which is a huge thing for me. I’m one step closer every day to reclaiming my heritage!
After lunch, Simas went back to the albergue for a siesta but I fancied a wander around town before the forecasted rain came down. What I thought might be a museum/aquarium in the harbour turned out to be an open-air working fishery, where a raised walkway lets you look down on the fishermen at work, processing and sorting the morning’s catch. It’s a brilliant idea and a fascinating way to have a look-in behind the scenes – especially after enjoying the fruits of their hard work for lunch! One chap was sat measuring the many thousands of razor clams and sorting them by weight, which looked to be a truly Sisyphean task: it must take hours to finish before the next haul arrives and the task begins again.
Stamps and celebratory seafood platters aside, you can’t say you’ve completed the Camino unless you really do go all the way to the end of the road, which is another three kilometres down the coast to the windswept cliffs of Cape Finisterre. The pictures imply a lonely lighthouse watches the cape, but it’s also home to a hotel, a bar, a car park and a couple of souvenir shops, so it’s not as remote a spot as you might think. The steep banks of the cliffs were pretty busy when we got there, with both pilgrims and tourists from various parts of Spain, and it was a good place to bid farewell to several pilgrims I have crossed paths with on the road: Alan, the wannabe hostalero, and the French team of three, Jean-Paul, Adine and Philippe; as well as Liza the Belgian (whose wish was granted by beating me to the Cape) and Catherine the German (who wins the award for the most random encounters along the whole Camino).
I found a quieter spot lower down and sat there for a while, watching the waters of the Atlantic below. It was a good place to reflect. I let go of a lot of things at last, letting them drift from my heart through my fingers and out across the ocean. Down below, gulls wheeled and cried around the cliff edge while a sparrow and a redstart made a few dizzying sallies across the precipice. My eyes were trained on the waves, searching for one thing in particular, and after half an hour – in the wake of a fishing boat – I saw what I was seeking. Not the lonely gannet or flight of shags that rounded the cape, but a fleet of shearwaters, an endearing and highly acrobatic seabird that truly lives up to its name, flying low over the water with the tips of their wings slicing the tips of the waves like blades. I was far too high up to tell what kind they might be, but I imagine they were Balearics, given their size and number.
If the ghostly harrier and quail were the spirits of the early Camino, it’s the handsome shearwater that marks its end. While I’ve walked most of the Camino alone, I’ve had companions every step of the way, from the merry stonechats that have been with me every day to the nightjars that have kept me company in the twilight hours. If you can put a name to the sights and sounds all around you, you’re never truly alone on the road.
If you kept going in a straight line from here, you’d reach Long Island and perhaps even New York City. But unless you have the stamina of a god and the strength to match, that’s simply not possible, so here the road ends at last. I penned the words ‘Llévame contigo’ (Take me with you) into my faithful stick and planted it in the earth just behind where I had been sitting. I hope somebody does take it with them, and that it brings them as much joy and support as it has brought me.
I thought of its predecessor, and the feathers that had made it so memorable to other travellers on the road, and as I did, a couple of ravens suddenly appeared on the wind, soaring in circles around the cliffs below. One of those feathers I carried before belonged to a raven – so perhaps they were with me all along in spirit. I’d like to think that. According to legends of old, it was a raven that first brought the light of hope into the world.
Well, that’s a wrap. It’s now twenty to eight on Friday 28th August. The rain is falling outside and I’m booked on the 11:45 bus back to Santiago. I’m going to find myself a café near the harbour and do some writing while I wait, in this seaside town with which I have fallen in love. Galicia has been beautiful since O Cebreiro but its coast has utterly enchanted me. It feels like home, and yet like Spain at the same time. It feels like Edinburgh, Hythe and Olvera all rolled into one.
I will come back. There is more to the Costa da Morte than I have seen. I must come back. BB x
I’ve set down my bag for the night in O Logoso, a village up in the highlands to the west of the Great Lakes of Fervenza. It wasn’t yet one o’clock by the time we arrived, but I was persuaded by the images of a natural swimming pool nearby – and my shins are finally starting to complain, after almost three weeks on the road. I walk everywhere out of habit and that’s a fact, but even I have my limits!
I walked with Simas today, so I decided against shooting for Cee (in retrospect a wise move) and instead took it easy over the 23km hike toward Hospital. It’s a hell of a lot easier to stop to grab breakfast or a drink when you have company, so I took full advantage of Simas’ voracious appetite (the man puts food away like Logi in the old Norse legends) and had a Cola Cao and tortilla breakfast – possibly one of my last of the Camino!
