To the End of the World (Part 1)
And Back
Dateline: Mid August 2025
Pre-Amble
It was mid August in Porto, and the weather had turned. As in Central New York, it was clear that summer was over and fall was arriving. There might be hot days ahead, but summer had passed. So, Steve & Katie, packed up their Caminho bags and boarded a bus to Galicia to do a “short” caminho, from Fisterra via Muxía and then to Santiago.
Arriving in Santiago, we ventured up to the Plaza de Obradoiros, in front of the cathedral. It was quite surreal, as the vibe of pilgrims completing their caminho was present, but this clearly wasn’t our caminho. We were merely observers and not part of it. We returned to the hotel and the next day boarded a bus to Fisterra to start our journey.
The overwhelming majority of Peregrinos (pilgrims) walk FROM Santiago to Fisterra. We, however, opted to go in reverse - from Fisterra TO Santiago. This had some profound implications (as you will see). Additionally, the notoriously rainy Galician weather did not disappoint, and we were glad of it, as further east, the incêndios (rural forest fires) shut down some of the routes coming from France.
Day 1 - The Cabo
The Cabo itself lies south of Fisterra. Fisterra (in Galego) or Finisterre (in Castilian) - literally means Land’s End. It was here, on the Cabo Fisterra, that the early Celts worshiped the sun as it set over the Atlantic. The Pedras Santas (sacred stones) are still there, 250m above the crashing waves of the Atlantic. To say this coast line is dramatic, doesn’t do it justice. It is awe inspiring.
We walked the 2-1/2 km from the town down to to the End, sans backpacks. Here, numerous peregrinos were celebrating the end of their caminhos, with some perhaps having walked nearly 600km from France. For us, it was just starting.
On the way back, we went up to the Pedras Santas. Then back to Fisterra, to gird ourselves for the full start the following day. Walking around the town, we poked our heads in the local fortaleza just as it was closing for the day, and we ended up talking (in Portuguese) with the man who walked out. Who turned out to be Alexandre Nerium. Had we ever heard of him? No. Was he the nicest person one could imagine? Yes.
We did find a pretty cool café in Fisterra called A Galería Bibliotaberna. It reminded us mightily of the Babalu in Reykjavik.
Day2 - Fisterra to Lires
About a 15km walk, on the way to Muxía, where we stayed in the small hamlet of Lires. Here we had a good meal, attended to by Juan Carlos who was an absolute delight and one of the other waiters actually remembered us from Fisterra, the previous evening.
Day 3 - Lires to Muxía
We needed to crest a ridge (a to-be common occurrence), upon which was a line of electricity generating windmills. Here, you nearly walk under the spinning blades; which make a very impressive Woosh Woosh Woosh - the kind of sound you don’t really want to get too close to. FWIW, we saw no dead birds lying on the ground. Then a descent to Muxía, which is a small fishing village north of Fisterra. The weather (as turned out to be normal) was a 30min cycle of sun - mist - drizzle - rain…. Repeat…. Steve was constantly taking off and then re-donning his poncho (aka his sweat lodge). Arriving in Muxía, we found a small bar where we devoured two plates of grilled pork ribs while chatting with a guy who started in Zamora (Spain) and was finishing his caminho here in Muxía. Which, in our opinion, is about as anticlimactic as it gets. There were very few pilgrims who could even say “Congrats” to him.
One common architectural feature of Galicia are the Horreos - grain silos - mostly made of stone, sitting off the ground on mushroom-like platforms that keep the rodents out. You see these all over; some small, some very large.
It was in Muxía where we ran into another aspect of the legends around Santiago - that he was here preaching and the Virxe (Mary) arrived in a stone boat to tell him “he done did good” and needed to go back to Judea. The town holds a yearly festival to celebrate this. Of course, this is in opposition to another legend that has him in (what becomes) Zaragoza, on the other side of the country; where he had a vision of Mary telling him “he done did good” and to go back to Judea. Expecting consistency in legends appears to be a fool’s game.
Day 4 - Muxía to Vilastose
Here we started back towards Santiago. And got lost, missing a marker to tell us to turn.
Since we were walking backwards, we had to intuit the markers we did see. You get to an intersection; what way to turn? Or do we go straight? There’s a stone indicating a turn, but that’s for people coming the opposite direction. What do we do? We had to adopt the approach of mentally facing the marker, turning ourselves 180 degrees and turning opposite what the marker said. Mostly this worked. But not always. And this was a case of we didn’t even see the marker.
We ended up on a boardwalk in the midst of a rain forest along a small river flowing to the ocean. It passed a number of long since abandoned moiños (grain mills) along the river. After realizing our mistake, we were able to retrace our steps and emerged on the actual route without adding to our distance appreciably.
We made it to a small village (a hamlet-let) named Vilastose, shaking the rain water from our rainwear and talking with a delightful hostess who Steve was able to converse with in Portunol (Portuguese - Espanol pidgin). It was here he realized that he now knew just enough Spanish to be very dangerous…
To Be Continued
😊