It’s hard to know exactly what to say at the end of a journey as delightful and remarkable as this one. But I will try.
Today, half our group got on airplanes to travel home or to new destinations; the other half opted for one more day together, traveling down to Finisterre, which some consider to be the “real end of the Camino.”
The Camino Finisterre is a 90-kilometer trail that begins in Santiago, passes through the rugged countryside of Galicia on the western coast of Spain, and ends when pilgrims reach the Atlantic Ocean and literally can’t walk any further. On foot, it’s a 3 to 4-day journey. In Latin, Finisterre means “the end of the earth,” and many pilgrims choose to walk there before they consider their Camino complete.
We didn’t have three or four more days to walk; we traveled to Finisterre in a van for one final day together. I’d really wanted to make it there last year, but illness intervened. So, I was very happy to be going this year.
From the place the van dropped us off, it was a five-kilometer walk to the Finesterre lighthouse, the endpoint of our journey.
After having had a day of rest for my feet, it felt great to walk again. There were two ways to go—a stone path far above the beach or directly across the beach. Several people in our group opted for the stone path; I opted for the beach with several others. As soon as my feet hit the sand, I was immediately reminded of home and so wished that Luna, my yellow lab, could have been there to bound through the surf at my side.
The four of us stopped for a swim in the ocean. We just couldn’t resist. We stripped down to underwear and bras and dove in. It was a very short swim; the water was cold and invigorating, reminding me very much of the alpine lakes I’d dared earlier in the summer.
After we got out, I was grateful for the wet bra and underwear; they kept me cool for the rest of our hike to the lighthouse.
We kept following the familiar Camino signs. Although I was no longer carrying my big backpack with the scallop shell tied to the back (the sign of being a pilgrim), I readily recognized other pilgrims walking the same route, also on their way to the lighthouse. There were still lots of “Buen Caminos” being exchanged. The warmth we’d felt as we walked across Spain was still apparent.
As we made our way across Finisterre on cobblestone streets, I received a series of Whatsapp messages from my daughter in Egypt, going over details of my trip to visit her there tomorrow. As I scanned the messages about my boarding pass on Ryanair, the name of a hotel I could use if asked for an arrival destination when I pass through customs, and a request for a couple of bottles of Spanish wine from duty-free, I allowed myself to finally feel excited about the vacation portion of my trip. I’ve been so engrossed in our pilgrimage I couldn’t think ahead.
But tomorrow morning, I fly to Egypt. I’ve never been there before and am thrilled I’m going to see my daughter and her partner. I’ve reorganized my things; I even shipped a suitcase home to California with my hiking boots, poles, teaching supplies, foot care products, extra clothes and a whole bunch of things I don’t need to cart around the world. Tomorrow, I’ll get to travel light, something I’m very much looking forward to. And I think I’ll finally be wearing the hot weather clothing I packed that really hasn’t been appropriate on this year’s cool weather Camino.
I snapped out of my reverie about my upcoming journey when we reached the lighthouse. And there, I discovered the strangest thing. There was a very long line of pilgrims waiting to get their pictures taken at a zero-kilometer marker there. How could that be? Hadn’t we’d already stood on the zero-kilometer marker in front of the cathedral in Santiago? I was so confused.
When I asked Brenda about it, she told us there were three different locations considered to be the zero-kilometer point on the Camino.
And an hour or so later, when we got to our final stop of the day, Muxía, I saw the third one. Brenda just laughed and said, “There is never just one Camino.” Please enjoy the photos below. The captions will tell you more of the story of our day.
