Kiwi on the Camino

by Vivianne Flintoff

  There is the church we thought we might stop and look at. Again, I cannot see or hear Bruce. Where is he? Is he behind me? There was nowhere I could have passed him without seeing him. Twelve kilometres on from our albergue is the first bar of the day. I order a bocadillo. Usually Bruce and I have half each. Having just walked twelve kilometres without a food stop, and with mounting anxiety for Bruce’s whereabouts, I eat the whole large sandwich. I drink my coffee and still there is no sign of Bruce. I have now been sitting at this bar for forty minutes. What should I do? Do I go on, or do I wait and if I wait, for how long? I had not thought to ask pilgrims I met along the way if they had seen Bruce.

  In the distance, I see Bruce running towards the bar. He was behind me. What a relief for us both. He has run many kilometres trying to catch up with me. He and his companion had taken a wrong turn within minutes after leaving me and had walked into another town. A Spanish resident of that town, tried to direct them back to where they needed to go, but neither Bruce nor the woman had understood him. He then, the gracious man, led them back to almost the point where they had gone wrong. Bruce realised I would now be ahead of him, so asked every pilgrim he met, overtaking them at either a fast walk or a run, if they had seen me. Just one family remembered seeing me and told Bruce I was just five minutes ahead. In reality, I was thirty minutes ahead. I never did ask Bruce how he described me to the pilgrims he met. I had been very anxious, but that was nothing in comparison to Bruce’s situation. He was without phone, money, passport, or any other identification papers. He also understands very little Spanish. I carry all our documentation, money and phone. Perhaps not a good idea.

  We decide to stop at Santa Mariña, after just twenty kilometres of walking (instead of the planned thirty-three kilometres) so Bruce can get some much-needed rest and sleep. We stop at a pleasant looking family home which has been converted into an albergue. Unfortunately, there are more pilgrims than there are beds. It is another thirteen kilometres to the next albergue. We manage to book two beds. I am so relieved. The albergue has a busy small bar that serves food. We order our meal for 6 p.m. and Bruce goes to bed. I wash the clothes, then explore this very small hamlet. I am fascinated with the cemetery. It is enclosed within two-metre-high walls with crosses on the top and small figurines between the crosses. Set into the walls, facing inwards, are spaces for urns and many have flowers in front of the urns behind glass frames.

  I have caught up on my notes, so if Bruce doesn’t wake soon I will be eating chocolate again. A couple arrive and she is very tired, but there are no beds left. I feel guilty at having a bed and offer her mine. She is grateful, but after eating some food they decide to move on. Buen Camino.

  A pilgrim who is fortunate to get a bed had, like Bruce, also been lost. He is walking the Camino solo. A Spanish farmer had waved at him and called out. The pilgrim did not trust the farmer and kept walking. He eventually reached a village and someone there could tell the pilgrim, in English, he had taken a wrong turn. He is exhausted. With the wrong turn, he has walked forty kilometres in total today.

  The albergue bar is the only eatery in this hamlet and pilgrims occupy all the tables. Bruce and I share a dining table with a woman from Switzerland and a young man from Australia, whose father is an evangelical Anglican minister. We pilgrims are tired, but wait patiently for one hour, seated at the tables with red and white checked cloths. The couple running the albergue, are also running the bar and are the chefs. They are overwhelmed by the full house and are very stressed, hot and tired. He keeps getting confused with the orders and returns several times to check my name and therefore my order. “Bibiana,” is called out on a regular basis and I do not recognize that name as mine. There are some elderly men from the village sitting at the bar who keep looking over at me, so I try to engage with them in Spanish. The Aussie says he can see a halo around my head. I didn’t know evangelicals saw halos.

  We eventually receive our meal - last. There isn’t quite enough to eat for either Bruce or me. I offer him half my chips, but keep the rest of my meal for myself. I, too, am hungry. I begin the pantomime of the evening. There is just one condiment set and the remaining seven tables look across with envy at the one fortunate table who possess salt, pepper and olive oil. I ask if we can please use the condiments. Some minutes later another table asks to borrow the condiments, and so it goes on for the next hour, with each new course, the eight tables play, ‘Pass the condiments please’. This involves a representative from a table walking around the space trying to find the condiment set and waiting their place in the queue for the condiments to become available. Hysteria takes over. The exhausted pilgrims cannot speak with one another as we speak different languages. The shared laughter is understood.