It was great to have company on the road again. I’ve happily walked most of the Camino on my own, but it’s always enlightening to share the road with a kindred spirit – a memory shared is a memory doubled. I had time to reflect on the conversation I had with some of the other pilgrims in the albergue last night, too (which was marvellous, by the way, run by two very friendly abuela types who made us a home-cooked dinner to remember), and my line that it’s better to come away from the Camino with a lighter mind and a heavier load than the other way around (since no matter how many concerns I come out here with, I always seem to convert them through some unholy alchemy into the physical weight of books I collect along the way….!)
Simas asked for a brief history of Spain as we walked, which certainly helped to while away the time… I must have been yakking on for a good hour and a half at least, before I reached the 18th century, at which point my knowledge does run out all of a sudden, since it’s a period I’m not particularly interested in (it’s probably the ridiculous obsession with powder wigs).
We’ve met a lot of pilgrims coming back the other way – more than we’ve encountered heading to Finisterre, in fact. I guess those pilgrims mad enough to push on to the coast tend to be the ones who are equally mad enough to come back the same way. Collective insanity, Simas called it, and he’s probably right. Could you convince a friend to walk twenty to thirty (and sometimes forty) kilometres a day, every day, for four weeks? It’s a tall order unless you’re already bitten by the Camino bug…
After Santa Mariña the ground began to rise as we reached the edge of the coastal highlands. We didn’t quite see the Atlantic today, but we must be pretty close – I could smell the salt on the air as we came down the hill into O Logoso this afternoon, over the thunder of the river in the valley below. The countryside is certainly awe-inspiring: the tedious stretches of eucalyptus plantations between Sarria and Santiago seem a world away up here, while the endless wheat fields of the Meseta might as well be on another planet.
The stonechats are still here, as are the black redstarts and swallows – I even had two close encounters with a cuckoo today – but there are signs that the local fauna is about to shift one last time: I heard the cry of a full this morning from somewhere far away, and the Concello symbols on bus stops and hotels now feature the distinctive silhouette of a curlew – which, together with the rolling moorland, conjures up images of the north of England. I’m not lying when I say that this is probably the part of the Camino I have been most looking for to!
I think I’ve finally contracted a minor Camino injury in the form of shin splints – the merciless climb up and over Monte Avo today, even with the stick, probably didn’t help. I’m just grateful it’s happened this late in the journey, with just one day left to go – it would have been nothing short of torture had it happened last week, or worse, two weeks ago!
So I took it easy this afternoon and hit the I of the RICE method by taking a dip in the pool just up the road from O Logoso. Spain has a wealth of hidden piscinas naturales – many of which are in Extremadura’s mountainous north – and finding one this afternoon was just what the doctor ordered. Now, at least, I can apply the bandages I brought from my First Aid course before the end of term and take one more thing from my backpack before the journey home!
I’ll also make sure I eat well today and tomorrow. I’m conscious that my time here is running out, and the chance to dine out on delicious Spanish cooking won’t be so easy to find come the weekend… so roll out the bandages and roll on the bandejas! There’s only one day more to go. BB x
After all that build-up to the grand firework display on the night of the 24th, the pilgrim party in Santiago was a little underwhelming. I suppose, like most things, it simply couldn’t live up to the hype. In some years, the entire facade of the cathedral is lit up with a phenomenal son-et-lumiere show while pyrotechnics close the fifteen minute performance. This year, however, the fireworks were set off from six different points around the city – but not the Praza do Obradoiro. I’m glad I gave up my three-hour vigil and went back to the albergue for something to eat at ten thirty or else I would have been pretty cranky! Fortunately, though almost all the fireworks were obscured behind the huge Concello building (meaning the crowd which had previously filled the square wound up massed into a thin wedge overlooking the park) I managed to find a good angle to remedy the situation.
I’m glad I got to see the cabezudos in action, though. I’ve often heard of this farcical summer festival but I’d never seen them in action until yesterday. It beats me how the dancers were able to move so easily with such huge objects on their heads, but they did. At one point they even invited the children in the audience to dance with them. My mother said she had always been a little scared of them, and it’s not hard to see why – they really are grotesque. I could see some of my contemporaries back home immediately assuming the festival to be racist, due to the over-exaggerated features on the two black cabezudos, but if you compare them to the others, they’re no more or less ghastly. I think it’s just the Spaniards laughing at the world and everyone in it as they always have done – and after their most recent car crash of a general election, who can blame them? Context is everything.
