The Dry Tortugas

Our boat, as seen through a "window" in Fort Jefferson.

Who's calling me dry?!

So this trip to the Florida Keys is a working trip for me. I gotta do a lot of walking--most of my waking hours, in fact, is walking for www.Walking4Fun.com. However, to get Amanda to go and shuttle me to and from the trail each day, I needed to bribe her. Not only is this a vacation for her, but it was a birthday vacation. I once brought her to Alabama for her birthday. Not only did it not go well, but she reminds me of that horror every birthday.

So in case a visit to the Florida Keys wasn't enough to entice Amanda to the Florida Keys, I dangled a trip to the Dry Tortugas in front of her--a place she's always wanted to visit but never managed to do so. It's a little bit inaccessible--a tiny cluster of islands 70 miles from Key West in the middle of nowhere. It served as a fort, fueling station, and a prison over the years. The Alcatraz of the 1800s. (Several of the "Lincoln conspirators" served time there.) Now, it's a national park and bird sanctuary.

I took a day off from my walking, and we booked a boat on the Yankee Clipper II and headed off to the Dry Tortugas. The guy at the check-in station tried to talk us out of it--rough seas and choppy waters, he told us. But we woke up too early and drove too far to back out at the last minute. Nope, we were going--hell or high water.

Fort Jefferson, still standing proud more than a hundred
years after it was abandoned!

The trip out was rough, but I laid down and tried to nap. We woke up at 5:00 in the morning to make the trip and I needed my beauty sleep! So I tried to sleep through it, but I have to admit the severe rocking of the ship made that difficult. Amanda took a tour of the boat and reported back that "90% of the people on the top deck were throwing up." Oh, joy. Fortunately, both Amanda and myself seemed immune from the sea sickness.

Eventually, we reached the Dry Tortugas and immediately got off the boat and started exploring. For an 1800s fort that's been abandoned for over a hundred years, it's in remarkably good condition.

Very cool. But it's a tiny little island and after an hour or two, we pretty much saw everything there was to see.

Then we boarded again and headed back to Key West. It wasn't quite as rough on the way back, but not by much. Once again, I went back to sleep. Life was good....

You won't see any of these photos on www.walking4fun.com--the Dry Tortugas are NOT walking distance from the rest of the Florida Keys that I'll be walking! This was my one non-working day. But not to worry--I've already taken over 2,000 photos for the "Florida Keys Trail," and I'm still not even done! You'll barely notice that this side trip to the Dry Tortugas is missing from the hike. =)

I have absolutely no idea what kind of spider this is, but he seemed
right at home at Fort Jefferson.

Lighthouse at Fort Jefferson.

This is a chug--one of the boats used by Cubans to escape to the United States.

This building was used to store explosives. =)

Looking down the perimeter of the 2nd floor of Fort Jefferson.

This jellyfish was seen floating around in the Dry Tortugas, but I'm a little
tempted to sneak him into walking4fun.com somewhere. How
would anyone know I didn't see it while walking over the Seven Mile Bridge
or something? =) I'd use a jellyfish photo that I actually took on
my walk, but I haven't actually seen one ON my walk....

Bumming around Key West

Amanda and I pose at the so-called southernmost point
of the contiguous United States. Check out the wave
crashing in the background!

So I'm currently here in the Florida Keys working on a new route for Walking4Fun.com. I walked the length of the Florida Keys once before, five years ago, then kept going up to the Florida Trail, the ill-fated Alabama Trail, and eventually hooking up with the Appalachian Trail. This hike is a bit less ambitious--I only plan to do the Florida Keys. I like the idea of adding this route since it's so different than the first three routes--walking through a tropical climate, in a part of a country without any supported trails, a relatively short route that barely passes 100 miles.... it's quite different than the PCT and Camino de Santiago! And that really appeals to me. =)

So I started at the so-called southernmost point of the contiguous United States. I'm still convinced it's a giant scam--just look at a map and tell me how you can possibly orient it to make that point the southernmost one. It just can't be done! But it's a cute little tourist trap, even if it is a scam, and I decided the walk would begin there.