  The hostess drops by our table twice and holds my hand each time. “Is the dinner good?” “Si muy bien,” I reply each time. She is so stressed and looks very tired. My response isn’t quite a lie, the food is good, there just isn’t enough. I suspect those who were served earlier left the tables feeling well fed.

  Fifteen of the diners will be sleeping in the little attic at the top of this home. There is less than one metre between each single bed. Fortunately, I am by the window so I can control its opening or closing. If anybody wants to close the window during the night, they will have to get past me first.

  I rise at 1.45 a.m. determined to see this famed Milky Way before reaching the sea. I am disappointed. There are just a few stars. I decide the medieval pilgrims would have needed a much better showing of the Milky Way to guide them on their Camino. They didn’t have the aid of small yellow arrows. Back in the present day, the cattle are lowing in the barn, the night is delicate and still and I am content.

  San Mariña to Cee

  33 kms (20.5ml)

  12 kms (7.5ml) to Cape Finisterre

  To learn the art of integrating your faults

  is to begin a journey of healing on which

  you will regain your poise and find new creativity.

  John O’Donohue (1956-2008)

  May 5, Day 45

  TODAY WILL BE A LONG walk, but I am looking forward to the high, empty stretch of wild moor after we have climbed some hills. We leave before sunrise and watch the bountiful sun spread its warmth across the misty land. We can smell and hear milking in progress as we pass barns and small villages. An economist from Australia accompanies us on our early morning walk, but goes ahead when we stop to eat our one banana each for our first breakfast. The guidebook warns there will be no shops once we reach the moors, so I will need to purchase food before then. I soon decide that there is no flat land this side of Santiago. Or so it seems. We leave behind the farms and enter more tracts of oak, pine and eucalypt. The gums are struggling up here in the hills.

  I decide that walking pilgrims are a traffic hazard, worse than puppies on the loose. Bruce and I have become so accustomed to having quiet country lanes to ourselves, that when we reach a village, we continue to spread ourselves across the road and unexpecting car drivers play dodgems with us. There have been a few close calls as cars have come around a corner and found us across the road. No wonder people have been killed on the roads.

  The one-way bridges, fortunately, have gaps in the side barriers. When we are on these bridges and enormous farm vehicles bear down on us, we are able, with packs on, to nip through the gap in the bridge barrier and hold onto the edge of the bridge, with our toes gripping to our boots, as the great machines thunder by.

  We are soon up high among the wind turbines; Bruce enjoys their presence. There are fewer flowers today, but for the first time there are foxgloves. I enjoy seeing flowers in the wilderness setting. We pass the large reservoir and keep climbing. There is a bar at the top of the hill before we reach the iron ore factory, the evidence of which we see in the sky. We stop for an early lunch as there will be no available provisions until we reach Cee. At the factory carpark, we make a right-hand turn and we now
have twelve kilometres of moorland ahead of us. I hope they will be as I imagine the moors of Wuthering Heights to be. Today, providentially, it is not misty. We do not need to fear the appearance of the mythical Vakner, a terrifying creature (quite likely a large wild boar) and allegedly used by early Christians to discourage pagan rites up on these isolated moors. As we are travelling by day, we do not fear being accosted by the Holy Company who drift around the moors, seeking to draw the unwary into their number, who are then condemned to roam for eternity as lost souls.

  It clouds over a little and there is a quiet breeze, but nothing out of the ordinary happens as we cross this moorland. It feels empty, but not quite as wild as I had hoped for. We stop at the Ermita San Pedro Martir, a small hermitage, where Saint Peter the Martyr was reputed to cure bodily aches and rheumatism by placing the worrisome body part into the waters of the holy spring. We look, but take our tired bodies on without trying the waters. A little later, I notice something I take to be low cloud off in the distance to my left, but I am too intent on walking to notice it is not cloud. Then there is no mistake. We can smell the sea and there is a hint of salt spray on our lips.

