Yesterday Ellen and Itook a bus down to Porto, Portugal and booked in to a hotel right next to the airport. We stayed cooped up all afternoon, doing all the researching and booking for the next few days travel, eating through all of the stockpiled food that wouldn’t make it on the plane, and napping. We ventured out last night for a beer and chicken empanadas on a patio.

This morning we woke up early and walked to the airport for my RyanAir flight to Hamburg. I was worried about the size of my pack (RyanAir …

Well I made it to Finisterre, a point that was believed for a long time to be the western-most point in Europe and therefore the end of the known world. However I did not make it how I had planned.
Shortly after my last post I went to bed, and woke up the next morning with fever sweats and a sore throat, on top of the wheezing cough I’ve had for over a week. I loaded up on ibuprofen and managed to walk 20 km, a respectable days walk in itself, but my friends wanted to …

Friday night we went to a special mass at the Cathedral. They have mass a couple of times each day but usually only swing the big incense burner on Sundays. Apparently the huge amount of incense required costs a lot of money so they will do a special service if someone pays for it. The incense burner is enormous and the special thing is it’s rigged on a pulley system and it takes 6 men to pull the rope that sets it swinging almost up to the ceiling. I’ve heard a few stories about …

I made it!

Yesterday started by dragging myself out of my warm bunk in the albergue. Most other pilgrims had left except for our group and we only had 18 km to go so we had an easy time getting up. A few of us had sat around with wine and cava (spanish champagne) until the wee hours the night before, remembering some of our favorite places along the trail. The late night made it hard to get up, as did the fact that it was still raining outside and most of my clothes were still …

I’m squeezing in one more post before I arrive in Santiago tomorrow!
First, a note on food! Here is a typical day on the Camino: the standard breakfast is coffee and either toasted bread with butter and jam, or a croissant (bigger than your hand). Somedays I splurge and get a fresh squeezed orange juice. The oranges here are amazing. Lunch for me is usually picked up at a little cafe on the way, either a “bocadillo,” which is a sandwich on baguette, or a spanish omelette called “tortilla.” Tortilla is basically a big pan …