From there, I headed past Hemingway's old house, took a tour of the Little White House that President Truman was so fond of visiting, walked through Mallory Square, and headed out of Key West on the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage State Trail. (Which, for brevity's sake, I'm going to call the "Florida Keys Trail" from here on out. Which is just as well since I technically didn't follow that trail through much of Key West and I'll probably hike well beyond it's far end before I'm done.)

I walked 5.2 miles through Key West, managing to burn through the batteries in my camera and took a whopping 25 photos per mile along the way. I won't be using all of these photos for the website, but here are a sampling of some you'll see if you later decide to "virtually" walk the Florida Keys Trail.

As a note, the Florida Keys Trail is not currently listed as an option on Walking4Fun.com--I'm still walking the trail and I have a lot of photos to process, upload, caption and map before it becomes a selection. I'll announce when the route is available--this is just a taste of what's to come! =)

The Little White House. President Truman's room is the one on the
second floor, at the rightmost window with the red, white and blue
thingy under the window.

Cruise ships coming into Key West.

Giant dancing statue.

Only in Key West and San Francisco.... =)

Even in cities, I still needed to take detours....

Yes, we will probably come back again....
...but I doubt it'll be soon!
So many other trails need hiking! =)

Afterwards

I have a few extra things to share that never made it into my blog posts earlier for whatever reason. 

Vivian, after finishing the trail, headed off first to Greece for a couple of weeks (she was born there and lived there for the first few years of her life), then back home to Australia and seems a little disenchanted with having to work for a living again. Not surprising, really. I suspect most people would feel that way! Maybe that's why she posts to Facebook so often? =)

Hilary is still in Paris, learning French, I suppose. I see her post to Facebook occasionally, so I know she's still alive. =)

The Australian girls I had given my contact information to, and they all seemed interested in building their own soda can stoves, but so far, I haven’t heard from them again since we’ve finished the trail. I don’t actually have their contact information either. I figured I’d get it when they drop me a note to say hi! But since they haven’t done that, I have no idea what they’re up to nowadays.

As for me.... I've been keeping quite busy since I've finished the trail. Yep. *nodding* Been working on a TOP SECRET project for the last couple of months.... but I'll tell you about that in my next post.... =) 

I can’t say I remember where this photo was taken. It looks like I’m headed to the water faucet.
I like the photo, though, because I really don’t have many photos of me carrying my pack.
It’s not the kind of photo I can take on my own! =) The fact that the trekking pole is
tucked under my arm like it is makes me think I have a water bottle in my hands,
perhaps taking off the lid to fill with water. I didn’t normally walk around with
my trekking pole tucked under my arm. Except, of course, if my hands were
occupied with something else! =)

I carved the sad little face into the sunflower… just before it tried
to eat my hand off!

Here’s another kind of photo I could never take myself—setting
up my tarp! =)

This is an interesting photo to me,I’m waiting for the running of the bulls
to start (the bulls would run down the street on the right side
of the fence). Us observers were on the left side. Vivian,
the Australian, is drinking a glass of something. And I appear
to be writing in my journal—so far as I know, it’s the only
photo anyone has ever taken of me writing in my journal. I never
really considered it a photogenic moment, but considering how much
time I did spend writing in that journal over two months, it somehow
seems right to have a photo of me doing it. =)

 the End of the World!

 So I ripped it off the Internet
to show the peninsula that marks Fisterra and the “End of the World.”
It’s as dramatic from 30,000 feet as it is from ground level! =)
The lighthouse is at the very tip of the peninsula. The town
of Fisterra is where the peninsula just starts to jut out into the ocean.

Vivian took this photo of me resting somewhere along the trail. It was
obviously a lengthy rest since I had taken off my real shoes and put on
my Waldies. I don’t for for certain where this photo was taken, but
I think it might have been the day after I went over the Pyrenees
where I stopped for a four-hour rest break. 

