A Camino of One's Own

 

   Teresa and I flew to Spain last week to walk a pilgrimage. I used to think there was just one pilgrimage: the 500 mile hike across the Pyrenees from France to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. 

  This seemed a bit much and with further research I discovered there were many routes and these routes could be customized, by which I mean shortened. In all decency, the shortest we should shorten it to was four days of hiking. 

 There’s a company in England that will make the necessary arrangements for hikers like us. Our starting point would be Santiago where most people end their pilgrimage. After two days in Santiago a cab took us sixty miles west to the small fishing port of Camariñas. 

  I was told the seafood here was great. The catch of the day was chalked up on a board. The only thing I recognized was camarón: shrimp. Ok, a nice shrimp dinner sounded good. What I got was a heap of tiny shrimp. The waitress made a ripping off the head motion. The only way to get at the meat was to eat the shell too. The bread was good, as was the granola bar in our room. I resolved to learn Spanish before our next trip here.

  The first day of our hike was drizzly. As we walked down the promenade, a strong wind hit us and we tried out our new rain gear. The rain quit after an hour but the wind stayed strong all day. I had studied the maps and printed directions the company had sent us. We were to follow the green arrows or dots that the Friends of the Lighthouse Trail had marked our path with. Going astray on a long hike in a foreign country is no joke. 

  The Friends of the Trail had done a fairly good job of marking the trail, and the written directions were pretty good, but at certain crucial places where the road divided I would have paid ten euros for a green dot or less ambiguity in the directions. 

  When we did go astray in the afternoon, it was my fault. I was getting tired and failed to scrutinize the directions closely enough. I was sure we were going the right way but we weren't. When you think you’re right it takes a jolt to set you right again. I got that jolt coming over a rise in the road and seeing the wide Rio Porto where it should not have been.

  We turned around and passed a path that would have taken us directly to our lodging if we had only known it. We hiked back almost to the spot we had gone wrong but not quite far enough. I was now fully tangled up in my underwear. We proceeded to hike right past our lodging but the sign was covered with bushes so we kept going, thinking it was further up the hill.

  I was about to turn on our cellular and pay the hefty tariff when Teresa asked a woman in her garden where our place was. All we could make out was casita and derecho. Go right at the little house? She pointed back the way we had come. Further on we asked another woman. She pointed the same way and said izquierda, left. We came to a little house. On the left side was what looked like a private home. Could it be our goal? We walked through the gate and saw the small sign for Reception. Yes yes yes! We were saved. 

  On day two the weather was great and we continued along the coast and through forests of pine and eucalyptus. We walked about two miles longer than necessary due to another screw up on my part which I won’t go into here as it’s embarrassing. 

  We cut day three short by taking a cab a few kilometers down the road. We needed an easy day after my double fiascos. 

  Day four was not especially long but it was the hardest because of the climbing up to the sea cliffs along the side of a mountain. It took our breath away, literally. 

  On our way down from the cliffs we ran into a Dutch couple around our age who told us of their hikes all over Europe. It was great to have an extended conversation in English. 

Anti-gravity girl

  Our hike ended in Finisterre or World’s End, the westernmost point in Spain. Our tour company had booked us in the nice hotel at the end of the point by the lighthouse.  At sunset the tourists came to watch the sun sink into the sea. Goats came up the rocky slopes to graze. It was nice. And nice that we were done. 

End of the trail