About a year ago, my husband and I decided we were ready for another hiking challenge. We decided to go big with a hike in another country! In Spain there is the Camino de Santiago, that pilgrims have been walking for over 1000 years. There are many different routes to get to Santiago de Compostela, and we chose the Camino Frances route. Not having enough time to do all 800 km, we chose to walk the last 115 km from Sarria. It is also known as one of the most popular routes with plenty of services along the way.
The more I learned about it, the more history and culture I learned and the anticipation grew! I found a wonderful podcast, "You on the Camino," with Nancy Reynolds that was really great! I read The Art of Pilgrimage. There are many good resources! About 6 months before we went we started do longer walks both during the week and longer hikes on the weekends to train. By September we were routinely walking 6 miles a day 5 days a week, and had done several 12-15 mile hikes. We had decided what socks and footwear were best for us, and since we were going "traditional" and carrying all our things in our backpacks each day, had pared down our packs to the basic necessities. I had two walking outfits and a thin sleeveless dress for evenings.
I had learned so much, I thought I might be disappointed if what I had heard might not be the same for us. So I tried not to get my hopes up too much. We are not Catholic and this is traditionally a Catholic pilgrimage, although people walk it for all kinds of reasons today. But with all the small ancient chapels and churches along the way, I wanted to make it spiritual for us as well. I proposed to my husband that we stop at each one and pray for different people.
It turned out wonderfully! We loved the walk, experiencing beautiful countryside, farm villages, farm animals, horreos, tree tunnels, churches, cafes and other people walking along the Way. I enjoyed just looking for the yellow arrows to help us navigate. Little surprises like fruit stands and locals setting up wax stamping were charming. It was fun collecting stamps on our credencials at different places. We stopped, prayed and sometimes sang the "Doxology" in the churches. We would usually have "second breakfast," and a cafe lunch during the walk, whatever was on the trail.
We booked all our own stays along the Way. The furthest we ever had to walk from the trail to a stay was 1/4 mile. I was surprised how many people we met had used a service to schedule their stays and transport their luggage each day from place to place. I was told some would walk then a taxi would pick them up to take them to a nicer hotel in a nearby city. All our stays were just fine - some nicer than others. I guess our DIY mindset all these years and my husband's business travel makes it the best way for us. And I enjoy doing all the research on the different alburgue hostels, pensiones and hotels.
Excerpts from journal of our 6 days walking 115 kilometers to Santiago de Compostela:
Sarria to Casa do Rego at KM100 - Walked about 15 km through forest, over a stone bridge, by an 800 year old chestnut tree(we knew this fact because a woman selling fruit beside it told us about it). Stopped by a shop for a free stamp and ended up paying 6 Euros after he put a pin on my backpack!We ate lunch at busy Brea with a patio full of hikers. We shared our table with 3 ladies from Washington state. We stopped at 3 churches and prayed, and sang at 2 of them. We got to our stay, an alburgue (hostel) where we lounged on their shaded patio and talked to others staying there, did laundry, and ate a communal dinner at 7:30 p.m. We shared a room (bunkbeds) with Gita from Latvia. It was hot in there and I didn't sleep well but it was fine. This turned out to be the busiest day with the most hikers we would see all week.
KM 100 to Eirexe - We left early in the dark at 7:00 a.m. because we had 24 km to walk! Walked in the dark and it was so calm. We stopped at the prettiest bar about 8:30 a.m. It had flowers and cute patio decorations, and we bought a couple of drinks - I tried Aquarius (like Gatorade) - and we used their restrooms. The fog hung low in the valley and looked like snow as we were approaching Portomarin. We could barely see the huge bridge! I wanted to go into this town and see the largest cathedral in Galicia and get a cafe con leche. The town was just waking up. We enjoyed our break there. On the way out we walked along the road and could see remains of stone houses on the banks of the river. We hiked a lot of fields and forest, and finally stopped for lunch at Cafe Bar O Castro, and had pizza carbonara. It was delicious! After a long uphill we were close to the Roman Ruins. Thankfully it's only about 50 M off the path. They were really neat! You could see the outlines of many buildings. We finally made it to our stay about 4:30 p.m. The room was tiny but nice - and they had a pool! We did laundry and soaked our tired bodies in the cold pool before walking down the hill to get dinner. We saw a young Canadian couple we had met on the train coming in to Sarria and visited with them.
