Warning – for the next three weeks, this sailing blog will be pre-empted by the trail journal of my end-to-end hike of the Long Trail in Vermont.
Instead of The Grenadines, we’ll be walking 273 miles from Williamstown, MA to the border of Canada. Instead of the gin-blue waters of the Caribbean, you’ll see the emerald greens and deep earthy browns of the Green Mountains. Instead of Jenn and Capt. Mike, we will henceforth be known as Dingle and ToeJam.
Read on if you dare… You have been warned!
Wow, time really does fly! Somehow our summer in Colorado is over already. We spent our last week squeezing in as many visits with friends as humanly possible…. Oh, and eating lots of Mexican food!
We spent our last weekend in CO with Micki and Nathan in Denver. We got to enjoy a beautiful summer evening on their Caribbean themed patio, the Rhum Shack… with very non-Caribbean oysters, champagne, and cheese.
We were especially lucky to be able to celebrate Micki’s graduation from the Lighthouse creative writing program – she’s one talented lady!
We managed to squeeze in brunch with our former ski condo besties, and with little Ester 😍
And just like that, we loaded up the Bat Mobile, with way more junk than we started with (Darn you, Costco!) and pointed the bow back east. Three loooooooong days on the straight, fast highways through Colorado, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, and (finally) Vermont. We made it! This beautiful green slice of paradise will be home for the next month or so as we hike the Long Trail from Massachusetts to the Canadian border. Wish us luck!
Don’t worry though, Capt Mike’s still got a little pirate in him. He managed to find a painkiller in Burlington, VT🏴☠️
It’s difficult to describe how it feels to complete a Camino in Santiago. It’s definitely exciting to begin the final day’s walk of “only” 23 km to Santiago, and to catch the first glimpse of the cathedral spires from the top of Monte de Gozo. And after several kilometers of city walking and a few false turns (how is it possible to lose a cathedral?) to finally arrive in the plaza. The atmosphere is celebratory, with a steady stream of pilgrims arriving, snapping photos, and plopping down on the flagstones to enjoy the view and to watch the show.
I even saw a couple of burly guys shed a few tears. But then reality sets in. You still have to find a place to stay, get in line for your Compostela certificate, do laundry, and get food. And then, you’re surrounded by tourists, bars, and souvenir ships selling Camino t-shirts and shot glasses and anything with a shell on it. It feels a bit like finishing a pilgrimage in Times Square – not at all contemplative, and a bit of a letdown. So, after paying our respects to St James and taking a rest day, we decided on an alternative but also traditional end to our Camino.
We laced up our boots and kept walking to the Atlantic ocean, to a rocky coast that the Romans named Finisterre – The End of the Earth. At this point, what’s another 90km, right? As our guidebook puts it, “The act of walking literally until the trail meets the sea can be helpful to shift gears and process the experience.”
Over the course of four days, we walked through farm lands and eucalyptus forests, past stone hórreos, and picturesque bridges. The Galecian municipal albergues are kind of dumps, so we stayed in some pleasant private accommodations. It’s been lovely to see the ocean again after all this time. And think about it – we can now say we’ve walked across an entire country!
Last night we walked the final 3.2 km to the 0.0 km marker at the lighthouse at the tip of the Cape.
We watched the sun set into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean (with hundreds of our closest pilgrim friends) and reflected on how lucky we’re been to have this adventure.
800km… 500 miles … 35 days…1 pair of worn out hiking shoes… 4 Spanish regions…4 major cathedrals… Countless churchs… More slices of tortilla and cups of coffee and glasses of wine than I can track. Many, many trail markers and works of public art and conversations with pilgrims and yellow arrows… Mike and I finally made it to Santiago de Compestella.
I’ll admit I’ve been bad about documenting our journey here in this blog, but it didn’t really fit the pilgrim lifestyle. After walking all day, doing chores such as finding lodging, doing laundry and cooking, there wasn’t much energy left for blogging. Plus when I had energy, it was more valuable to spend it talking to other pilgrims from all over the world, right? And don’t even get me started on the quality (or lack thereof) of WiFi in pilgrim hostels!
However, I did post a few photos every day on social media, with a few impressions of each wonderful stage. If you’d like to catch up with a quick spin through the beautiful Camino Frances, please feel free to follow me on:
https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.baehre
@jennbsmiles
Two pilgrims walk into a bar. First pilgrim says to the second pilgrim….
Ok. I don’t really know any pilgrim jokes. I need to work on that! But the day before we walked to León, we walked 21 miles from Sahagún to Reliegos and ended the day by walking into Bar Gil around 3:00 pm. Now a bar in Spain isn’t the same as a bar in the USA. Yes, they serve beer and wine, but also coffee, sandwiches, and the ubiquitous tortilla. Basically a bar is a casual place to eat and drink that’s open all day instead of a fancy white table cloth restaurant that’s only open at Spanish (late!) dinner time.
And in this case, Bar Gil also hosted a few bunk rooms for pilgrims. So we went through the albergue routine: put our hiking poles in a container just inside the door, left our muddy boots on the shelf, showed our passports and credentials, paid our 8€, and chose a bunk.
After a shower, Mike and I were sitting at a table in front of the albergue with a snack chatting with other pilgrims when a cloud of grey smoke rolled up the narrow street. Locals sitting at the adjoining tables jumped up and hurried in the direction of the smoke. So we followed. It turns out that all of the dry grasses and vegetation in a 500 sq ft courtyard had caught fire, with a spark rapidly spreading across the entire space. If the shed or house caught fire, the entire street of connected but brick and wood buildings could be lost. With no firefighters in sight, the villagers (and a few pilgrims) grabbed rakes and shovels and tarps and beat the flames out. When the worst of the fire was contained, we all took turns pouring buckets of water on the embers and stamping on the sparks. I eventually decided it wasn’t the smartest idea to do so wearing sandals! I didn’t take photos during the fire (it seemed ghoulish) but here’s Mike in full Bombero (Spanish firefighter) mode as things were calming down. When we returned to our table in front of the bar, two of the local men thanked us for helping.
The next morning, we stayed out of the way while our French roommates packed up and got an early start. As soon as they were gone, we took over the bathroom and the floor space and did the same. As we were leaving up our boots to hit the trail I told Mike, “Um…I think we have a problem.” We had left our hiking poles in the bar which was now firmly locked and abandoned at 6:00 am. Drat!
We tried every door… Locked. I was getting ready to start knocking on the private doors to wake someone up to open the bar. Although I had no idea how is explain what I needed – in Spanish. We found an open window, moved several pots of plants and climbed through… Only gave us access to the restrooms. We found a back door with a key in the lock… Only accessed a back dining room with a few tables. But wait! Tossed in a corner of that dining room were our poles! Nowhere near where we left them. And not in any part of the building where pilgrims normally have access. Hmmmm…. Seems suspicious. But better not to think about it too hard. We had all of our gear, and we could go on our merry way. Just 45 minutes late and after quite a bit of breaking and entering.
What Floats Our Boat 