I set off relatively late this morning, leaving the albergue just before seven. If I was expecting a quiet escape from Santiago, though, I was mistaken: all of Galicia’s youth had descended upon the city last night (the 24th/25th being a national holiday, after all) and, in true Spanish fashion, they had made a full night of it. So when I descended into the city proper, the streets were packed with hundreds of twenty-somethings having breakfast in every available bar, café and pastelería. Unlike England, there were no scenes of drunken behaviour at all. The Spanish drink about as much as we do on a night out, but as their nights out last a full four hours longer than ours, it tends to work its way out of their system. And don’t get me wrong, but a Spanish breakfast of Cola Cao and a tostada is a much better end to the night than a dodgy kebab!
Leaving my long-buried memories of clubbing in my university days behind, I set off under a clouded sky toward the west. The cement Camino waymarkers helpfully reappeared, together with the yellow arrows, guiding me on to Finisterre, the end of my journey.
After the tedious stretch between Arzúa and Santiago, it was a welcome relief to rediscover some of the magic of the old Camino on the westward road, devoid of the post-Sarria stampede. Oak forests, Roman bridges and stepping stones replaced eucalyptus plantations and ironworks, and the merry stonechats who have been with me every day of the Camino reappeared, as though the same family had accompanied me all the way from Burgos.
Finally, as I reached the riverside haven of Ponte Marceira, I saw something I have been looking for since León: an otter. It was only a brief glimpse, and from a fair distance, but it was enough to be sure. For me it was exactly the reassurance that I needed after two days in a city that I was back where I was supposed to be: in the countryside again, doing what I do best – that is, walking and watching the world go by.
Having left my iPhone/earphone connector on the bus at the very beginning of the Camino (one of a number of accidentally jettisoned items including my sunglasses, shampoo, gloves and scallop shell) I have done most of the Camino without any kind of soundtrack whatsoever beyond the silence (or birdsong) of the world around me. There have been a lot of pilgrims on the road with AirPods in, which is a little sad to see, and more still talking of the podcasts they’ve been listening to. I really wanted to take in the meseta, silence and all, so I have deliberately saved an audible treasure for the final stages of the Camino: the BBC Radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.
Brian Sibley’s take on Tolkien’s masterpiece has a longstanding association with travel in my head, as my dad used to put it on when we went to the Lake District when I was a child. Consequently, though I must have listened to it in its entirety some twenty times since, there are still fragments that give me visions of the Lakes as crystal clear as the waters that lap upon their pebbled shores (the last march of the Ents in particular always conjures up the thundering falls of Aira Force).
I’m deeply attached to the films, but the BBC Radio version is something all Tolkien fans should know. Peter Woodthorpe’s Gollum is so good it puts Andy Serkis’ interpretation in a firm second place (and that takes some doing) and the Shakespearean majesty of Michael Hordern’s voice makes for a phenomenal Gandalf.
But it’s the firmer focus on the road and the journey that makes the radio adaptation so special when you’re travelling. The films glaze over it with stunning New Zealand visuals, but the radio drama gives Tolkien’s poetry and song the airtime it so richly deserves, and several of his walking songs have been staples of mine this summer.
I got as far as the attack at the Ford of Bruinen before arriving at my destination of Vilaserío today, where I had lunch with Liza, a chirpy Belgian pilgrim I keep bumping into, and three Ukrainian pilgrims from Lviv who had run out of money in Santiago but continued their Camino to Finisterre anyway, foraging and sleeping rough for the last forty eight hours. We bought them lunch to keep them going, and I hope others extend the same helping hands wherever they end up!
Tomorrow is another day. If I do as well as I did today, I will shoot for the coast and the old whaling town of Cee, but if I only make it as far as Buxantes, then that is no bad thing either. Before then, however, I have my second communal dinner of the Camino (I have managed to miss most of the places that do these somehow) with my old friend Simas. It’s good to have company once again. BB x
After over two weeks on the road, I’m finally within striking distance of Santiago. The kilometre countdown on the much-abused concrete markers has dropped to below twenty, which is less than a morning’s work (I managed more than thirty kilometres before midday today). The end is in sight!
The final two days from Arzúa to Santiago are, quite possibly, the least appealing of the Camino. And that includes the much-maligned Meseta, which I actually really treasured! Whether it’s the busier pilgrim road, the lack of connection between the hundreds of last-minute pilgrims or the endless stands of alien eucalyptus, the magic slips away through your fingers a little as the finish line draws near.
