my way
There follows the slightly manic daily whatsapp messages I sent to a select group of unwilling participants during a recent (mostly) solo hike. No further context will be given; editing has been minimal.
hola from the galician fishing metropolis of ferrol. tomorrow I will begin my (initially) solo hike, and I decided to add those of you who either requested updates/who look suspiciously like you might to a single group chat. I will send a little daily monologue which I very much hope will be witty and wonderful and published as part of my well-reviewed memoirs.
Today I took seventeen thousand trains from Barcelona to Galicia, merrily giggled by Spanish station employees along the way as I nearly missed every one. The sunset as the train reached the Atlantic was painfully beautiful against the lush landscape and I got a sneak preview of what’s to come as the train passed through many of the villages I will hopefully walk through tomorrow. Ferrol is devoid of tourists and a little boy yelled ‘Why are you speaking English?’ while I spoke German in the phone, so I am charmed.
I will post the two routes I plan to do in the group description.
Scores:
Backpack: 10/10 (barely carried it)
Feet: 7/10 (already tired from walking around Barcelona)
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Ferrol wants to be hollywood but is more like north wales on a cold grey day. In any case I got my Special Pilgrim Passport™️ and an 87-year-old Galician lady already flirted with me, showed me how fast she can walk to prove how fit she is, and told me she’s always wanted to date a Scottish man. A successful morning so far; and now I shall begin x
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made it to gorgeous pontedeume and its converted fishing hostel. Lovely sunny day. More elucidating updates once I have charged my phone x
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Day 1: Ferrol-Pontedeume
In any case - a gorgeous day, mostly along the coast of an inlet. The Galician elderly have proved themselves a loquacious lot, as an old man at a monastery accosted me to tell me his life story (involving something about working on a boat that delivered cigars from Ghana to Scotland, or possibly the other way round) and gave me a walking stick he hand-crafted. I have named it Hernandéz in his honour and it has proved a worthy companion. The sun shone down on me as well as on hundreds of which Galician cats, horses and cows have otherwise been my main friends. The bay here at Pontedeume is beautiful but I am too tired to meander down the beach, though I did think of Sylvia Plath’s Blackberrying as I made my way down in crooks to the town. I just wolfed down a falafel burger in a takeaway as I was too hungry to wait for the few restaurants in Pontedeume to open according to Spanish temporalities, and I will retire early to the very basic hostel - a converted fishing store - where solo pilgrims are sleeping already. It cost the pleasingly specific amount of €6.10 for a night, for reasons that elude me.
Stats:
Walked: 33km (according to my phone anyway; this should be the longest day)
Bag: 7/10 (hasn’t bothered me too much in fact)
Feet: 6/10 (I can’t deny they’re tired but no blisters etc)
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Safe and sound in Betanzos - more later x
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Day 2: Pontedeume-Bentazos — a mostly gorgeous day walking in beautiful sunshine, with lots of dogs; nice chats with other walkers; and a long break on a beach. A middle-aged gay couple from Andalusia and I walked for a while together, during which they encouraged me to enjoy every minute of my life as anything could happen 'porque el Señor Trump es loco'. I am woefully unprepared for the sun, having packed for cold and rain, and am beginning to resent my bulky rain gear; my arms are very sunburnt. And my mood for whimsical updates has also been slightly marred by the death of my elderly iPhone, which has been refusing to hold its charge since yesterday and has for the last few weeks been giving signs (which I ignored) that it would be grateful for a dignified ending, by refusing to cooperate with any charger or words of encouragement. It is apparently now no more and the good men of Betonzas have declared it unfixable. I write to you now from the Motorola Grey that a nice man called Carlos sold to me as 'the cheapest possible smartphone' and, with the patience of a saint, explained to me exactly how a SIM card is installed.
Stats: walked 20km (plus round every phone shop in this place)
Bag: 6/10 (still not bothering me too much)
Feet: 6/10 (sandy for the whole afternoon)
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Day 3 Betanzos-Bruma — the hardest day allegedly, with 24km mostly uphill and my legs are very tired. I took the advice of an app and went on a detour for a while to avoid a busy road, and found myself hacking through forests and farmers' fields for several km. But très bucolic. Perhaps for this reason I saw basically noone all day and have begun talking merrily to myself, so it was a surprise to arrive in the pleasant village of Hospital de Bruma and an extremely well-maintained hostel. Apparently this has been a hostelry for centuries and Philip II stayed here on his way to marry Mary Tudor — though I imagine not in a bunk bed. A charming Galician pub landlady took one looking at me and presented me with an enormous plate of pasta, fried eggs and chips and lashings of local wine and charged me the equivalent of a Berlin flat white. I will now sleep for 12 hours.
