Muxia

Muxía, Spain

Hola, amigos. I’m now in Muxia, on the Spanish coast at a great Albergue, Bella Muxia. We Celebrated my friend’s big birthday tonight with a fish dinner, local and couldn’t be fresher. Pulpa, octopus, a Galician favorite. This is a beautiful and serene fishing village. It is also a destination for post Camino Walkers and tourists and the Carnival and Festival that are coming to town. We walked up to the top of beautiful and steep hills with monuments and a church in the sunset. More breathtaking landscapes and natural settings.

This walk was NOT 17 Km. It was at least 22 Km, first half when we got on the road, after the forest hike from Carantona, was hard surfaced highway with traffic, very hilly. How can we be walking uphill to the sea? By the end of the hike, I was so slow and so so so ready to take off my backpack. My friend is an intrepid and seasoned hiker and very patient to walk with me. I think about 20 Km is close to my limit with a backpack. Although I’ve walked up to 27 on this Camino, I prefer less hilly terrain and softer walking surfaces.

I’m persistent and have been called tenacious, so I just kept walking, when I really wanted to take a long, long break. If not for my determination to keep up, I could have keeled over! But here I am, showered and ready for a night out. Slow and steady.

Tomorrow afternoon we will take a bus for two days in Finesterre, the end of the earth. It has been a Camino walker’s tradition to burn clothes or boots here at end of hike, but burning is now deemed too much of an environmental hazard. Recently two pilgrims were fined for starting a fire that got out of control. If you saw the movie, “The Way,” you watched this exciting ending to a Camino. But not for us.

After Finesterre, I’ll be back in Santiago for a few days, seeing the sites I missed when I was walking around in a daze after arriving at the end of my Camino Frances walk. Buen Camino.

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