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Allison Allen

📍 Spain Read more Wisconsin, United States of America
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    • TravelerSpring 2025 Camino
      Day 40

      World’s end

      May 5 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

      When you have one day in Finisterre, and by “one day” you mean whatever part of the day remains after you walk 30 K to get there, you get up early. You walk, so happy that the day is a clear one. You soak up these last views. You don’t even feel tired until that last few K on stone walking paths, and even then you don’t really care, because - the Atlantic Ocean! It has appeared, and as you walk the last stretch you can see your destination across a beautiful blue bay.

      You find your albergue, your hospitalero kindly orients you using a little preprinted map. Lighthouse at westernmost point is here. Office for obtaining Finisterre Compostela, here. Swimming beaches here. Best beach for sunset, here. Church celebrating Mass at 6:00, here. Like that.

      You head for the office to get that Compostela, and you’re glad you did. It’s so beautiful! Back to the albergue to tuck it safely away.

      Next, two and a half K walk to that lighthouse, and mile marker 0.00. It feels longer. If you’re me, you’re talking to God, a lot, and it’s good. A kind Dutch man takes your photo there after someone did the same for him. He gives you a hug, a really nice one, for good measure and somehow, in the moment it means a great deal to you. You sit, and look at the ocean, the great beyond beyond for a while, feeling the liminality of it all. Feeling a lot.

      You walk back, shivering because the wind has turned cold! You stop to peek into the old, abandoned church you zipped past on the way up. But it isn’t abandoned! There’s a priest inside, and you realize it is precisely 6:00. Well! What do you do? You go in and celebrate Mass, of course. Then you resume your stagger back to your albergue.

      You collapse for a while on your bunk, eat peanuts and corn nuts and snickers because you’re so hungry but too tired to find food and anyway after repacking your stuff in preparation to travel there isn’t really time because it’s after 8:00 now and soon enough, rather than going to sleep you’re on your feet again, searching out that good sunset beach.

      Where you get to sit well bundled in the wind and listen to the waves roll in and find some shells, and take some pictures. And be. You hobble back to your albergue after 10:00. Today, your last day, was your highest step count yet: 55,880. Amongst many other highs. You say thank you, for everything, and you fall asleep knowing that tomorrow you get to head home.      Read more

    • TravelerSpring 2025 Camino
      Day 38

      Almost there

      May 3 in Spain ⋅ 🌧 13 °C

      This Camino has been filled, pretty much every day, with moments of recognition from my first walk, at levels big and small. So it’s been very different for me, yesterday and today, as that all ended in Santiago. Now every turn brings a new vista, and there were some nice ones today! I do find myself recalling that Morgan and Olly have walked these paths ahead of me, and that feels good.

      Another change is that there are many, many fewer people walking this portion of the Camino. A big shift and I welcome the quiet. Including an absence of thunder! Much more mellow weather today.

      If you need a very quick moment of zen, I have a short video clip for you. Enjoy!

      My aim tomorrow is to get an early start, so that I have more time to be there at the ocean tomorrow. This will likely mean - brace yourselves fellow coffee addicts - a 15K walk before my first cup. Fizzy caffeine tablet in water bottle it is! We pilgrims make these sacrifices with barely a blink🙄🙄🙄.      Read more

    • TravelerSpring 2025 Camino
      3
      Day 38

      A Peña and Piaxe

      May 3 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

      A big name for a small town a third of the way to Finisterre.

      After saying my goodbyes over a cafeteria breakfast in the basement of our VAST former seminary albergue, I headed out. Sad to say goodbye, thrilled to be wrapping up this Camino with a few solo days. Ending it like I started. The time alone felt really good, spiritually and also, I’m an introvert! That was a LOT of social connection for me!

      Today for the first time I saw roses! It was late in their season last time but I still saw, and photographed so many! I love them and was happy to get to say hi to some before leaving Spain.

      The last hour of my walk was…exciting? There had been rumblings and threatening skies, and then the storm arrived. It wasn’t that it lasted so long or dumped so much rain on me. It was that for a little while it was Right Over me! Like, flash-BANG! The first time that happened I’ll admit it - I screamed a little. The next few times I hunched my shoulders every time the lightning flashed. Because that’s gonna keep me alive, right? Tall trees on both sides of a narrow trail. Was that good because I wasn’t the tall object, or bad because….i don’t know. I couldn’t remember my lightning safety! I think make yourself small, just your feet on the ground, but I couldn’t get myself to do it. Just scurried along, praying manically. And, obviously, was just fine. Arrived at my albergue very shortly thereafter. Phew!