Stats:
Walked: 24km plus detour (and my Motorola does not extend to a step count)
Backpack: 4/10 (we had several disagreements today and I am struggling to remember why a second book was necessary)
Feet: 3/10 (I have acquired my first blister)
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Day 4: Bruma-Sigüeiro — After an early start there was dissent among the uneasy alliance of last night's hostel guests. The Italian contingent, consisting of three nurses and a grizzled retired soldier, wanted to wait an hour for the first café of the day to open to have breakfast, while the unsmiling German family wanted to push on several km to the next cafe. I ate a banana and some squished bread from my backpack and threw my lot in with the Germans, leaving the Italian retired soldier playing Flower of Scotland loudly on his phone to try to coax me to stay, poetically standing next to an inexplicable life-size statue of a T rex by the side of the road. The image notwithstanding, little did he know that the music would send me walking away faster. The Germans, unsurprisingly, did not prove chatty and we soon parted ways. I walked on alone past pleasant farms and villages, realising at some point that I had forgotten Hernandéz the walking stick at the hostel. He shall be missed. On the plus side, my towel, which I thought I forgot in the first hostel, has shown up, rumpled and disgusting at the bottom of my sleeping bag bag. The Camino took me past a motorway for a while, by far the least pretty part of the w entire walk, until I arrived at the hostel in the unremarkable town of Sigüeiro. I headed off for some food and was joined in the bar by two old English walkers who I'd seen earlier, who bought me beers and wine, told me about their various businesses, ex-wives and ailments and remarked repeatedly that they were doing the English Camino 'cos we're English innit'. When one of them started talking about his Reform Party membership and the hordes of migrants entering England, we wrapped up our afternoon together on amicable if tense terms. You find me now tipsy on the grass in front of the hostel, reading Jan Morris's engrossing history of Spain (entitled 'Spain'). Tomorrow Santiago.
Stats:
Walked: 24km (97km in total)
Backpack: 7/10 (after I ate most of the snacks I carried around yesterday the trusty Nepal45 felt much lighter)
Feet: 5/10 (the blister is like a sixth toe but has yet to burst)
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DAY 5: Sigüeiro to Santiago — Awoke in the hostel to find most of the serious hikers had left before sunrise, apparently to make it in time for Mass. Without such worries in my head, I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with a pleasant Bavarian software developer before heading off for the final stretch; he soon caught up with me and we walked most of today together, through pretty villages and eventually the suburbs of Santiago. The supporting cast of last days made reappearances: the doddery right-wing English men were overtaken; the Italians greeted me with cheers at a cafe; and the Andalusian chicos listed with relish the things they would eat in Santiago. I arrived at the cathedral with a slight sense of anticlimax and, conveyer-belt style, my Camino special achievement participation certificate was processed by a gruff woman in the pilgrim office. She assures me that the certificate does not have a typo but instead is with my Latin name - "Eliam". I joined the Italians and Andalusians for a jovial three-course meal before the stalwart Nina, who has been hiking north from Portugal, rocked up. Santiago is charming and its ice cream is delicious. Tomorrow will be a day off walking, and this may be the end of the road for us, but for now thank you for reading my updates on what I will dare to refer to as my 'journey'. Buen Camino siempre.
Stats:
Walked: a measly 16km
Backpack: 8/10 (no problems today)
Feet: 4/10 (are tired tbh)
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DAY 7: Santiago- Negreira, Nina and I headed out of the city at (shortly after) dawn, raring to go after a day of lying in parks in the sun in Santiago and visiting the underwhelming remains of St James in Santiago Cathedral. You are supposed to embrace his statue as an act of devotion, but I opted not to, given how many other unwashed pilgrims had presumably done so that day already. To give you a sense of scale, several hundreds of pilgrims arrived in Santiago each day this week - a number that rises to thousands per day in the summer - and there are four Masses per day. In any case, today made for pleasant if uneventful walking, with too much uphill for our liking but a nice coffee stop and pretty villages. Ornithologist Nina allowed me to use her binoculars ('bins' as we birders say) to examine what I am told is a buzzard. Negreira is an unremarkable town where we enjoyed our third enormous three course meal within 48 hours, before we flopped down in the sun in front of the well-maintained hostel. A mangy cat spent half an hour trying to enter the hostel until, cartoon-style, he got caught in the doorway, legs splayed out horizontally behind him. Rain is apparently coming tomorrow and Nina will wisely hop on a bus back to her home just over the Portuguese border while I will continue onto the ocean and the end of the world alone.
