Sept 28 Santiago

It is actually very exciting to be here in Santiago and amidst the great vibe of people arriving from all over the world to this spot. It is a special feeling of happiness and accomplishment and excitement to be near the cathedral which is a place that people have been heading to through many challenges and difficulties over the past many days of walking.
I have met so many people today, that we walked with along the way, including Sonja who I found outside the church after the mass this morning. Have yet to locate Jette, but she has been spotted and we have everyone on the lookout to help us find her.
We are going to meet with several of the people that we walked with for dinner this evening which will be lovely. Quite a few are heading to Finisterre tomorrow to complete this journey. I will do that also on Thursday, either walking or by bus depending on how I feel. I will sit tight tomorrow as no one is sure about how this country wide strike will affect things locally.
Last night I spent the evening having dinner with the group that Linda and Jim have been walking with for the past 10 days, a wonderful collection of individuals who have done the camino in their own way. One thing that struck me was the vibe of good feelings in the group who did not know each other before and the other was the intention that each had to get to know the other during this trip as they seemed to have some solid friendships between them.
I thought that Kirsten and Alvina and I had a pretty complicated system for sharing costs and settling accounts at the end of the day, but this group which included 3 bankers topped the pile. All that was missing was one of those adding machines with a roll of paper trailing out the back! IN the end, the individuals bills were accurate and complete and the waiter only needed minor resuscitation before we left.
It also struck me how language has played a big part in this journey for me. In the beginning of the journey, French was the most common language and so for most of it I could understand but not really participate in the conversation. This marginalizes you in the experience of being together and I once again regret my single languge capability when some others seem to speak so many.
For the next part, Spannish predominated outside our little group, but we spoke English with the people we walked with and then struggled with Spannish when we had to interact with the local people. Always there is an awareness that communication is a challenge even to do simple things, like buy food or find your way.
Last night it was an English blast, fast talk, good humour and all Canadian which I had not experienced for some time. I realize how much we take for granted in being a generic common language group in our daily life and how little we have to think about getting our message across or understanding what is being said to us, as has been the case for the past 5 weeks on this trip. It was good for me to have a good Canadian feast of communication with others from my own country and even some who are neighbours in my new community back home.
Today, a wonderful day with the sun shining and people happy all around. My room is an attic room at the top of a little hotel, just beside the cathedral and across from the pilgrims office so lots of action all day long. At night, the dark sky is lit by the lights from the cathedral and the silence late at night broken by people happy in the streets and then the sound of the church bells ringing in the hours. It is a joyful place, overflowing with ancient history and rituals that have endured for centuries as people arrived here from walking the Camino from all over the world.

"It is not important to know where we are going, nor to find a place to go. The world is open to our appetite. It opens. It spreads perspective, widens the stems of a piece of herb until it reaches the forest, and the window entirely. We travel only when we let go" Frantz Bartlett

Maggee

September 27 Santiago

What a difference arriving here by bus instead of on foot. It was beautiful ride through the mountains to Lugo and then to LaCoruna and then to Santiago. It took about 4 hours, a journey on foot of about 2 weeks. I enjoyed the new experience of travel and then of being in this city once again.
It is crowded and accomodation is tight, so tight that I am in an expensive hotel which I do not mind at all. In fact it is treat to be close to the cathedral for a few days and in a place which will be wonderful for resting and collecting my thoughts AND feeling better.
I had such a surprise!!! I did not expect to meet anyone once I got here as the city is big and full of people, tourists and pilgrims alike. But the karma of life aligned and there on a corner of the street was my friend Linda and her husband Jim, who had just completed the Camino Frances yesterday. Linda was the one who had to leave the CF in 2008 with knee injury and so to meet her here like this was just to miraculous and wonderful.
(Note to Michael - can you please sms to Kirsten and Alvina that I found Linda as I have no way to do this myself and I do not think they will have e mail for a few days)
Linda and I spent the afternoon together walking around the church and the landmark sites that we visited as an original group 2 years ago. It was such a wonderful completion for us and so good for me to find someone like this in this way. It just felt like all the gods have been aligning around me to make this trip work out in a way that is a surprise to me, yet with unexpected bonuses at every turn.
So I am here for a few days. It is crowded and accomodation is tight as there are many people as well as conferences going on in the city. I am lucky to have a room tonight
The cathedral is cordoned off so that you cannot enter by the main entrance way and must use the back entrance. Still Linda and I went to lie down and look at the spires upside down as was recommended to us 2 years ago. The only way to get to the apostle and the tomb is to line up with the tourists to go through the holy door which will not be opened again until 2021 or so. So it is all together different.
Weather continues to be great, but everyone is a bit nervous about the pending general strike across Spain on Wed. Not sure how this will affect services and travel so will sit tight and wait and see
Maggee