      Now I’m parked in a two-bunk room with two older French guys and a younger guy from…Croatia I think. One of whom keeps shutting the window. We are in for a needlessly stuffy night, I think. But day after tomorrow - the ocean!!      Read more

    • TravelerSpring 2025 Camino
      Day 37

      Santiago!

      May 2 in Spain ⋅ 🌧 11 °C

      I’m here! After a rainy start it mostly stopped raining, at least until after we had arrived and soaked up the moment. The walk in was nice, and I got to reconnect with Belinda and her daughter, who I had not seen in some time. We were all so pleased! They had a much more apocalyptic experience of the power outage than we did. Lucky us!

      Walking into Santiago brings this power surge of excitement. All these people flooding in after having walked anywhere from five days to five or more weeks. It’s crackling with energy!

      For me, the feeling of arrival comes as I walk through the tunnel/portal where there is always someone playing bagpipes. I so love bagpipes!

      After that there is celebratory milling in the square in front of the Cathedral, then the process of getting your Compostela, then finding a cafe where you can sit, eat, drink, and watch others stream through, greeting fellow walkers who you recognize. So fun! Time to decompress.

      I took some time after that to go to the cathedral. I explored it pretty well last time. I viewed the relics, hugged the statue, attended Mass. This time all I really wanted to do was revisit the beautiful side chapel where my last Camino was capped off in the deepest way. I found it, slipped inside and sat down, and I’m not kidding, it felt as if I walked all the way across Spain just to sit exactly there. So good. Tears? Yes.

      Then we capped off the night addressing an emergency! Morne’ realized he had left the tube holding his (and my) Compostela at a coffee shop we had all stopped at. Alejandro called them. Yes, it’s there! And they’re closing in 15 minutes! Picture three pilgrims sacked out on their beds suddenly levering off those beds, throwing damp sneakers back on and flying up the hill (s) to retrieve those documents. We were impressive! And successful. Phew.

      Tomorrow morning I start walking to Finisterre.      Read more

    • TravelerSpring 2025 Camino
      Day 36

      Penultimate day - sort of?

      May 1 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C

      Today was very fun! Shorter, very nice weather, and the next to last day before arriving in Santiago. It felt festive and light, possibly in part because I described our enjoyment of a shot of whiskey or liqueur every 5 k on the penultimate day of my first Camino and Morne’ and Alejandro were more than happy to reenact that. It is now officially a tradition!

      I also came upon an artist along the way I had liked last time and was able to get more of his cards.

      And saw a great donkey!

      Tomorrow, Santiago!      Read more

    • TravelerSpring 2025 Camino
      Day 35

      Arzua

      April 30 in Spain ⋅ 🌧 11 °C

      Today was a longer day - 29K, but a really nice walk overall. Lots of short ups and downs, lots of little villages, nice wide paths. The paths of course have more people than I’m really used to and that will be the case tomorrow and Friday. I’m guessing that as I walk in to Finesterre the crowds will thin, but I don’t actually know that.Read more

    • TravelerSpring 2025 Camino
      1
      Day 35

      Arzua 2-ah

      April 30 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

      Accidentally uploaded my post!

      I am looking forward, of course, to walking into Santiago on Friday, but I’m REALLY excited to be able this time to walk on to Finisterre. It feels like the “true” ending of this Camino to me. I just need to work out how I’m getting from there to Madrid for my flight to make sure it’s all going to work out.

      Today we walked through eucalyptus forests. I have a rather ghostly photo - I’ll try to take a better one tomorrow.

      Ended the walk in rain today , the first rain since I entered Galicia. This is a sharp contrast to the daily rain when we were here last time so the rainier days ahead cannot be complained about.

      How am I feeling about this whole experience? I feel as if I desperately need time to process, and it’s one of the things that makes returning to solo walking for the last three days to the ocean so appealing, much s I’ve loved walking with Morne’ and Alejandro.

      Otherwise how I’m feeling is tired and a little footsore. Time to wrap this day up!      Read more

    • TravelerSpring 2025 Camino
      Day 33

      Blackout!

