Another Long Walk: Day 63: Camping With Chestnuts

October 13: The night was bitterly cold, I was a tad chilly in my sleeping bag, but not so cold that it made me want to get out of it , finally
the weather cleared and was bright and sunny, and I threw out my tarp to dry out on a concrete slab.

Once my tarp had dried from the overnight condensation, I packed up

and continued on. It was a beautiful day for walking, and my spirits were high. A few kilometers later, I reached the fork in the trail. The left fork heading to Finisterre, and the right fork headed to Muxia. I took the right fork, and barely a kilometer later, I crested over the top of a ridge and, way out on the horizon, I saw it. A giant body of water, sparkling blue. The Atlantic Ocean. I gasped in surprise and delight. The end of the trail. The end of the world, even. The end of the Old World, at least. I knew I was approaching the ocean, but I hadn’t expected to actually see it until I arrived in Muxia—or at least somewhere close to it. I was still nearly 30 kilometers away!

I felt a ping of sadness, though. I didn’t really want to stop walking, and seeing the Atlantic Ocean really hit me hard. I reflected on my other long-distance walks, and with every one of them, I was glad to be finishing my hikes. Oh, I had a good time with them, but when I finished those hikes, I wanted to be done. I was tired of the hiking, and the rain, and the exhaustion. I’d been on the trail for about two months now, and I wasn’t tired of it this time. I didn’t want to be done.

The trail descended again, and hills hid the Atlantic Ocean again—a feature I would not see again for the rest of the day.

The one benefit I got from changing to a counter-clockwise direction around the loop was that I now passed through Dumbria in the afternoon, a town that had a grocery store in which I could resupply. It wasn’t much of a grocery store, but it would get the job done. While wandering up and down the aisles, however, the clerk asked me if I had eaten lunch yet.
“No,” I answered, a little suspiciously. What kind of question was that?

Then he invited me to a BBQ just outside in the parking lot that was going on. I had seen them when I walked into the store but hadn’t thought much of it. “It’s free!” the clerk told me. “You’ll be our guest!”

How could I say no? He took my basket of goods and set them aside and led me outside to the BBQ. I skipped the fish and wine—not being big on either of those—but ate sausages and ribs which tasted fantastic and drank water. No one of the group spoke any English so I conversed a bit in Spanish telling them where I was from. Eventually, though, I had to get going, so I thanked the group and finished my grocery shopping.

I continued my hike, and late in the afternoon, set up camp in a field of chestnuts a little past the small town of A Grixa. I had to clear my campsite of the chestnuts on the ground—sharp little buggers, those were! I kicked them out of the grass with my shoes and set up my tarp between two chestnut trees. By sunset, the clouds were rolling in, and rain was a distinct possibility. Yep, I definitely need to set up my tarp for the night. Better safe than sorry!

Once it got dark, I laid in my sleeping bag and listened to my iPod for lack of anything else to do. My headlamp was still on the fritz and not working, so once it got dark, I couldn’t read or write in my journal. I suppose I could have pulled out my laptap and type something up, but I didn’t want to run down the battery. I might need it in town to get online later.

So I just laid in the dark, listening to my iPod until I got tired enough to fall asleep.

I saw these two cats curled up with each other on the trail.
I called them Yin and Yang. =)

The trail splits. To the left, Finisterre (and Fisterra).
To the right, Muxia. I’d go to Muxia first.

It took my breath away when I reached this viewpoint and…
what’s that I see? Is that the Atlantic Ocean? By golly, I think it is!

A cemetery in Dumbia where I refilled my water. (Even now,
I still wanted to prove Maria from Budapest wrong about all
cemeteries having potable water, but I had to concede
at this point… she was probably right.) The above-ground crypts
were certainly a lot different than the cemeteries I saw
in France, though!