Sept 26 Ribadeo - still

Well here we are still in Ribadeo. Kirsten has been quite sick for the past few days with a flu and not able to continue to walk, so we have had some quiet time and a lot of rest which is good for all of us.
The tempo of the Spannish way of life is addictive and we are sleeping later and enjoying the afternoon siesta when everything shuts down anyway, so there is no where to go.
We are on the town square right across from an ancient church that was commissioned by St Francis when he walked the camino so there is much history here. We have seen one funeral and two wedding while watching through the window or from the balcony that Kirsten and Alivina have in their room. The funeral was a procession with the family walking behind the hearse to the church and the weddings were smimilarly unique with the bride walking along the street with her father anf followed by her family in one of the weddings. Lot of excitement through the wedding service with people coming and going to the bar and at one point a whole band playing in the bar while people waited for the bride and groom to leave the church.
Tomorrow,I will take a bus to Santiago as I am not feeling well enough with this cough to continue the walk for the next 150 kms. Alvina and Kirsten will walk on their own through the mountains and perhaps we will meet up in Santiago later.
Life presents many unexpected options and so I am going to stop walking to rest and fell better and get rid of this cough before I do anything else.
All is as it should be and I will learn from this as well. It is just my camino going a differnt way than I thought
Maggee

Sept 25 Ribadeo

Well, we are still here spending a third night in the hostel that I found a few days ago. We are tired and both Kirsten and I have been unwell, so we have stopped for a rest and it is doing us a lot of good to just spend some quiet time to ourselves and to re arrange our thoughts about how we are handling things as a group. The past few weeks have been challenging in many ways with the adventure of the walk and the interests of many people to include in how we make decisions, so we are planning to simplify things and to continue to walk tomorrow on our way to Santiago.
We have a commitment to arrive together and it seems to be such a short way to the goal that we set out so long ago.
Resting like this is something that I never allowed myself to do on the Camino Frances 2 years ago and I think it is a good thing for re establishing my balance and re directing my energy.
Ribadeo is a pretty place on the sea and the town is very typical of Spannish places with the local square being the meeting place for families and old people in the evening. Because it is not too big, the prices are very reasonable and so the food and the lodging are nice, comfortable and cheap for us.
Alvina gave me this yesterday when I was feeling a little down about the whole thing and it has helped me to just figure out what to do next.
"Any path is only a path, and there is no affront to oneself or the others in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you" Carlos Castaneda
Not sure what the next step will be and will just see how I feel and how it goes over the day and the night.
Every trip like this brings surprises and it is not what happens rather how we respond to it that matters in the end.
AND I figured out how to get into my e mail, so it is like I found myself once again too!
Maggee

Sept 24 Tapia to Ribadeo (14kms)

Quite an adventure changing tactics. I was feeling so unwell last night that I just knew it would be a very bad idea to walk today so decided to take the bus to this next stop. Getting confused about directions and finding my way to the right side of the road for the bus was something. However, the bus arrived and I got on. There is quite a bit of political turmoil in Spain at the moment with the economic down turn and the unrest among the workers here. There is talk of a national strike on Sept 29 which will shut down everything for the day. We are told that the bus may be late because the miners are blocking the traffic in places and so this may hold things up.
We are now in Galicia which you can see by the hills and the change in the camino shell signs. they point in the opposite direction from what we have been following up to now.
the alberque in Ribadeo is again dissappointing, not very clean and very sparse. There have been no hospitaleros for the past 4 or 5 albeques and this makes such a difference to the places. they sit open and people come and go and you are not sure who cleans and takes care of the places. It is so different from the Camino Frances where there was always a choice between the private and the municiple alberques and the quality was much better.
I have found a nice little hostel with a small room and bathroom included for 20E and this is worth the price! When I meet up with the others, they have already given up on the alberque, having suffered through a noisy and stuffy night previously and we all end up at the hostel that I have found. We are all tired now and Sonja and Jette are preparing to depart on the bus the following day to get closer to the Camino Frances and to shorten up their journey.
I discover that someone has hijacked my e mail account along the way and I cannot access it. I have learned from this trip that there are very few and isolated places that provide internet access. WiFi or wiffy as they call it here is available everywhere for free and this seems to be the mode of choice for most people. I also think there is a greater risk of personal security begin violated by using all of these public computers so will not do this in future. Hopefully I can figure out how to get into my e mail account, but it seems that someone has changed the password and I cannot remember the secret code that I set it up with 2 years ago and in addition, the alternate e mail is not longer functional. Makes you realize that you need to be very sure about your technology before you leave on such a trip as this.
From the past few days, I have realized that I have not been paying attention to the balance of energy between my body mind and spirit as I walk. I have learned that my physicial ability is enough for the challenge of the mountains here, but I have not been able to rind te time and the space to get balanced in other ways, contemplation and quiet time to absorb the impact of what occurs each day. Hard work and walking each day are taking it toll and so I think this is why I am not feeling well again.
So I think a lot during the day and the night about why I am doing this trip and what I want to get from it. It is an adventure certainly and the beauty and the experience of walking in the north is really something. I do want to go home feeling like I have accomplished something for myself in all dimensions, and not just the physical work of doing the walk, but more the experience of being whole while doing this.
I have walked a very long way through many hardships and moments of joy and triumph. there have been times when I have never felt happier and times when I have felt discouraged and so tired. the experience of walking brings all of life´s moments together in one place and so I take this as a metaphor for how I want to continue and what I will take home with me. it has tested my limits for sure and at this point I am comtemplating what I want to get from the rest of the trip and how I want to go forward.
We are about 150 kms or so from Santiago. Ahead lie 8 days through the mountains and then 2 days on the Camino Frances. Weather still looks good though and that is something for this part of the world.
More later
Maggee