      April 28 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 8 °C

      So, the bed race, day one, turned out well. We started in the dark, around 6:30 and had a beautiful walk. We cruised into Portomarín plenty early and were actually the first to arrive at the municipal albergue. E needed to wait two hours for it to actually open. As time went on a good number of us formed a happy line on the benches in front, with people taking turns making beer runs to the restaurant across the way. Very convivial!

      However, once we got to our beds and of course immediately plugged in our phones - nothing. Hmm. Turns out nearly all of Spain had no power, along with parts of France and Portugal. Oh no! We couldn’t charge our phones and internet then disappeared. We went out looking for food and had drinks and a great cheese plate since there was no hot food. We also stood in a queue at the supermercado where they let several people at a time into the dark store. We had to take a picture of the item and its price for each thing we selected so they knew what to charge us. I won’t lie - there was an urge to hoard!
      It was still out this morning and we were so happy h to eventually find a cafe with a gas stove because - coffee!! A couple hours later as we approached yet another bar e saw someone paying for something with a card. Gasp! Power was back! We immediately ordered hamburgers.
      Which we needed, because we agreed we would get up even earlier this morning because the bed situation looked even worse. After some drama though it all worked out, and we even all went and had half hour massages that felt amazing! Tomorrow we have beds reserved. And, presumably, electricity. It will seem so relaxed!      Read more

    • TravelerSpring 2025 Camino
      Day 32

      The (bed) race is on

      April 27 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 5 °C

      So, I continued walking with Morne’ and Alejandro today. It was an often beautiful walk, very sunny and it only really got warm late in the day.

      We stopped at an incredibly nice oasis, which is a donation based stop with all sorts of food and beverages, sweet art,, a little yoga area and just a very positive, hippy vibe. Reminded me of Birdsfoot!
      We then had a looong, leisurely lunch in Sarria before a final push to our current stopping point, Barbadelo.. It wasn’t a long walk, just over 22 Km, but what with their ongoing injuries and our enjoyment of a good lunch we made that walk last! That will not be the script tomorrow.

      This is because now that we are past Sarria, the pilgrim population has exploded. We should have anticipated this but underestimated the situation. After much calling around (SO nice, to have a native Spanish speaker on our team) we had to add acknowledge that our next destination is filled, leaving only the option of getting there in time to snag a bed at the municipal, which does not take reservations. This plan will likely be shared by any number of other hapless pilgrims as well. So that will be exciting! We did manage to get the rest of the nights figured out up to but not including Santiago, so that’s a relief. How am I at this point already??      Read more

    • TravelerSpring 2025 Camino
      2
      Day 28

      O Cebreiro and Triacastela

      April 23 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

      I missed the last two nights! Albergues almost always close up at 10:00, with most good pilgrims cozy in their beds by 9:00, feeling righteously judgmental when the party crew arrives in the now dark dorm at 9:50 and tries to surreptitiously open up their sleep bags, brush their teeth, etc. I am always a good pilgrim - except last night when we got to town late, got to a restaurant late, had an extra drink and voilá - WE were the last minute pilgrims. Two nights in a row.

      Not tonight though. This introvert needs to hit pause on the social side of things so I’m cozy in my bunk, getting caught up here while the others sit in the sun in front of the bar.

      So, we have made our way down the huge drop from Cruz de Ferro, up the big climb that takes you into Galicia and the beautiful stone town O Cebreiro, and today back down the final big drop. Just typical ups and downs from now on.

      Tomorrow we will pass Sarria, which will mark the beginning of the end. Lots and lots of people start in Sarria because it’s 100 Km out from Santiago and that’s the minimum distance for the pilgrimage to “count.” Si the vibe tends to shift - we’ll see.

      It’s so weird to be saying “we” after my very solo first few weeks, but it does seem that I’m be walking into Santiago with my friends Morne’ and Alejandro. The only real question mark being that one has a bad knee and the other a bad ankle, so we’ll see. Been interesting to balance talking time with alone time, but pretty doable. What happened to my chatter-fleeing self?? I do think I may be able to walk to Finesterre, and if so that will be solo. I think it will feel very good to finish in silence after starting that way.

      The big, gnarly Chestnut tree is one I remembered from last time. I knew it was in Gslicia somewhere, and it was so nice to come around a corner and meet up with it again! It felt like meeting a friend.

      Today I walked in ahead and found us an albergue, unit remembering until I walked down into the kitchen that we had stayed here before. It made me my miss you Morgan! But look at me, filling the advance scout role!!

      The unfolding of a Camino is a rich and mysterious event.      Read more

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