September 22nd - 27th 2006          Santiago de Compostela - Muxia - Finisterre 121kms          My journey to the ocean was one of contrasts. Some days I had some of the best, most stunningly hot, fresh and sunny weather whilst walking in the most beautiful scenery, overlooking rocky coves and deserted beaches, or climbing through shady green forests. Others I had to deal with the full force of the hurricane on exposed mountain slopes in rain so heavy and wind so strong it was positively frightening, my feet swimming in my waterlogged boots and my clothes soaked through (waterproof jacket?good one!). I also walked through areas of forest devestated first by numerous forest fires, followed by the destruction of the storm, but everywhere there was new life bursting through the sodden ashes. Sometimes I was so isolated and alone I wondered if I´d wandered totally away from the camino, others I would spend the whole day unexpectedly bumping into people I met weeks or months ago. I walked so far some days I didn´t reach somewhere to stay ´til after 9pm, and all I could do was drop on a mattress and go to sleep. But I also gave myself a day off for the first time - wandering around with no backpack, sunbathing on the beach and eating ice cream all felt like real novelties. Now I am in Fistera, the end of the line in every sense. I still have a bit more time in Spain but my hideous walking socks can go in the bin. I am so happy to have made this journey alone, using just my own mental and physical strength to get here, carrying my life on my back. But my camino has been so much more than I had hoped and it´s really sad for me to think that the journey really is over.

September 22nd 2006          Monte de Gozo - Santiago de Compostela 5kms          I reached Santiago very early in the morning, before all the tourist hoards arrived, all wanting to take pictures of a real pilgrim. It was raining (Santiago is supposedly more beautiful in the rain) and the cathedral looked suitably imposing. Reaching the city alone, on foot, after travelling over 700kms to be here was an emotional experience and I found it all a bit overwhelming. So, after just 3 hours in Santiago, collecting my Compostela certificate, visiting Saint James in the cathedral (the traditional goal of the pilgrimage) and bumping into previous walking companions, I decided to press on towards the ocean. I will take some time to revisit Santiago after and appreciate it as a tourist, but for now I am happy to be heading to what was once the end of the known world at Finisterre.

September 21st 2006          Rivadiso do Baixo -  Monte de Gozo 35kms         5kms to Santiago          The weather was not so bad in the end. The morning was very very windy and I had to climb over a few fallen trees but the worst of the rain was in the west so I didn´t get drenched too badly. In fact the cooler weather probably helped me to do such a big step today. I will be in Santiago in the morning, a place I have dreamt about reaching for years, and it feels very strange to be right on the doorstep.

September 20th 2006          Palas do Rei - Rivadiso do Baixo 25kms          41kms to Santiago          I´m staying in a beautiful beautiful albergue tonight, in a converted pilgrim hospital by the river. I had a quick dip, making the most of the hot sunshine and good weather while it lasted, as apparently Galicia is about to be hit tonight by the worst hurricane it has seen in 15 years. I am quite scared as if I want to be in Santiago in the time I have planned I really have to walk tomorrow.

September 19th 2006          Portomarin - Palas do Rei 26kms          65kms to Santiago          Palas do Rei is really a dump and I´m so bored but I got the last bed in the albergue so I´m happy hahaha! In Galicia they don´t seem to understand the concept of privacy - none of the showers have doors or curtains, which makes for a very quick shower when you´re in a mixed dorm. I´m considering giving up washing - really what´s the point when I´m just going to sweat some more the next day anyway?

September 18th 2006          Samos - Portomarin 38.5kms          90kms to Santiago          If you had told me a week ago even that I would walk nearly 40kms in a day I would have laughed. As it was I was nearly crying by the time I got to Portomarin at 8pm. After a quiet walking through mist so heavy every time the sun shone a million water droplets sparkled like someone had thrown a tonne of fairy dust at me, I decided today would be an easy day and gave myself a 3 hour luck break, using the internet, enjoying warming up as the sun came out and relaxing with a bocadillo and carajillo. I didn´t give consideration to the fact that now I have crossed the 100kms mark (whoop whoop!)about a million extra pilgrims have joined the camino (you must do at least this distance to be accredited with the compostela and have your sins absolved). So beds are a lot more scarce. No places at the albergue after 5kms was fine but when there were no places at the next, after another 9kms, and people were talking about sleeping outside (in the mist) I started to get a bit stressed. Eventually, after walking an extra 18kms than planned and being turned away from 4 albergues I found a bed. Every muscle in my body was protesating but I slept so well despite being in a room with about 80 snoring pilgrims.  

September 17th 2006          Fonfria - Samos 19kms          126kms to Santiago          Rain to make up for the sun yesterday - I spent the morning in a cloud finding my way by keeping in sight a German man in a bright red poncho looking just like a Teletubbie. I stayed in a monastery this evening and was blessed in the adjoining church (the holy water didn´t burn so I can´t be all bad). 

September 16th 2006          Ruitelan - Fonfria 21.5kms          138.5kms to Santiago          The most perfect day of my whole camino I think - I spent the day feeling like an extra from The Sound of Music. The weather was absolutely perfect - blue skies and brilliant sunshine. I had been warned so many times that this stretch would be cloudy and freezing but I guess I just got lucky because the whole day was stunning and the views are a result were 360degrees of breathtaking splendour. Galicia itself is amazing, full of tiny stone hamlets where the farmers walk their cows along the narrow streets looking at you like they´ve never seen a pilgrim before.

