LIVE from the Camino Back on the Camino: Sarria > Finisterre > Muxia

[Lhollo]

As I type, I’m back on the Camino. But I feel I owe this lovely forum an apology, or at least an explanation, for my sudden abandonment of the Camino since August 2023, when I was considering returning.

Put simply, life got in the way, both the best and worst of it. I’m now married, and am a carer. We had a honeymoon, which meant rescheduling the Camino to this year. My mum, who we lived with, died suddenly. The world has been topsy-turvy.

But I’ve found my Camino feet again. I’m hoping those feet will see me to all the way to our end point of Muxia. It’s a hope because I’ve done no training this time, and am not at my strongest. I’m also half-prepared to drop my backpack and return home quickly, because of the situation there with my dad, who’s been unwell for a few days.

I’m writing this post from Casa Cruceiro de Ferreiros. We walked here today from just east of Sarria, where we’d spent a magical night in Sivil, at A Fonte das Bodas. Isabel, the owner, left an indelible impression on me when we stopped there for lunch in 2022, just before ending our Camino in Sarria. I’ve been determined to return and stay with her. We had the place to ourselves last night, and several long conversations with her. I couldn’t have hoped for a better start to this bid to finally reach SdeC and then the coast.

We’re doing off-stages from here to SdeC. Tomorrow night we’ll be at Ventas de Narón, then on to Coto, A Calle, Lavallos, and at last to SdeC. After that, our stages to Finisterre and then Muxia will be more typical ones. We’ll have two rest days in Finisterre because one will be our anniversary.

Today has been overcast and humid but also somehow fresh. A pleasant temperature and breeze. I’ve been surprised by how undulating the area is. The landscape is lovely but one turn and hill has seemed to blend into the next. I was prepared for Sarria onwards to be very busy with people but we’ve encountered very few and had many stretches of the way entirely to ourselves and the sparrows. I hadn’t expected our plan with the off-sections to enable this at such a peak season.

I’m filming it all, fingers firmly crossed that my new microphone set-up doesn’t let me down. I hope that this record of the places will bring out their differences, and jog my memory in the future. All being well, I’ll edit it all and put it on my YouTube channel when I’m home, so there’ll finally be a ‘complete’ Camino Frances there as well as Finisterre and Muxia.

I’m *still* writing the book. I don’t know where it will end nor how all of these diversions to ‘the way’ will ultimately play out in text. There’s likely to be more than one book!

I’ll try to post here, but I’m also going write much more in my notebook. There’s a lot I hope to make sense of while I walk and rest.

If our plans go smoothly, we’ll reach SdeC on Thursday 13th June, leaving for Finisterre on Saturday 15th June. It feels surreal!

 

[C clearly]

As I type, I’m back on the Camino. But I feel I owe this lovely forum an apology, or at least an explanation, for my sudden abandonment of the Camino since August 2023, when I was considering returning.

Of course you don't "owe" anyone an apology for dealing with life as it happens! However, I am happy to hear from you, especially on the Camino. Only a couple of weeks ago, I came across one of your previous posts and wondered about you!

 

[CWBuff]

Buen Camino
I loved Casa Cruceiro- got hooked with some wonderful folks and we stayed together as a Camino Family all the way to SdC and while in it. Funny thing is that while totally unplanned we all would wind up staying in the same albergue every stage we took

 

[Lhollo]

It’s the day! I’ll arrive in Santiago de Compostela later this morning, walking from VilaMajor.

I’d hoped to post more updates but it is what it is. I’ll add a few photos.

There have been too many places we’ve only passed through, where I’d love to stay or at least spend longer. Casa Domingo in Ponte Campaña, and Ribadiso da Baixo are just two.

We’ve been amazed by how quiet most of our walk from Sarria has been. Many sections have been with barely another pilgrim for hours, quieter than the sections before Sarria. Neither of us were prepared for this! I hoped to avoid the crowds by going off stage but didn’t anticipate this level of success. At times, it’s been hard to find places open for breakfast; it’s so quiet when we’re walking that cafes are shut, only opening later when there are more customers.

That said, both yesterday (A Calle to Vilanaior via O Pedrouzo) and the day before (Coto to A Calle via Arzúa) were a little busier than previous sections, although after we passed the main stopping points we were again mostly alone.

We’ve enjoyed this quiet, and the pilgrims we’ve met on the quieter sections have been lovely, with one or two just very focused on walking. On the busier sections, we’ve found more pilgrims who don’t acknowledge others at all even just via eye contact, which creates a different atmosphere.

It seems strange to be entering SdeC at last, particularly whilst knowing that we’ve yet to walk to Finisterre and then Muxia: much of our walk this time still lies ahead of us. But I still hope that this Frances ‘ending’ will in some way make sense for me, and us, by the time it happens.

I almost posted yesterday a question about crisis points. I reached one yesterday morning in A Calle: cried into my pillow, didn’t have any joy left in the idea of walking, totally lost my ‘way’ with everything. Some of this is because of the personal background which I described above, but also with the strange and physical business of walking, and of having separated the Camino into chunks. I got over it, albeit with still some questions. I’d be interested to know if any similar experiences you’ve had.

Anyway, on to SdeC!