Vivian also took this photo, with me once again taking an extended
rest break. (Which is obvious since I had switched my hiking shoes
with my Waldies.) This photo was the taken late in the day
I left Burgos, and would be the last time I saw Vivian until we’d
meet up again in Santiago. (We’d swap emails for the duration of
our hikes, though. We just didn’t cross paths again until Santiago.)

My credentials are kind of long and don’t really photograph well—at least
not the entire length of it—but I figured some of you might want to see
what they looked like at the end of the trip. The one on the left
is the one I started with out of Le Puy. The one on the right was
used after I filled up the one on the left.

This is the other side of the credentials.

The Long Journey Home

October 16: It poured rain all night which continued into the morning, and the weather forecast I looked up for Santiago showed rain every day for the next nine days. Looks like I picked a good time to leave the trail. =)

 

For kicks, I put on my tie. I carried a tie the entire distance from Le Puy in case I ever wanted to “dress up for a special occasion.” I had meant to wear it on my walk out to the Finisterre lighthouse but forgot it in my hotel room. I figured I could still be the best-dressed pilgrim headed back home, though. =)

 

I caught the 11:45 bus out of Fisterra to Santiago, a rather depressing feeling. It was the first time I stepped on any form of modern transportation since I exited the trail in Le Puy-en-Velay more than two months earlier. I wondered if it would feel “weird” to be moving at speeds faster than I could walk, but it felt no different than it would had I ridden a bus every day for the past two months. But it did give me the blues. I just didn’t want to ride it. If I had a car, I’d need a bumper sticker that read “I’d rather be walking.” There was a certain appeal to just walking back to Santiago, but it would just be putting off the unpleasantness. And I’d be walking in the rain which would be unpleasant in a different way.

 

I felt sad to leave the trail, though. Usually, I’ve always been happy when my long-distance journey has come to an end. I’d be worn out, tired, and ready to leave the trail, but I didn’t feel that way at all this time. The trail was, admittedly, shorter and easier than any I had done before, and I guess I just hadn’t grown sick of it enough to want to quit yet. I felt I could go another 500 miles. I wanted to go another 500 miles, but I didn’t have time for it.

 

The bus ride took nearly three hours to get back to Santiago. I sat in a window seat where I could watch the ocean views, but it was often fogged up and hard to see out of.

 

Back in Santiago, I headed down to the trail station and bought a ticket for the train to Madrid that would leave town at 11:30 at night. There was an earlier train that would get me into Madrid that night, but there wouldn’t have been any flights out of Madrid until tomorrow requiring me to find accommodation overnight in Madrid. I figured I’d save a few bucks by going overnight in the train and arrive in Madrid in the morning. My train ticket would be both my lodging and transportation for the night.

 

This gave me about nine hours to goof around in Santiago, though. I picked up a few souvenirs and gifts for some folks, wrote and mailed off postcards, and loitered in the square in front of the cathedral cooking the last the cookable food in my pack. Another pilgrim came by and warned me that fires weren’t allowed in the square and that the police might come after me for cooking. After that, I went ahead and finished cooking my meal, but I positioned my pack and body to mostly hide the meal I was cooking. =) After I was done, I threw the rest of the denatured alcohol I had into a nearby trash bin. I wouldn’t be able to fly with it, and I wouldn’t be cooking anymore meals before I left the country.

 

The seats on the train were terribly uncomfortable and I didn’t sleep particularly well, but it arrived nearly nine hours later, arriving on time in Madrid down to the minute. But a restless sleep is still better than none at all, and I did get a restless sleep.

 

In Madrid, I checked the routes and figured out that the train to the airport was on a different track. I plodded over there and boarded, which whisked me away to terminal 4. I couldn’t exit from the train station there, though—you know how subways and light rail stations often have machines that you scan a card on your way in, then scan it again on your way out? It was like that here, except I had nothing to scan. By riding the train in from Santiago, I entered the “secure” area without the ticket to go around on the local train. Which wasn’t a big deal—until I tried to leave! My train ticket to Madrid, however, also covered the local stops, and I only had to show my train ticket to an employee standing by the exit gates and he wave his card on it so I could exit without any additional charge.

