Camino de Santiago, part V -- End of the Trail

We left Astorga and walked towards the Western mountains and a black stormy sky. After a half an hour we didn't bother to walk around puddles, our feet were so wet from the rain and the run-off from our ponchos a puddle or two didn't matter. There was an up-side, by the time we reached the albergue our shoes were spotless as if washed in a machine. A couple hundred miles of trail dust was gone with no trace left behind.

The next couple of days we were in the Maragato region. The mountain people go back to the 7th century and the Visigoths. Now the culture is dying and the villages largely deserted and crumbling. Very picturesque but sad and desolate and odd because the land itself looked healthy with obvious farming and grazing throughout the area. Absentee owners I guess.
   The first albergue in Foncebadon had a large picture of that bug-eyed, pompous old fraud Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh displayed on a wall. I muttered to dw "We can't stay here, not with that on the wall." She agreed and we went to a different place a few blocks away.  The Bhagwan place was a woo-woo crystal power sort of inn, the second place was newer and nicer.

We weren't yet doing a count-down, noting the kilometer markers fall to double and then single digits, but we did note entering Galicia, land of the Celts and the last region of the walk. There were some differences: Some spellings are different with a lot more "x's" used (but much of the political graffiti was still in English -- as a neutral language, I think) and "O" something or other was a common name, such as a bar we passed -- "O'Castro" -- Alas, I really wanted to see a Celtic cross or two but there weren't any.

At this point there were a couple of architectural changes. The village churches were mostly fronted with a false front and three bells, the sort of thing seen in every spaghetti western ever made (no tumble weeds blowing around though). And many of them had a sort of silo arrangement on one side of the front. We didn't go into any of the siloed churches, but I think the silos contained a spiral staircase which accessed a bell-ringing platform behind and just below the bells.
   The roofs were mostly slate, including some that were obviously  split by an amateur: someone picked up some chunks and split his own shingles.  (the western mountain range, the Galician Massif, seems to be a huge pile of slate).
    A few buildings had a thatch roof, surprising to us -- at first we thought they were tourist kitsch -- but we read that thatch was another traditional roof.

   And another architectural feature of sorts: stork nests. They were everywhere. The churches commonly had two to four. Chimneys were capped, as were antennas and power poles. Belying the fable we didn't notice armies of small children idling about.

After we had passed the 100K mark and were definitely on the countdown, I asked dw: "Now that we only have a few days left, how do you feel about this being over?"
   There was a significant pause, and then she said: "You're asking me about how I feel?"
   I admit exploring feelings aren't a favorite thing of mine, but hey, I can do it every five or ten years for a few minutes anyway.
   We discussed the end for awhile and concluded that I was more prepared to move on to the next thing than was dw. Mostly because I have more things at home to occupy my time. Even so, for both of us, the Camino was (in a quiet way) one of the great events of our lives.

At Sarria the short-timers joined the trail. You only need to walk the last 100K of the trail to get a certificate of completion, and we found a large percentage of them were loud and rude on the trail. Walking several abreast, cutting in front, stopping and blocking the whole trail -- consistently annoying. (and the very worst of the bunch were on bicycles) We came to look forward to times of heavy rain because the short-timers would disappear into their buses and taxis. A lot of them were catered walkers -- not carrying packs, and (I think) not actually walking the full 100K. I think many of them would ride a bus that would stop at a couple of places, the riders would get their credentials stamped, and then they would drive on. In one town we saw a bit of graffiti: "I like peregrinos, I hate tourists" Apparently my thoughts about the short-timers, the tourists, wasn't unusual.

Portomarin is a town relocated to make way for a dam and its reservoir. The austere church was moved by disassembling it, numbering the stones and then rebuilding it higher up the hill. It's as unusual as the picture would indicate, and it has the proportions of a brick lying on its side. We met Ulrich (from Orisson, our first stop) -- who had also taken a bus. He was hobbling around on a swollen foot and waiting for his walking partner, Bernt, so they could finish together.