Eirexe to Melide - Another long day planned so we got out the door at 7 a.m. again. Stopped at a church to pray and it wasn't long before we hit Palas de Rei, a larger town. the church there felt very welcoming and we also stopped at a cafe and I had my first Santiago cake with a cafe con leche. Walking through another village we stopped at a church where an older gentleman was stamping credencials and we asked if we could sing. He said we could and when we finished he gave us a standing ovation :). We then realized there were many people standing in the doorway listening as well. All these little places had great acoustics, by the way!We stopped at Campanilla for lunch and visited with some ladies from California. After a kind of boring patch through an industrial area, we finally made it to Melide - the biggest town we stayed in. I wanted to try pulpa here and they are known to have the best in the country! We weren't disappointed! We ate at Pulpa Garnacha and had pulpa with potatoes and roasted pedron peppers. Delicious. Also got gelato and churros with chocolate at a sweet shop. It was kind of neat to be in a big, busy town. We saw lot of older folks in the main park just sitting enjoying themselves around dinner time.
Melide to Salceda - Our last long walking day! We left at 6:52 a.m. and had lots of city lights to help us find the yellow arrows, until 10 minutes later we were in a dark alley with a steep descent full of rocks! Kind of crazy! Stopped at two churches to pray then headed up a really steep hill. We stopped at the river at Ribadiso at a German restaurant and had a coffee break. We came across the Happy Banana Man as I like to call him! He had a sign that said "free sellos and free bananas" so of course we had to stop and of course we gave a good donation. He was a cute encourager! Walked through Arzua and stopped at a cafe to eat where we saw Gita, our roommate from Latvia! We enjoyed catching up with her and took photos. We kicked a chestnut ball for about a kilometer to pass the time and finally got to our stay. They had a jacuzzi - with cold water - but it felt good for dipping your legs in. Our room was really modern and we ate in their restaurant too. Dan said his salmon steak was the best he'd ever had!
Salceda to Amenal - Only walking 11 km today so taking it easy! Except it was raining! So we got out our ponchos and trudged along. The first chance we got we stopped for breakfast. It was nice and lots of other hikers stopping to get in out of the rain. Since we had a short day, we stopped to look around in O Pedrouzo. We walked downtown and ate a charcuterie lunch at "Taste the Way" a shop I had read about. We also stopped in a grocery store and a fruit store. Tried to get inside their church with the unusual scallop shell nave but it was closed. Got to our pension at 2:00 p.m. and dipped our toes in the river nearby. We ate the food we had bought and the rest of our charcuterie lunch for dinner and played with the cards we had bought. Got ice cream up the hill and saw some Texans we had talked to the day before and another Canadian couple we had passed during the day.
Amenal to Santiago de Compostela - Hard to believe it's our last day! We started early just because we were awake early again. We heard a really loud noise as we were walking near a highway and looked up to see an airplane going right over our heads! As we walked across the highway bridge, Dan quickly felt wrong about the way we were going. I didn't see any arrows. Others were following us too. He looked at his Wise Pilgrim app and we realized we missed a turn. We had been distracted by the plane. After that the trail got pretty busy. Lots of folks doing the last bit of the walk with us. We stopped at Lavacolla for a coffee/restroom break, and also stopped by a church. Lots of big tractors on this section. Then we reached the park outside the city, Monte de Gozo, or Mount of Joy. I was tickled to be there! We went in a small chapel and sang. When we left the woman at the door had tears on her face. I spotted the statue of the pilgrims on another hillside so we walked toward it and then stopped where several were taking photos of the city in the distance. We asked someone to take our photo and to our surprise there was a rainbow in the picture too! It was really neat! We kept walking over a large bridge over the highway, then saw the big Santiago sign. Kept walking through many apartments and businesses until we finally reached Old Town. I could hear the bagpipes playing. So cool! We walked through the arch and down the steps into the square with the massive cathedral. The bells were chiming like crazy, the sound to announce Sunday mass was ready to begin. It was incredible! We enjoyed a few minutes of that and took a few pics before heading to the pilgrim's office to show our credencials and get our compostela certificates. Another great thing - no line! We quickly got them since we had registered online a couple of days before, so they were ready for us! We found a good restaurant and sat on their patio to eat a leisurely lunch since we had 2 hours before we could check in to our stay. What an amazing end to our Camino!
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