Woke up this morning to brilliant sunshine. What a contrast to yesterday! We set off at 7:30am a bit later than usual and immediately encountered the main challenge of the day. A very steep and rocky climb! Once we got our second wind, the rest of the day was plain sailing (forgive the pun!). Through lovely mountain tracks, woods and meadows with fantastic views of the coast below. Lovely sunshine and a cool breeze as well. What a fantastic day to end our very long walk!
We reached Finisterre in good time. Then came the very long walk along the coastal path through Finisterre and the trek to Cape Finisterre, a few kilometres further along. When we reached the kilometre zero marker and the end of our 800 mile walk, we hugged, said "well done!" to each other and found no other words to describe how we felt.
It is amazing that one can walk so many miles almost without realising it. I remember a quote that goes “You never know what's around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain.” In our case several!
This has been without any doubt the toughest walk we have ever done. No doubt it will take us a few days to remember everything we have been through during the past 58 days, but this walk has taken us to the very limits and beyond that which we thought we were capable of doing. We will remember the good moments and the not so good moments, the laughs we've had on the way, which have been many and frequent, the fleeting moments nourished by exhaustion when we thought of giving up only to immediately put such mad thoughts out of our minds, the fantastic people we have met on the way, my 70th birthday, blisters, more blisters, even more blisters, Ana Maria's swollen foot, the dreadful attack by a swarm of very aggressive bees, having our packs rifled through and an item stolen, the daily discipline we have had to observe irrespective of how one felt, mostly 05:15am alarm call, dressing, breakfast at 6:00am, on the road by 06:30am, six or seven hours walking, sometimes more, arriving at our destination, having a shower, washing our clothes, hoping they will have dried by morning, having something to eat, chatting with fellow walkers, writing the blog in English and Spanish, posting it subject to wifi connections, going to bed.....only to repeat the same procedure the following day, urged on by words of encouragement from relatives and friends and by all of you who have shared our journey. Thank you for being there with us throughout our adventure. Your presence has helped us on our way, on our Camino.
Tonight we went back to Cape Finisterre (this time by taxi) to see the sunset at 10:17pm. What a wondrous sight and what a fantastic end to a fantastic day to a fantastic journey!
Tomorrow afternoon we take a bus to Santiago, where we will stay until Saturday, when we fly home. Home to see our children and our grandchildren whom we haven't seen in two months! We hope that one day our grandchildren will spot our Footsteps on the Camino and may be tempted to follow them. It may show them that no matter what obstacles life puts in your way, all things are possible, if you try. We have tried and on this occasion at least, we have succeeded. ULTREIA!
Fantastic! Karin and I are deeply impressed (and envious). Warm greetings and Ultreia!
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