  For two kilometres, we descend a very steep, rocky path. We think this is the roughest path yet of our entire walk. In the wet, it would be awash with rain run-off. We are glad the day is dry. Slowly, slowly. I remember the warning of a tramping guide to be wary of ‘getting home-itis’. Trampers, in their urgency to reach home, will injure themselves on the final leg of a journey. We are on the final stretch and should reach Finisterre tomorrow. Both Bruce and I are careful to walk slowly down this torturous, but enjoyable path.

  We are elated to see the sea after seven weeks of anticipation. After booking into a family albergue, I look out the window of our private bedroom to see an outside public area with eighteen exercise machines set out on a concrete pad. We have just walked thirty-three kilometres and that is the view outside our window.

  While Bruce sleeps, I explore the streets of the old town close to the albergue. There are some picturesque buildings in these narrow, winding streets. The houses are painted in soft, quiet, shades of pink, blue and green with cream accents – rather reminiscent of tall ice-cream cakes I think. These houses are so very different to any we have encountered so far. Cee must have been charming before Napoléon destroyed many of the buildings. The town lost a lot of its historic past due to the activities of the French force.

  Cee to Finisterre

  12 kms (7.5ml) to Finisterre

  Remember this – very little

  is needed to make a happy life.

  Marcus Aurelius (121-180)

  May 6, Day 46

  IN THE MORNING, WITH JUST a short walk ahead of us, we take some time to look around the large modern shopping complex. We marvel at all the fish swimming in the little estuary through the centre of town. Why is no one fishing? It is raining now and everybody around us is carrying an umbrella. Bruce had left the one he purchased in Pamplona somewhere along The Way and wants to purchase another. Despite looking around and going in and out of shops we can see no umbrellas for sale. I take out my English/Spanish guidebook and think I can ask for directions to the umbrella shop. Two women kindly listen to my request (without asking me to speak in English) and then point to a store just two doors away.

  There are three options for continuing to Finisterre and I choose the rough little path along the original Camino route. The path is overgrown in places. It is also very narrow as it snakes uphill between houses and garden plots. Water is running down the path, but I no longer worry about my boots and feet.

  At Sardinero, we walk along the beach and enter a café from the beach entrance. We see that the Irish school teacher, with whom Bruce had conversed and got lost, is in the café. The three of us share our lunch time space. Like other pilgrims we had met, her accommodation was all pre-booked, by an agent, in either upmarket private guest houses or hotels. She had suffered an ordeal just last night. At the guest house, she had been the only guest and was extremely nervous about the intentions of the hotelier. So much so, she had barricaded her door prior to retiring for the night. She said she would lay a complaint.

  We leave the café together and she assures us she knows the way out of the village. She does not. We manage and it is up another woodland path and then down a steep rough track to Punto de Vista (Viewing Point) with its longed for glorious views of the two kilometre stretch of beach where, according to legend, St James preached the Gospel. With the sea and the long beach to Finisterre in view, we stop a pilgrim cyclist who has just re-mounted his bike and ask if he will take a photo of us. He kindly dismounts and we have his bicycle’s front wheel sharing our photo. We are truly within sight of our finish line.

  Bruce and I decide to walk the length of this lovely beach to the fishing port of Finisterre. Bruce walks in bare feet and has the joy of sand beneath his feet and between his toes. I still have both ankles strapped so leave my boots on. We trudge along the beach, under a blue sky with sun to warm us in the cool offshore breeze. We reach a small stream that runs across the sand. I remember seeing it on the map. Bruce takes the two packs across the stream then comes back for me. We hear a loud whistle and look up. There is Peter walking towards us from Finisterre. “I thought you would be arriving today about this time.” Once again, he has awaited our arrival and his timing is sure. It takes me three attempts to jump high enough to clamber on Bruce’s back. He carries me across the water to where Peter and a woman companion are standing. “I’ll show you where you can stay. I know you well and what you like,” Peter informs us as we continue to walk the last stretch of the beach. Peter and his friend have the use of a private house lent to him by friends he made on one of his previous Camino pilgrimages. We do not like the look of the albergue Peter recommends, so tell him we will keep looking and then find him later. He is bound to be in one of the bars.

