Santiago de Compostela to Finisterra

Well, I´m here, at the end of the world, and like I´d wanted, I came upon the ocean on my feet, in my boots, with the pack. No blisters, no Compeed, no company. It was beautiful, despite the rain and fog.

We got up and packed this morning, hit breakfast and the post office. I am KICKING myself. I was hoping to get a flat photo-type envelope, cardboard, to send the watercolor in, but they didn´t have any hard ones and I couldn´t make him understand that I wanted something that wouldn´t bend. That was too hard for him. So he came up with a box that fit the picture if I cut it out of the mat it came on. So I did, and put it in the bottom. UNPROTECTED. AND THEN PUT STUFF ON TOP OF IT. WHAT WAS I THINKING?????

SIGH. The other thing I´m kicking myself for is that this box was HALF as heavy as the one I sent home from Puenta la Reina, and cost TWICE as much. FIGURE THAT!!! I should´ve just carried it, but the rain made me too nervous and it would´ve had to be in my hands. Or I could´ve left it somewhere, but I didn´t want to be tied to return to a place in Santiago since I´ll have about an hour and a half to cross town from bus station to train station on Wednesday. Grrrr. Hassle. So I´ll get home and some of the best stuff I got will be there in a week...when it´s not as exciting to show everyone. And GOD PLEASE one more miracle, that the watercolor doesn´t get messed up...I´m such an idiot. Sigh. Christa says let it go, it´s gone, it´s done, forget about it. I´m SOOOO good at that, you know....

Anyway, left the Correos and headed to the bus station...got a return from Finisterra with an open date and time (I´ll go at 8:20am on Wednesday), and the bus took off. RAIN. Not really rain, just drizzle the whole way, and LOTS of fog. Our maps in our Camino books are limited, so we had no idea where we were, but somehow we ended up on a coastal route, and saw lots of beautiful fishing villages and misty seascapes. I went into the iPod...spent so much time downloading and arranging playlists, but I should´ve just come with Loreena McKennitt´s ¨An Ancient Muse¨ album...it´s been my Camino album (keep wanting to mention that and forgetting). My Camino theme song has been Caravanserai, and the two before and after it are my camel-plodding-evenly-up-very-steep-incline songs...stride songs...meditation songs. Give it a listen...it´s very moving and great walking music...great for thinking and escaping into your head. PERFECT Camino music.

Midway to Cée, Christa declared she didn´t want to walk in the rain. I am very proud of myself for not adjusting my plans for the sake of staying in company...I told her I wanted to walk and I´d walk come hell or high water. So she and Brad stayed on the bus and I got off...about 14km to Finisterra. Walked alone. It rained, and then it drizzled, and then it stopped, and then it rained again. The rain only lasted about 5 or 10 minutes when it came...guess Dad´s magic raincoat is running out of magic a bit. Ha ha.

A lot of the walk was coastal, and some of it led up over hills and through towns. There was a stretch of eucalyptus forest and then it opened up onto the sea and it was gorgeous...and then it started to rain again. Figures. Hey, with our luck, I´ll take it.

It felt good to walk, and to walk alone, and to walk the last 14 to the sea. At one point, my bag suddenly felt twice as heavy...dunno why, but even that was good to feel, since there were so many times I was plagued with a heavy pack AND a hot sun AND blisters AND 30-plus-km days. The mist and drizzle was nice...it was cool but not quite cold, and really, it was nice.

When I got into Finisterra, I ran into some Germans heading back the other way. I asked if the albergue was ahead. Get this. It´s CLOSED for five days due to water damage. But there´s another sports hall. So I turned around and backtracked a km or so with them...hit the sports hall, got a shower (which was actually not that cold) and headed out to find Christa and Skip.

They pulled me off the street from this burger joint where they had decent burgers, Olympic coverage, and a VERY intolerant barman. We got to watch the men´s 400m free relay!!! AMERICA!!! =) Hope someone at home decides to DVR some swimming for me....

We sat and watched the rain for a while, then wandered out onto the pier, then got rained on, had coffee, watched the rain some more...decided to wait till tomorrow for the lighthouse. You´re supposed to swim in the ocean, burn the clothes you´ve walked in, and watch the sunset from the lighthouse, and the idea is that you wake the next morning a new person. Well...it´s too cold to swim and I don´t have a swimsuit. I can burn a shirt, but the other stuff I have to wear home, and it was expensive, and isn´t wrecked. And the weather will determine whether we get a sunset. Hope it breaks and we get some sun tomorrow.

Christa and Brad had gotten me a bed at another albergue. I was torn. The sports hall sucks, but it´s free, and it´s fine for me. The albergue was another €10. I need dirt cheap and free right now...I´m SO broke, but Christa finally said she´d cover me, so I went and got my bag and now we´re here. I don´t feel right about her paying for my bed...but I can´t keep taking out cash, not right here at the end. Dunno what to do yet. They also want to move to a hotel tomorrow that will run us €15 for the night. Dunno, dunno, dunno.... We´ll see how it plays out.

We went back to the burger joint for dinner. The Olympics were on...men´s tennis between Spain and Italy. We made the mistake of cheering for Spain and ticked off the barman again. Skip wants me to put in here that he nearly came to blows with the guy. He was very rude and yelled at us...Brad was livid and gave him hell right back. Can´t believe how rude some of the barmen and hospitaleros can be when pilgrims are their bread and butter. Some of them forget that the root of their title is ¨hospitality.¨

No peace yet in Finisterra, and these lovely hospitaleros are hassling me to get off so they can get back on, which just exacerbates my feeling that I just want to go home. I was hoping Finisterra would involve some peaceful reflection, but the weather is limiting my ability to disappear and go sit on the beach, or at the lighthouse, so right now, this side-trip has been more hassle than anything else. I am ready to come home. I´m Spained out. It´s been nice, but it´s time to go home, and I wish it was tomorrow instead of Wednesday and Thursday. I guess it´s just the weather.

Anyway. Off to bed. Pray for some sunshine for me. I WANNA GO HOME!! =)