Stats: Walked: 21km (134km in total)
Backpack: 7/10 (doing well though Nina euphemistically described it as 'retro')
Feet: 6/10
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DAY 8: Negreira-Olveiroa — My longest day yet and I am too tired to write anything fabulous. I left Nina and the other hostel-dwellers from last night (all called Paula for some reason) and climbed up above the town to watch a spectacular sunrise rise above the morning fog. After mainly sheep so far, this stretch is apparently dairy country - manure smell followed me all day and glowering cows eyed me from every field. After shaking off a solo pilgrim who walked in step behind me for a while, loudly spitting and coughing constantly, I was alone for much of the day in spectacular sunshine. A wizened old man from New York regaled me as he walked in the other direction, and asked me for stories of Scotland. 'I'd love to go, but I just keep on coming back to Galicia instead' he beamed, as if he had no choice in the matter. The second half of the day was considerable uphill, but I decided to push on to the hamlet of Olveiroa's pleasant hostel, which is a converted block of stables. Shortly after I arrived under cover the forecasted rain finally arrived, glorious and severe, a proper spring storm. A small dog at the bar where I ate squeaked at each thunder clap and I did too. I am now too exhausted to talk to anyone and will sleep soon, lulled by the downpour. One or two more days till the end of the world, depending on my pace and the rain.
Stats: Walked: 34km (168km in total)
Backpack: 4/10
Feet: 5/10 (look like the very yellow trenchfooted flakey trotters of satan himself, but remarkably no more blisters)
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Update: a pleasant Spanish man came and talked to me about how great assisted dying is for 45 minutes. Now bed.
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I have seen the smudgy sunset at the end of all things.
I have cleansed myself in the angry atlantic.
I have felt alive, however briefly.
I have walked.
The way is over.
(Final update tomorrow)
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(Yesterday) DAY 9: Olveiroa-Fisterra — Drizzle pursued me as I set off at 8am over a much rockier and wilder landscape than anything I'd seen so far, and I was pleased to finally have a use for the rain gear I had carried round for almost 200km. Unfortunately it quickly cleared up and by lunchtime it was another beautiful day. This part of Galicia goes by the satisfying name of Dumbria and is famed for its Vákner, a local werewolf variant. Vibes-wise, I get it. I fell into step with the (very) chatty Spaniard from the previous evening and a pair of Danish waitresses, and we had a pleasant few hours together and shared an enormous lunch in a small town once we finally reached the sea. As they weren't going as far as me, I pushed on together with a Hot American World Travelling Photographer who had walked for four weeks from Seville. At no point did he suggest taking a flattering photo of me and he, too, soon turned off to find his hostel. On a deranged mission to finish the Camino, I found a beach, then a second, then a third, until the cape with the lighthouse came into view. At the final beach before the town, I ran into the freezing sea, which I only fleetingly regretted. Finisterre (Fisterra in Galician) is one of the westernmost points of Spain and, if you haven't guessed by now, where medieval pilgrims thought the end of the world was. The final point lies three kilometres beyond the town so, having dropped my bag and rested for a bit, I pushed on to watch the sunset from the lighthouse. You are supposed to burn something important to you to show how the pilgrimage has changed you, but I lack the ability to start a fire and it sounds mildly dangerous. I burned some things in my mind, watched the spectacular dying of the light, and walked back in the dark to bed. Today I am exhausted and the rickety bus ride back to Santiago has almost killed me. Thank you for reading and, in keeping with my love of the ephemeral, I will soon delete this group chat forever. Please burn whatever device you read it on.
Final stats:
Walked: 38km (over 200k in total I guess, idk any more)
Backpack: 5/10 (it survived)
Feet: 5/10 (sandy