  We are corralled into an albergue by the owner, a mother of two daughters. They all welcome us. I can’t face another night in a shared bunkroom, so we ask for a private room. With the room comes a private bathroom. We climb two flights of stairs and are given the choice of two bedrooms. I choose the room with the double bed, despite the odds of little sleep for me. The bed is not big enough for us both. The room has a view of the sea, as the house on the opposite side of the street has collapsed through disrepair. What is sleep when a view of the sea is to be had? I have all the view I want, as I break the cord trying to close the blind not long after our hostess leaves us. (In the morning, I confess my vandalism of the blind. “No problem, we didn’t put the stops on.”)

  The weather is closing in, so we decide to walk to Cape Finisterre in the morning and stay two nights in the town before catching the bus to Santiago. As the sun sets, we venture forth and find Peter and friend in one of the bars. Peter tells us of some of his adventures since we last met including, “I was really drunk the night you left Santiago and the woman pastor I had been talking with baptized me in the fountain by the cathedral.”

  The wharfs are close by and Bruce and I enjoy wandering around looking at boats. An impressive breakwater shelters the boats. We see the fish again swimming around undisturbed by fishing lines. A little further on and we see a ‘no fishing’ sign. A young man is up ahead carrying baskets of fish. I ask him why you can’t fish here and wonder if it is because it is a fishing port. The man replies in English, with a German accent, that the fish are mullet and are called sewage fish because they are found in polluted water. The water doesn’t look polluted. It looks almost good enough to swim in if you didn’t mind swimming in an aquarium. There are so many of the sewage fish. The man goes on to tell us that he has been in Finisterre for six years never having left after completing the Camino. He must know the good restaurants then. I ask which restaurant he would recommend. He responds, “You see that pirate sign over there? Great fish and good entertainment watching the chef prepare your meal.”
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  Over we go to see the pirate. There are white trays laid out upon the counter and in each one an array of dead fish. Bruce selects an assortment of seafood. I am content with the deep-water bass. The pirate chef calls us over to watch him as he prepares our food. It is fun to watch this entertaining chef in his pirate outfit. It looks to have been purchased from the same shop as Johnny Depp’s outfit.

  PART 3

  Finisterre – Cape Finisterre

  3.5 kms (2.2ml)

  0.00 kms to Walk

  The sacred duty of being an individual

  Is to gradually learn how to live

  So as to awaken the eternal within you.

  John O’Donohue (1956-2008)

  May 7, Day 47

  WE HAVE A LEISURELY MORNING waiting for the weather to improve and use this time to go to the town council to obtain our Fisterana, our certificate for completing the walk from Santiago to Finisterre. A second certificate to add to my curriculum vitae. Certificate obtained and with the weather slightly improved, we begin the three and a half kilometre walk to Cape Finisterre. There are pōhutukawa trees lining the road and they are just coming into flower. (The pōhutukawa is known as the ‘New Zealand Christmas tree’ as it flowers late November to mid-December.) The road is sealed and has traffic coming and going. We could have caught a taxi, but this stage needs to be walked. I am glad to be without my pack. The view to our left, to the rocks and waves below, is exhilarating. We walk past the inevitable souvenir shops to the absolute end of our Camino journey. Even the waymark confirms the completion of our Camino: 0.00 kilometres.

  When planning my Camino, I determined to walk to the medieval ends of the earth with the mysterious name of Finisterre on the Costa da Morte. Some say the name Costa da Morte derives, not from an ancient belief that departing spirits of the recent dead leave from here, but rather because of the rough buffetting the coastline receives from the eternal thrashing of the ocean. Whatever the source of the name, Cabo da Fisterra (Cape Finisterre) on the Costa da Morte, called to me.