For the most part, we are done walking. Our built in extra days are too few to allow us to walk to Finisterre, but too many to just sit on our butts waiting for our flight to Madrid on Thursday. We ran into a similar fortunate situation when we biked the length of the Rhine in 2015. It is hard to know how fast you will move, what delays might occur and what circumstances you will meet along the way. You build in extra day “just in case”.
Today, we are off to Finisterra by bus, will spend a night after seeing the town, then hike to Muxia (pronounce moo-she-a - the Galcianians pronounce the “x” as “sh”- and “c” as “th”) tomorrow.
We slept in a bit today, waking at 6:30am and starting our walk to the bus station about 7:30am. Our bus to Finisterra is at 9:00am and we wanted to arrive early enough to get our tickets and leave a little time to overcome any obstacles that might arrive. Our walk to the bus station was about 15-20 minutes. The pavement shone wet in the street lights. It had be raining during the night, but spared us during our walk. The bus station was open, but not the ticket booth or the cafe. As we walked in we saw a man’s face light up in a smile as we glanced his direction. It was one of those moments when you are not sure if he is looking at you or someone behind you. He rose and walked to us exclaiming “Chuck and Sally”; it was us he was looking at. It took a moment to recognize Milan of Serbia whom we had met a couple days before. He is a very sweet man and we exchanged greeting and found he was on the bus to Finisterra as well. We left him to seek out the bathroom and a meal at the cafe, now that it had opened.
We purchased our tickets when the booth opened at abut 8:15am and wandered downstairs to the bus platforms. There were a number of people millling around, wondering which of the 20 slots our bus would pull into. Milan was still in the waiting room.
Our bus turned out to be a two story bus with huge windows for viewing. We knew the route was along the coast for much of the way, we plotted to get an upper seat on the left side of the bus for optimal viewing. Sally would enter the bus first while I loaded our packs in the storage space underneath, then join her inside in the seat she saved for me. Since it was a double decker bus, the only luggage area was over the rear wheels. By the time I got to it, it appeared full and I had to stuff my pack in by pushing others aside. I got both our packs in, then went back to enter the bus and was the last person to board. Sally had two seats on the left side up top. Perfect.
The bus was super comfortable and only about 1/3 full. The ride did not disappoint. The first part was through town and the countryside, then the road hugged the winding shoreline for an hour and a half. The view would have been spectacular, but the heavy rain was streaking our window, obscuring the view a little bit. Even the streaking and the mist outside could not hide a spectacular shoreline. Sally slept the first half hour until I woke her to see the ocean view. I wrote yesterday’s blog entry as we rode along. It is the first blog of the trip I have written with my thumbs on my phone, rather than using the keyboard. I read through it when done and noticed more errors than normal.
We arrived in Fisterra in the pouring rain. Our rain gear was in the pack under the bus. A crowd stood outside the storage area trying to get to their packs which were now a jumbled and topsy turvy mess. It took a few minutes standing there to get my turn at the pile, and I extracted both our packs. We scurried under the small covered area and put our rain gear on. There were a lot of people (25-25) standing around, some waiting for the bus, others waiting for the albergue to open. Our albergue was up the road a few blocks. We shouldered our packs and headed up the street. We noticed a large grocery store (large by comparison to what we had been shopping in, smaller than Toledo’s Red Apple) and a bakery. We stopped in and saw what looked like apple pie. We bought two pieces and ate them while walking to the albergue. Oh man, they were spectacular!
We arrived at the alburgue. It was downstairs and quite small. Two sleeping rooms with 8 bunk beds in each and a small room that served as registration, common room and kitchen. There were also two bathrooms and three showers.
Once registered and assigned bunks, we headed down the street to the grocery store, stopping on the way at a restaurant for a couple hamburgers.
The grocery store had more vegetables than we had seen. We bought two carrots, a box of mushrooms and a leek for our soup tonight.
We returned to the albergue and each took naps until 3:30pm. The rain had stopped and the sun was out. Yahoo!! We walked to the true “end of the earth”, 2 miles out to the end of the point where the lighthouse is and FaceTimed Robby and family from there. We walked back and sat on the beach for a few minutes enjoying the nice, cool weather, then went inside to cook dinner.
During our cooking and eating Milan came in and we got into a discussion of Serbia and the US influence in the world, especially Serbia. Milan was excited that Donald Trump had gotten elected. He called Hillary Clinton “the pure essence of evil”. We asked him why. He was in Kosovo when President Clinton bombed Kosovo, holding his young kids and trying to calm them as the bombs rained down. That’s a pretty good reason to hate the Clintons. He said that Serbia can do nothing economically that is not approved by the US or face retaliation. He was very emphatic about his political views, yet was open to hearing another point of view. He thought Trump’s wall was a great idea to keep the immigrants out. He hated the immigrants and wanted all immigration to stop. He was convinced the Muslims were sending only their men in an attempt to infiltrate Europe for an eventual takeover of the continent. He often exclaimed he was not a racist and would then say he did not want blacks coming to Europe from Africa and Muslims from Arabia.
It was getting late, 9:20ish, so we ended our interesting discussion, packed our gear for morning, stuffing Sally’s pack with the things we would not need during our walk for shipping, and climbed into our bunks. Sally turned the lights off about 9:40pm after asking the 3 other people in the room if that was okay. They all liked the idea. 3 minutes later a woman walked in, turned on the light, asked if 10:00 was the time for the quiet to begin and sat on her bunk writing a postcard. I was amazed at her rudeness. 5 people in bed with the lights out. She walks in, turns them on, tells us lights out at 10 and then does something that could be done in the common room. Despite the lights, I fell asleep and woke 40 minutes later to see that they were off. Ahh, life in the albergue . . .
Ran in as we get off the bus in Finisterra.
Sally and our “ride” from Santiago. Fisterra is a bigger town than we expected.
Registering for our bunks in Albergue Ara Solis in Finisterra
A statue of a wind swept pilgrim on our hike to the lighthouse at the end of the earth. Lots of clouds now, but no rain on the walk out.
At the “End of the Earth”. Before the earth was perceived as round, sailing west of here was sailing off the edge of the earth. Notice the distance on the marker.
Selfie at the end of the earth.
We are never alone. We ran into Ren as we walked back into town. We walked with her two weeks ago. How can we be in Spain and be surrounded by friends? It is a small world after all!
Access to the beach from our albergue. Narrow street! No danger of getting hit by a car.
Sally picks a couple of rocks to bring home to Bob from the End of the Earth
Finisterra, the town, as seen from above.
The “End of the Earth” with Finisterra seen in the background.
Bunks in our albergue. We had sheets and blankets and towels. I guess that is why it was 12€ instead of the usual 6€.
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