Fortunately, I had my fill of magic moments to power me through the morning.
I was up at 5am as usual with the first of the pilgrims. The turigrino girls were up and about surprisingly early, though it turned out the reason behind their haste was their pre-Camino makeup routine. Thinking I could get the jump on them by striking out early, I set out as soon as I was ready, some fifteen minutes or so before six.
I’m not one for torches, preferring to accustom myself to the darkness, so my own headtorch remained stubbornly in my rucksack throughout the first hour of darkness, even as the Camino wound its way through the dense Galician forests and I lost all the aid of starlight on the road. What I gained, however, was a full immersion in the dawn that is lost when you charge ahead with a bright light. In an ancient forest west of O Carballal, after crossing a stepping stone bridge, I was suddenly surrounded by the otherworldly churr of nightjars. I recorded the sound and played it right back, and was rewarded with a sight of two hawk-like shadows performing their wing-clap display flight against a dawn sky through the trees. They must have clocked my ruse because when I heard them again they were deeper in the forest, but the martian churring followed me right to the edge of the trees, unlike finally the light of daybreak brought it to a sudden halt.
My replacement stick had finally assumed its full inheritance, adorned as it is now with a buzzard feather, two magpie feathers and a sprig of brilliant mountain heather. Somewhere out there, near or far, my old stick may well be traveling the same road. But its successor has done a fine job and I am grateful for its aid in carrying me this far. Lacking a traveling companion, I find a decent stick to be as good a friend as a warm fire in the darkness. And I’m getting a lot better at not leaving it propped up against things when I’m readjusting my clothes!
In the woods after Arzúa, I heard the distinctive reedy sound of a gaitá. Thinking it might be somebody practicing ahead of the regional (and national) festival on the 25th, I filmed a sound bite and moved on – only to almost walk headlong into the source further along the trail. A couple of youngsters, the elder probably no older than twenty, had chosen a spot beside one of the Camino markers, set a hand upside-down and were busking for passing pilgrims: one playing the gaitá (Galician bagpipes) and the other a drum. It more than made my morning, so I tipped them handsomely and stayed to listen for a while.
I stopped for brunch rather than breakfast at a witchcraft-themed café in Boavista (no tortilla, they ran out as soon as I got to the bar) and then slogged right on. The original target, Santa Irene, would have been fine, but it was still ten past twelve and the additional forty minutes on to O Pedrouzo – shaving forty minutes off tomorrow’s final push – were just too tempting to pass up.
Obviously, I wasn’t the only one with that in mind. A sixty-strong group of turigrinos beat us all to the Xunta albergue, evidently by quite some time: they’d lined their rucksacks in a queue leading from the door right up to the road, and some of them had even rolled out their roll-mats and got into their sleeping bags to wait…! Why they thought they might need roll mats on the Camino (as I didn’t see a single tent or any other camping gear on them at all) is beyond me, but perhaps this is their method: arrive early, camp out en masse and seize the first few beds.
On the plus side, while waiting in line with the handful not attached to the group, I was mistaken for an Andalusian by one of the Spaniards. Sure, she was swiftly corrected by a real Andalusian, but the intonation that clings on since the Olvera days still seems to be enough to create a temporary disguise. At the very least, it’s a good way to delay the inevitable ‘soy guiri’.
Well, I’ve done a final run for supplies at the local Día market. I’ve had an empanada for dinner and I have what I need for breakfast, so I can cut and run tomorrow morning. If I’m quick – and the last couple of weeks are good evidence that I am – I’ll be in Santiago for 9am, so I’ll try to get my Compostela before I check in. That would be ideal! But, as I keep telling myself, there’s no rush. I have sorted my lodgings for the next couple of nights, and it’s a room of my own, so for the first time in weeks, I will be able to really kick back and rest… before the real final stretch to Finisterre and home. ¡Hasta la próxima!
P.S. It occurred to me in Día that Spaniards don’t go in for personal catering like the English do. Grab bags, meal deals, milkshake bottles and salty snacks… they’re all designed to be shared. Is that more of a reflection on our culture or theirs? Are we so isolated a nation that our own supermarkets know we would prefer to eat quickly and alone, or are the Spanish so gregarious that a vendor wouldn’t even think of stocking something that would vanish in seconds if passed around? Just one to think about.
I was woken from my afternoon nap by the melody to Greensleeves, of all the pieces in the world – the guitarist from Villafranca must have caught up to me. Now that my pace has slowed a tad, it’s likely I’ll be running into a few familiar faces over the next couple of days.
