Always Wanted To Walk Across Spain

We were in Fisterra twenty two years ago. It was a much smaller village. We had a hotel room right in town, a room that had a balcony, a boxed out, glass enclosed space, typical of Galicia. We had driven here from Madrid in a rented car and we were intrigued by the pilgrims we saw trudging along the Camino. We saw women on the rocky coastline gathering percebes (barnacles) and wooden fishing boats anchored in the inlet. We walked around town and stopped to watch a group of women mending the nets in the sun and old men in berets and blue sweaters sitting on stone benches, smoking cigarettes and chewing the fat. We ordered percebes at a restaurant near our hostal and I remember the waiter walking toward our table with the barnacles on a plate. They shook and sounded like a a small pile of stones. He told us how to approach them. You suck the meat from them and they were delicious. It was the only time we ever had them and I will never forget it.

We walked into Fisterra today on the Camino and with one break we have walked across Spain. It was pretty dramatic seeing the ocean after starting our walk in France. The owner of our place in Olveiroa last night recommended a hotel here and we just assumed it was in Fisterra. It was three kilometers before it and we walked right by our place. What’s another three kilometers when you walk all day? We did the Camino. We walked across Spain.

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