The next morning we woke in our tiny room and started to prepare to move on. Nanci had decided to leave the Beast behind at our next Santiago accommodation while we walked out to Finisterre, and carry what she needed for the next six days. So our first port of call was the Pinario, where they now have a massive luggage room downstairs. After leaving the Beast in good hands, we set off down the slope in front of the Parador to meet our Canadian friends one last time for breakfast.
The café we were meeting at, because it served eggs and bacon in the morning, was closed, but we found them a few cafés further along. They had found a place (Xañadú?) that served all kinds of eggs, which was a very useful discovery. It was an equal parts happy and sad meeting, brave faces all around, but still we managed lots of morning giggles. Dear Rebecca could hardly contain her excitement when the chef agreed to make her perfect poached eggs on toast!
Sadly we couldn’t stay there too long if we were going to get to Negreira before the hottest part of the day, so reluctantly we hugged our Camigas and bid them farewell and a safe journey home before we trudged on towards the End of the World.
We started by taking a wrong turn and getting lost, then making an elegant sweep past a church to find ourselves back on track (more through sheer luck than brilliant navigation, it has to be said). If we had to get lost, that was the best place for it though, so we agreed we did well.
I walked the Fisterra camino in 2018, but once again I was amazed at how quickly we were out of the city and back in the green tree tunnels, in the shade, but when we turned around, we could still see the cathedral proud and prominent in the distance. We soon noticed that our speed slowed right down after yesterday’s mad – and fun – pace and decided that this would be a leisurely day.
On our bimble we met several people coming back the other way, many doing the circuit Santiago-Muxia-Fisterra-Santiago (or the other way around), taking 9-11 days. Very handy when you don’t know how far it is to the next rest stop – just ask someone walking towards Santiago!
We made our first stop at a new albergue and café, which was heaving with people. It seemed a very nice place, it was hot and hard to get going again. I could easily imagine stopping there for the night, but we had to push on.
After our second stop, at Casa Pancho, Nanci couldn’t quite believe her eyes when we passed Fisterra Bovine World … basically a cow zoo/museum type thing. We hadn’t had alcohol, promise!
One sight I was looking forward to, was Ponte Maceira, gorgeous as always, and impossible to photograph without serious cameras and very demanding angles. It was way too hot for that, in fact I’d rather have stuck my feet in the water than photograph it.
The last few kms were a slog in the heat, following paved roads towards Negreira and the Millan hotel. We didn’t even make it into reception on the first attempt, but sank into some chairs outside, in the shade, where a young man served at the table. A cold ankerbier/ankerwine was in order before we walked another step.
In the end we managed to check in and take the lift to our room. It was absolutely huge, with miles of space between the beds, and also miles between my bed and the tiny TV, so I realised I would have to set up camp in the hotel bar for the evening’s excitement: Eurovision Song Contest!
While I have your attention, may I direct it to the photo below, of our … interestingly arranged bathroom. There wasn’t even a foot between the edge of the bathtub and the bidet, which was also placed way too far from the loo to … Nope, I still don’t know how anyone could have thought this was a workable layout! It was OK for a night though so never mind.
Negreira isn’t big, so we decided to have our meal downstairs. There we spotted the lady who had been picking up a pair of left-behind poles from Pilgrim House when we were there. She was also staying in the hotel, so we had a little chat with her. Turns out she was Hawaiian, living in California, and had walked the camino before. This time she had come over to walk from Santiago to Fisterra.
And If you thought I was joking about the Eurovision – no, I did not! I did go down to the hotel bar to watch it. No one else seemed to, though some Americans watched the first three acts and then asked me if it was the first in the series … they seemed flummoxed when I told them this was it. An annual one-off with all the weird and wonderful acts (looking at you, Finland) Europe could throw at us. They left.
Nanci decided to half watch it from her comfy bed on the tiny TV, while I was downstairs on a hard chair watching it in glorious widescreen. During the show I messaged with our Canadian friends back in Santiago, and missed them even more when I saw that they served sangria on tap in our hotel bar! They said they enjoyed their Eurovision experience, but I will forgive them if that was a slight exaggeration – it’s absolutely an acquired taste (or lack thereof). For me it was a fun and colourful way to end to the first part of our walk and set the next part off with a glittery disco bang. And I managed not to trip over the bidet in the night!
Somewhere Slowly 