I set off late from Airexe this morning, being its sole inhabitant for a couple of hours after the Belgian pilgrim set off at five thirty for Ribadiso. I was in much less of a hurry, still mulling over whether to dawdle in Vilar de Donas and wait to see the peerless medieval murals of its famous church. Even at the disgracefully late departure time of 7.30am, the whole world was steeped in a sea of mist, from which only the tops of the trees and the hilltops of the valleys beyond emerged like the ruins of a sunken world, much like Portomarín yesterday.
I decided to make for Vilar de Donas in the end, seeing as it would be a relatively short one today (23km) and I had time to kill. It’s a small detour of 2km to the north from the hamlet of Portos, but you’ve got to time it right. I arrived shortly after 8am, and while the internet and guidebooks give various times, for the record, the church is open from 12.00, and no earlier. A local electrician told me I could seek out the ageing sacristan who lives in a house nearby and ask, but as it was still so early, I decided it would be best to leave him be – not least of all as he is in his mid-nineties! I did, however, get a reasonably good view of the church through a crack in the door, and I can only conclude that the 12.00 opening time is a crying shame: the church is at its most magical in the morning light, when the rising sun throws down a golden beam across the floor through the opaque marble window. I’ll have to come back and see this marvel again sometime.
The road to Melide cuts through a number of forests, from carefully planted rows of pine and silver birch to the once-so-alien stands of eucalyptus, which are such a feature of the Galician landscape. Most magical of all, however, were the truly ancient forests that the Camino traverses, with wildly twisting branches and an undergrowth so dense it would need a machete to pass through.
Sometimes the arching trees seem to create tunnels, as though intentionally sheltering the pilgrim road as they must have done for over a thousand years and more. The colourful turigrinos passing through had their heads down on their phones, unfortunately, but the marvel wasn’t lost on those few true peregrinos left on the road.
I reached Melide shortly after one in the afternoon, but it was twenty past by the time I found the albergue – by which time a horde of turigrinos (a pejorative term used by pilgrims to describe the sudden mass appearance of tourists sharing the pilgrim road for non-spiritual reasons) had descended, which meant my first queue for an albergue municipal of the whole Camino. Given that this is often a Camino staple in high season, I should really consider myself lucky!
More than lucky, however, I was certainly hungry, having eaten little more than the last of the homemade biscuits for breakfast this morning. Melide is famous for its pulpeiras – restaurants specialising in the Galician speciality, octopus – and the name thrown around for the last few days has been Pulpería Ezequiel, an award-winning family business on the high street. A ración of the famous pulpo costs 11€ and is more than enough to sate the appetite – and it really is sensationally good. Do drop by if you’re passing through. There are plenty of other options, but Ezequiel himself must have been cutting and chopping octopus all morning, since that was what almost everybody seemed to be ordering! One wonders just how many octopuses (octopi?) the Galicians get through each day, never mind the Spanish at large…
I’ll try to catch a pilgrim mass this evening, as there was none to be found last night. I’m still deliberating whether to shoot for Santiago a day early on Sunday, but we’ll just have to play that one by ear. Until the next time! BB x
Trying to justify this slower pace is hard, man. After two weeks of five a.m. starts, it’s a real culture shock to convince yourself that leaving the albergue after seven is an acceptable thing to do. However, if I’m to arrive in Santiago for the fireworks, as planned, I have to go at a much slower pace. The easy solution, I guess, would be stopping for breakfast for often and people watching. I suppose that’s not so unappealing an idea.
Rather than try to dogleg and catch up on yesterday’s account ahead of today’s, I’ll merge the two into one.
We’re into Galicia proper now. The mornings are bright but overcast and the endless horizons of Castilla y León are a distant memory in this green, wooded country. After saying farewell to Samos, the Camino led a meandering route back north to Aguiada along the Río Sarria, through forests alive with the songs of cirl buntings, wood warblers and golden orioles. I even found a stag beetle on the path at one point, but while I kept a trained eye on the river, still no otters. I guess you have to go more remote than the Camino to find them!
I made slow progress, feeling genuinely tired for the first time on the Camino, probably on account of the five hours of sleep I managed thanks to dealing with Mamasita and his drinking problem the night before. As a result I kept catching up to and being overtaken by the bell-ringing pilgrim from yesterday, whose jingling presence was practically unavoidable. An hour of it was almost maddening, so rather than keeping pace with my companions, I got back into my usual pace – and, what do you know, suddenly I wasn’t so tired anymore. Paolo was right: you really do have to go at your own speed on the Camino and nobody else’s. It’s amazing how moving slower tires you out faster.
