And so arrived the much too early morning when I had to leave my warm hotel room and venture into the rain to go to Spain. Luckily I had my new lightweight rain jacket! The yr.no forecast for Ferrol and Betanzos was for rain, rain and more rain for the first three days of our walk, and on the five minute walk to the bus I was already wondering if it had been a mistake to take non-waterproof shoes and ‘just walk in sandals if it rains, to keep the shoes dry’. Oh well, my camiga B had the same footwear selection, so at least we would both have wet feet at the same time.
I had read on the forum that there would be a bus strike in Santiago on the day I arrived, and that taxis were few and far between, so the first problem was how to get from the airport to the train station. We had planned to go by bus to Ferrol, but of course that bus was also not running. When the plane landed I took my handluggage backpack and moved through the terminal as fast as I could, and when I came out there was a line of taxis waiting! I jumped into one and shortly after I was at the station, where I saw my camiga, dressed in an ankle length bright red poncho, about to finish the purchase of our tickets. Hurra! A year and a half after we said goodbye in the Obradoiro square before she went on to Finisterra and I went home, the two camigas would be walking again!
We then took the train to Coruña, where we changed and got a charming little local train to Ferrol. It was exciting to see the names of places we would soon be walking to, and the rain didn’t seem so bad from inside the train … Arriving in Ferrol we quickly (almost instinctively) found our hotel, dropped the bags and went out to see some sights and have some food. In hindsight I wish I had had a longer or extra day to see more. But we found the first shell and tomorrow’s way out of town.
We found a nice restaurant/bar in the pedestrianised street and had a meal and a glass of celebratory albariño, as you do, and then it was back to the hotel to get our things together and a good night’s sleep before our first walking day the next morning.
Somewhere Slowly 