September 15th 2006          Villafranca del Bierzo - Ruitelan 21.5kms          162kms to Santiago          I have to admit I cheated a little bit today - this stretch is the steepest of the whole camino so when I found I had the opportunity to get my pack sent ahead and just carry a little day bag I took it, and it was really nice not to have all that weight (although I have chucked so much stuff it hardly weighs 7kilos now) but I did feel guilty and kept feeling I´d left something important behind. The lack of bag meant I was able to take the longer, steeper but much more beautiful route and it was really special, the views into the valley were amazing and we passed through some beautiful forests and tiny isolated cloud filled hamlets.

September 14th 2006          Ponferrada  - Villafrance del Bierzo 22.2kms          183kms to Santiago          Today I had a really unpleasant experience; one I had been warned happens from time to time on the camino but never expected to happen to me. I was walking on a short stretch of fields between 2 villages, not too far from other pilgrims as I know to be safe, but far enough away for what happened to happen. As I came round a corner a white van approached me, getting closer and closer until I thought it would knock me into the ditch. Then it stopped and the man looked inside looked at me like he wanted to tell me something. So stupidly, as I knew there was something suspect going on, I leaned over and there he was naked as the day he was born and you can imagine what he was doing. Thankfully as soon as he saw the shock on my face he drove off, too quickly for me to think about getting his number plate. I was so disgusted, not really scared as I knew there were poeple 2minutes behind me but so angry that this horrible pervert had got the better of me. Luckily the rest of the day was much better, I walked with a friend to calm my nerves and ended in a beautiful village on the last day of fiesta. i had a gorgeous dinner in the cloister of an old convent and watched and orchestra play whilst some giant puppets paraded the streets before fireworks.

September 13th 2006          Rabanal del Camino - Ponferrada 34kms          205kms to Santiago          34kms! i cant believe I walked so far! It was such a brilliant day´s walking it just didn´t feel hard to just keep going. Today I passed over Cruz de Ferro, a famous spot where pilgrims traditionally leave a stone they have carried with them from home and the highest point of the whole camino at 1517m. I had nothing from home so i left a small gemstone given to me by a fortune teller in Astorga - it meant I would have good luck and strong willpower (I think she may have guessed I was a pilgrim, it´s not hard to tell). The mountains are just beautiful, I was out early enough to watch the sun rise. But they´re so cold - it´s really a shock after the meseta where it´s like a desert to be here amongst endless trees and clouds.  

September 12th 2006          Astorga - Rabanal del Camino 21.5kms          238kms to Santiago          I stayed in an English run albergue in Rabanal which menat tea and biscuits and 4pm. Tea in a pot, I miss it so much. It was still made with long life milk but beggars can´t be choosers. I went to a Gregorian chant held by the monks next door this evening, it was really something special and easy to get lost in the monotony of their voices.

September 11th 2006          Hospital de Orbigo - Astorga 17kms          259kms to Santiago          Astorga is another of the important big towns on the camino, and the home of Spanish chocolate so I loved it here. There was also this amazing building designed by Gaudi which honestly looked just like the fairy castle from the beginning of Disney films. Apparently a lot of people hate it because it doesn´t fit with all the traditional architrecture but I thought it was beautiful and a refreshing change from all the imposing cathedrals I have become a little blase about to be honest.

September 10th 2006          Villar de Mazarife - Hospital de Orbigo 14.5kms          274kms to Santiago         

September 9th 2006          Leon - Villar de Mazarife 20.5kms          289kms to Santiago         

September 8th 2006          Mansilla de las Mulas - Leon 18.5kms          311kms to Santiago          I´m in beautiful Leon where the sun is shining, it´s hot and it feels good to be back in a bustling city after days of outback towns where the one telephone for miles is not working. Blister update - about 16 now including a couple of weird mutant ones, although none ever cause me any pain or problems any more. My big complaint at the moment is bed bugs - the lovely dorms I stay in are ridden - it´s so minging and I´m absolutely covered in bites from the little bastards. Tonight I´m staying in a convent where the nuns have looked after pilgrims for hndreds of years - it´s so nice to stay in all these really historic buildings but to realise how insignificant I am in the lifespan of the Camino is very humbling.

September 7th 2006          El Burgo Ranero - Mansilla de las Mulas 19kms          329kms to Santiago

September 6th 2006          Sahagun - El Burgo Ranero 19kms          348kms to Santiago

September 2nd 2006          Castrojeriz - Boadilla del Camino 19kms          430kms to Santiago

September 1st 2006          Hornillas del Camino - Castrojeriz 20kms          449kms to Santiago

August 31st 2006          Burgos - Hornillas del Camino 18kms          470kms to Santiago          My first day on the meseta and its cooking. The meseta are the table mountains of Spain, where endless fields of wheat sway in early June but by this time of year its just empty and flat and barren and enormous and horizonless and just unimaginably, oppressively hot. It is beautiful; the skies are enormous; but it is tough going when your carrying a full pack and to get anywhere without endangering yourself through dehydration and heatstroke its necessary to leave before dawn - not my forte.

August 30th 2006          Atapuerca - Burgos 21.5kms          488kms to Santiago

August 29th 2006          Villafranca Montes de Oca - Atapuerca 18kms           509kms to Santiago          I´m in the home of Homo antecessor, Dr.Una Vidarsdottir would be so proud. A bit ironic that the site of irrefutable evidence that human beings are the product of evolution is right in the middle of a trail which celebrates a religion whose basis lies in the notion of creationism? I have been looking forward to reaching Atapuerca for a while, so I was a bit gutted to discover that my rubbish Spanish led me to wait for the bus to the site of the dig in the wrong place.