Sept 22 Navia to Tapia de Casariego (20kms)

We had a wonderful picnic supper at the hostel last night and slept well in our nice rooms and were up early for a good breakfast provided by the host. this was a good start to the day. I am feeling sick again which really annoys me and I am not happy that this will slow me down. I know that it is from the long trek of 3okms from a few days ago as I find the long days of hill climbing to be quite a challenge. Still we walk through lovely countryside again and meet such friendly people who are so helpful to us at every turn. You know they will even go way out of the own way to lead us to exaclty where they are trying to direct us because we do not have the language to make sure we are clear about what they are saying. This happens time after time in each town.
the weather is great once again and we have some very special breaks in wonderful spots along the way. It is not such a long walk, but with the hot sun and the ashphalt roads that are part of the way today, it seems long. When we arrive at the alberque for Tapia, we find it along the clilff side of the ocean in a beautiful spot, but again it is crowded and not so clean. I take one look at this and know that there is no way I can sleep there feeling as ill as I do. So the others choose their beds and I head off into town to look for an alternative.
This is a new experience for me, searching my way through an unkown place and wondering what to do as I know that I need to slow down the pace and the rythm that I have been walking. Eventually I stop feeling sorry for myself and realze that this is an adventure and an opportunity to learn something about myself and my life. So as I turn a few corners, I find a nice little hotel with a cheap and clean room and am quickly settled into a place to sleep and rest.
This turns out to be the best decision for me as I can sleep much better and then catch a bus for the 13kmo Ribadeo which is the next planned stop for the group. Eventually I connect with them again and we make a plan to meet the following day and then decide what to do. I need to stop for a few nights and slow down to feel better. Sonja wants to head on a bus to the French route and Jette will also do the same. So we find ourselves at a cross roads as a group and will make a decision about how we will disburse from here
This is how it goes I think. You travel together as it works our and we have been a group of 3 for 4 weeks and a group of 4 for 3 weeks and a group of 5 for 2 weeks. this is pretty extraordinary as we spend so much time together and have so many decisions to make each day regarding simple things like directions, food, accomodation, timing etc. Well, another learning experience along the Camino is in the works I expect for me and the others. We need to be prepared for the unexpected always when you travel like this and then take the challenges as opportunities to learn something about yourself and your life. In the end, I must decide how to do this based on what will work for me and how to accomplish what I set out to do, which was to reach Santiago, with joy and satisfaction and accomplishment as well as hope for the future.
I have walked 560kms now and have about 175 or so to get to the church in Santiago. This I really want to do.
Maggee

Sept 21 Luarca to Navia 19kms

Up from the harbour in Luarca it is another steep climb from our starting place. this seems to be the normal way to start the day in this route. It is awkward because it is cool and then when you start to climb, you immediately begin to sweat and are cold in the wind which blows off the sea. So it is a matter of keeping moving or being ready to grab the fleece that you have just put away. It is still sunny so it becomes hot as the morning passes. We are following provisional signs most of the way again because of the construction around us, so the guide book is way off base again. we just have to trust that the yellow arrows will take us to the same destination that we have in mind. Sometimes the yellow arrows provide a diversion around the towns and the coffee breaks we are anticipating!
In spite of all of this we are feeling strong and good and enjoying the beautiful views and the wonderful scenes that we pass through every hour. We arrive in Navia by 3 pm which is a treat and sit down at a bar for a drink to cool down and figure our where we will head to find accomnodation. this is solved quickly as we head for a great little hostel which provides us with rooms at a very reasonable cost. We are finding that the alberques in this end of the camino are not very clean or as adequate as they were at the beginning of our trek and so they are not the choice for sleeping. We are also spoiled with the wonderful clean pensions that we find for around 15E per person, sharing a room together.
I am getting tired again and find that the push to walk every day is requiring a lot of energy. We have walked more than 500kms now and are getting to the last third of the journey and the hills ahead are going to be bigger as we head towards Santiago. We do not rest much in this little group as we are here to walk and not laze around, but I can tell that the stress on me is more than I want to experience. I am lucky that my feet are great and I do not have any complaints of sore muscles or tendons as I have seen with others. It is just a matter of finding my rythm and getting the balance of the effort required each day with my energy levels.
Maggee