Santiago de Compostela to Negreira – 21.3km, 5.25 hours, Monday, 30 September

Allow me to set the scene. A couple of days ago, the weather service predicted rain for today, tomorrow and Thursday. I think that is why I wasn’t sleeping so well after arriving in Santiago.  The weather and the fact that we have never walked this route before were likely both contributory reasons.  Yesterday, Santiago had miserable weather, very cold and an all day drizzle. We expected the same for today and packed our gear accordingly, just before going to bed last night. Being the genius that I am (according to Melanie and I have the receipts), after climbing into bed, I checked the forecast one more time.  Suddenly, it said the rains will only come tomorrow and Thursday.  Today’s forecast was now for ideal walking weather, 60ºF/16ºFC, overcast, no rain and light breezes. It was too good to believe.  I remember waking up and thinking, did I dream that forecast?  At 6:00am when we woke up, the forecast was for the same great weather.  I looked outside and as best I could tell, the roads were was dry and no one out there had an umbrella or heavy coat. I’ll spare you any more details but when we walked out of the hotel, the ground was now wet, there was more of a fine mist falling, not as bad as a drizzle but it was fairly warm with no winds.  I have no idea how that all happened in an hour.  

The fine mist, cloudy skies, and warm weather lasted throughout the day.  Once again about noon it started to drizzle hard but it ended before I could put on my raincoat.  I just draped it over my shoulders for the rest of the way.

Breakfast stop #1 was right across from the hotel and turned out to be a dud.  After taking off our bags and keeping the walking sticks, the bartender said he didn’t have any food until 8:30am.  #2 was a few hundred meters down the road and we had better luck at a cafe.  This time, we asked first and she had tostadas or other food.  She looked at us like we were crazy, “por supuesto, esto es un café”.  Great!  Melanie had her fix and we were soon off to the trail.

As our hotel was closer to the south of Santiago, and the trail to Finisterre is to the east, we had a 1.2km walk from the hotel through the city to join the proper trail.  Once on the trail though, the directional markings were excellent almost the entire way to Negreira.  We were also very quickly in a beautiful forest on natural trails. There was about 7km of natural trails today but the entire route was gorgeous. It certainly was hilly too.  In fact, starting at the 12km point in the walk, there was a 2.5km section (under-advertised) that averaged a gradient of 10%.   Melanie tried to race me to the top but I won by a good meter and a half.  She really pushed me too and I appreciated that much more than the other pilgrims who we passed on the way appreciated me doing the “Rocky Balboa at the top of the Philadelphia Library steps” dance in triumph.

Melanie’s hill heroics were definitely late in the day after a slow start for both of us.  We have usually kept to a pace of between 11:30 to about 15:00 minutes per kilometer while on the trail, slower than in younger days but not too bad considering it also accounts for photos, GPS checks, short toilet or drinks breaks, etc.  On steeper hills, both up and down, we are definitely slower and closer to 18:00 minutes per kilometer.  This morning though, as we started out through the city and on the nice suburb trails, our average was 20 minutes/km for the first 4km. Melanie was lagging but I was slow too.  We didn’t really understand why because our walk into Santiago was actually quite fast.   Eventually it hit me though.  I’m not sure about Melanie but I was really soaking in the nice trails and wondering to myself “Is this it?  Is this our last Camino?”  Enjoy every step of the way, if it is.  This was our fifth walk into Santiago and I had always said, “our destination was always Santiago and that is where we stop.”  Our Camino friends always encouraged us to walk to the sea but I always thought of that as a last walk.  We will walk to the end of the world and then there is no more walking to be done.  I’m not sure what the future holds.  Maybe we will be back but that was always the way I thought. I’m really glad to be walking it with Melanie though.  Years ago, I said to Melanie that I had to do the last walk to Finisterre, one way or the other.  At least now, I didn’t have to do it in an urn carried in her backpack.

Back to practical issues, on one area of the trail, in the small village of Perdrido, there was a detour on the route that was poorly marked and likely unnecessary. I can only estimate but it looked like it added only about 600m to the day’s total but no pilgrim wants to do an extra 600m particularly when it isn’t certain that we are heading in the right direction.  We easily and safely could have just walked past the roadworks since there only appeared to be one worker and six supervisors.

There were more pilgrims on the trail than I expected but so much fewer than the past week.  Also, there were no “100km and done” and only one cyclist.  Everyone we met were lovely pilgrims who greeted or chatted with us as they passed us (or the ones that we passed on the hills because we are hill royalty).  The lone exception that I could think of was a young woman who was walking very close to my speed when Melanie was 50m behind.  When she finally caught up to me, instead of giving her my usual smiling “Buen Camino” or “buenos días”, I asked her in English a hearty “How are you today?” She shrugged and made a sound that translated to  something like “this is a crappy day”.   I followed up with a “Oh come on!  This is a beautiful day for a walk and on wonderful trails!”  She made another noise that sounded to me like “No it’s not and please shut up”.  That’s when I really looked at her face, she looked like she was about to cry.  We walked side by side in silence for another kilometer before she slowed down.  I didn’t want to intrude more.  You never know what burdens are carried by anyone you meet. I’m sure I helped her by shutting up but I hope she also felt better for just having someone beside her while she fought with whatever demons she was dealing with.

One story from our rest day in Santiago involves our visit to the Cathedral.  We cued up at 10:15am to get into the noon Pilgrims’ mass.  If you think that was ridiculously early, keep in mind that there were about 250 people in front of us.   At 10:45, they started to let the queue enter the church.  Fortunately, many of the people in front of us just wanted to do the pilgrim rituals of hugging the statue of St. James behind the altar and saying a prayer before his reliquary. We ended up with very good seats with a great view of the botafumeiro swinging.  We knew the best time to do the pilgrim rituals was later in the day.  To make a long story endless…. We went back to the church at 5:00pm to hug St. James and there were only about 50 people in the queue and the queue started outside of a door that is right in front of the entrance to the statue. The people around us were excited and talking loudly outside but many continued to do so inside too.  Not on my watch I say to myself.  In my best Sr.Bede impersonation, I let out a rather loud “Shhhhhhhhhhh”, far louder and far longer than I intended.  It worked though and it particularly shocked the woman in front of us into immediate silence.  She looked back at me though, to see if I was a priest or just a security guard.  I felt so bad that I put my hand on her shoulder and whispered “I didn’t mean to direct that at you” and she let out a small laugh and said “Don’t worry”.  That, of course, made Melanie laugh a little louder and look at me to ask “can I sing “Be happy””?  Here we go again.  We were definitely on the edge of getting kicked out of a church.  

Peace y’all. And be happy

Goodnight George & Leo