Palas De Rei, another of the last towns we stayed in had its own brand of oddness. We were walking around looking for an appealing restaurant or a bakery or deli, when there was a very loud explosion. It sounded like several  sticks of dynamite exploding. We truly thought it was either a terrorist bombing or a huge factory explosion -- but we immediately saw the locals weren't concerned at all. They were sitting at outdoor cafes, having coffee or beer or tapas and nobody even flinched or looked up. I have no idea what it was, but about every half an hour or so, until nine in the evening another blast would rattle the city.
     Later we heard a loud loudspeaker -- it was of poor sound quality and we couldn't understand it of course, but we thought it was an angry political rally. Again the locals were unconcerned. They sat at their outdoor tables talking and drinking and ignoring the din. We decided it was safe, that we wouldn't get involved with an angry separatist mob (An element in both the Basque region and the Galician region are trying to separate from Spain) so we went looking for the source. It was a classic Punch and Judy hand puppet show. It was great. The audience was mostly little kids (with parents standing on the side), and they were really into it. Yelling warnings to the hero when he was going to be eaten by a shark, laughing at the jokes. The show was fun, and it was fun to watch the kids reacting.

    It was raining the next morning when we left, but we did enjoy the street lights that looked like Christmas decorations but were a permanent feature.

At Salceda, just two days before the finish, we met Tim and Steve. They were a couple of submarine engineers walking the trail having been inspired by the movie "The Way". Tim had lost his son some time earlier and when he saw the movie he decided he wanted to do the Camino. Steve was recently divorced. They both were seeking some sort of resolution for their lives. And as it happened, they both were fun to talk with, and they were vastly impressed with my age. I was duly pleased.
   (I didn't mention Dan though I immediately thought of him -- for some reason it didn't seem appropriate.)

We stopped at Monte del Gozo after our last full day. It was another day of pouring rain, and although we could have made it to Santiago (Monte del Gozo is only four miles from Santiago) we decided to wait and arrive in Santiago in the morning -- giving us a full day to find lodging and food and get our certificates.
   Arriving in Santiago was satisfying and moving, but neither of us felt a great surge of emotion. We felt it was a quieter moment than a climatic event. Satisfaction, to be sure, but more of an integral part of our lives rather than a passage with a beginning and an end.

When we were walking towards the cathedral, clad in our broad brimmed hats and ponchos, carrying our packs (dw carried her pack the last few days) I noticed several tourists taking our picture. We were pleased. (Rick Steves mentions watching the peregrinos arrive as an attraction in Santiago)

 The last of the path markers: directly in front of the Cathedral. 

We met a delightful French couple (about our age, who we met repeatedly during the last two weeks), Bernt and Ulrich, Tim and Steve, and one of the Korean women, all earlier stages of the walk -- another pleasure at the end.   We spent two days in Santiago, and four days in Madrid. And then home.   

"Europe was born with the Camino de Santiago" --- Goethe
  
JOKE OF THE DAY: Cigarettes are like gerbils. They're both harmless until you put one in your mouth and light it.

BOOK OF THE DAY: How Architecture Works (Witold Rybczynski) WR proposes and answers questions about the good, the bad, and the ugly in architecture. He discusses how design and construction work and how they are related in a building. I wouldn't suppose everyone would agree with everything he says (I don't), but if you're interested in architecture I'd recommend this book.

WORD OF THE DAY: Purring -- not involving a cute kitty as you probably expect, but the name of a shin-kicking contest --- one of the events in the Cotswold Olimpick Games. (the referee is a "stickler")
   I wonder what's up with these nutter Brits? What with Yorkshire ferret-legging (tie your pants cuffs closed and stick a ferret down there -- underwear not allowed. "It's not so bad if you don't mind a ferret biting your tool." said one contestant) And now "purring" it seems that the English miss larking about kicking the hell out of third-world countries.      And so it goes.  DJA