Loalo

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.Lue lisää