Just before Sarria, I found a single buzzard feather caught on a hedge near a farmstead. Naturally, it’s now fastened to my bastón. To quote Sweeney Todd, my arm is complete again!
Sarria itself was a much less daunting town than it has been made out to be, though that may be because the pilgrim horde had long since moved out. I picked up a few stamps and some friendly advice from the Amigos del Camino and cut right through to the countryside again.
Now, at last, I began to see the tail end of what is probably the great rush to Santiago. The dominant language of the pilgrims on the road is, finally, the same of the country itself, as Spaniards young and old (but mostly under twenty) attempt the final 100km of the Camino, easily identifiable by their fluorescent sports wear, portable speakers and undersized Quechua backpacks. I’ve had a lot of fun screwing with their expectations by responding to their cheery ‘hello, buen camino’ with a decidedly un-British ‘igualmente, chavales, ánimo’.
I had my second unpleasant encounter of the Camino in my original destination for the day, Barbadelo, where an overzealous salesmen lurking spider-like outside his store tried to convince me to buy all the pilgrim tat he thought I was lacking. After pointing out that my ‘missing’ shell was packed away as it kept rattling against my bottle (truth), and that I had already obtained two handmade rosaries from the monks at Samos (also truth), he insisted I needed a pulserita, as mine was not of the same quality as his mass-produced ‘El Camino es la meta’ bands (what does Gandhi have to do with the Camino anyway?). Since the one on my left arm was a locally crafted item from that phenomenal café in El Ganso, and the one on my right was a gift from my aunt featuring Nuestra Señora de Cortes, one of La Mancha’s most venerated icons, I begged to differ. When he tried to forcefully pin a Union Jack pin badge on my rucksack strap, he crossed a line (I *will not* be identified so stridently as a Brit, thank you) and I told him politely where to take his business and left.
The price was a ten kilometre hike to Ferreiros, but it was worth it. I had the wonderfully tidy Xunta albergue pretty much to myself, and though the sixty-strong Scout group I passed on the road chose to camp in the woods opposite, they were from Jérez de la Frontera, which made for a nostalgic soundtrack to the evening. Dinner came with a show, too, when a local cowherd led his cattle right through the heart of their encampment, which provided some amusement!
I moved on shortly after sunrise the following morning, making the sunken village of Portomarín shortly before nine o’clock. Today I finally got a real sense of the Sarria stampede, as there was rarely a stretch of the Camino without a good number of pilgrims on the road. I shared the road with Dean, a Californian who matched my pace perfectly, at least as far as Gonzar, where I stopped to catch up with a Belgian pilgrim I’d met the day before and have a drink. The Guardia made an appearance on horseback this morning, trading their usual two-hundred horsepower Alfa Romeos for… well, one horsepower horses. But they did look a damn sight more impressive.
The Camino treks right through the ancient Iron Age hill fort of Castromaior, which is meant to be one of the most popular sights on the Camino, but the memo must have been lost on today’s pilgrims, who trekked right past it as though it wasn’t even there. Sure, it’s not as impressive as Stonehenge, but the earthworks are quite something, and as it only requires a thirty metre detour from the path, it’s definitely worth a look.
Well now, I’ve come to a stop in the hamlet of Areixe. It doesn’t have much more than a church, a restaurant and a Xunta albergue, but it’s blissfully quiet. With Palas de Rei just another hour down the road, the Sarria stampede have marched right on by, meaning I have the entire albergue to myself tonight. For company tonight, I have a small but vocal flock of chickens, a handful of locals and a toddler zooming around on a motor-operated mini tractor, surely in preparation for a life driving the real thing up and down these country roads.
The various Camino guidebooks really do dictate the fortunes of the towns you pass through on the way, pouring thousands of pilgrim pennies into the hands of those fortunate enough to live in the ‘chosen’ start and endpoints. How the villages that thread the line between them survive is anyone’s guess – especially those nearest the nuclei – so it feels good to know I’m doing my bit by staying in the quieter spots. The Sarria to Santiago stage is often touted as the busiest stretch, and while that’s certainly true when you’re on the road, if you’re brave enough to avoid the cities and stay in the villages, you’ll find the peace and quiet of the earlier stages of the Camino isn’t really as elusive as it’s claimed to be.
Though the rival roosters on either side of this albergue are a factor that cannot be easily ignored! BB x
The Book of Barnabas 