 

So I made it to the airport, but this train only stopped at terminal 4. My flight was leaving from terminal 1. So then I found the free shuttle bus that would whisk me away from terminal 4 to terminal 1.

 

At the ticketing booth, a US Airways employee questioned me before I even got to a gate agent, asking how long I had been in Spain (about a month, I told her, not bothering to mention I had actually been in Europe for closer to two months). She looked at me suspiciously when I told her that. “How many bags are you checking?” she asked. “None,” I answered truthfully.

 

Now she really looked at me suspiciously, and I could see the next question on her face already: Why does a guy who’s been in Spain for a month not have any bags to check? That’s probably pretty unusual! But before she could ask, I told her that I had walked El Camino de Santiago and only had what I could carry on my back.

 

She visibly relaxed after that, and asked me a little about my walk before starting to question the next person behind me. I noticed two people who joined the line behind me, carrying nothing but a single backpack each with scallop shells hanging off. I recognized them from the train I had rode to Santiago. Pilgrims. I wouldn’t be the only pilgrim on this flight out of Madrid. =)

Once I was in the airport and through security, I did some window shopping to use up the rest of the euros I carried. I still had about 20 euros on me. I only managed to spend about 5 euros on knickknacks and candy, though. Not a big deal, though. I could just give the rest to Amanda. She’s always going to Europe and would no doubt find a place to spend the rest of the euros.

 

I also got online to check flights out of Philly. I hadn’t made any reservations for flights out of Philly, and was trying to work my way to my mom’s house in San Luis Obispo. Ideally, I’d fly from Philly to Phoenix, then from Phoenix to SLO. All flights to SLO go through Phoenix, no avoiding that!

 

Except all of the flights from Philly to Phoenix were full, as were all of the flights from Phoenix to SLO. And they were completely full for the next two days. So then I started looking at round-about options to get me to Phoenix. Philly-Indianapolis-Phoenix? Philly-St. Louis-Phoenix? Philly-Charlotte-Phoenix? Philly-Boston-Phoenix? Philly-Los Angeles-Phoenix? Philly-DC-Phoenix? All of these options did have seats available, although with only one or two open seats on one of the connections, it was possible I could wind up stranded in Indianapolis, St. Louis, Charlotte, Boston, Los Angeles, or Washington DC. The flight to Seattle was wide open, however, and it would have made a lot of sense to go direct to Seattle then head down to visit my mom when flights weren’t so full. Except I had relatives in town I wanted to see who’d be leaving in a couple of days.

 

I wrote out long lists of available options trying to decide the best way into SLO, but regardless of which route I chose, I’d still wind up in Phoenix at the end of the day with every flight to SLO booked at capacity for the next two days. Oh, sure, someone was bound to miss their flight for some reason and I might get on, but who knows how many flights I’d miss before that happened?

 

I listed myself for several options I had selected, including the flight direct to Phoenix because… who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky?

I boarded the flight which left on time, and arrived in Philly earlier than expected. I made it through customs and immigration without any trouble, although two different uniformed officers saw me walking through the baggage claim without picking up any luggage and told me I needed to pick it up before I left. “I don’t have any checked bags,” I told them, “Just what I’m carrying!” They seemed surprised at this, but let me continue out anyhow. I guess it’s very unusual for people to travel internationally without any checked bags.

 

During the flight, I was looking at my flight options when I had another idea…. what if I didn’t fly in to SLO, but rather I took the train? If I could fly to Los Angeles, there’s regular Amtrak service from LA to SLO, then I could get around the whole Phoenix-to-SLO bottleneck. Brilliant! But I would need to buy a train ticket….

 

So upon arrival in Philly, I checked in for the Philly-Los Angeles-Phoenix listing I had created earlier, then pulled out my laptop and checked train tickets from LA to SLO, so confident I’d get on the LA flight that I booked the train ticket immediately.

 

I had a couple of hours to kill in Philly before the flight to LA left, so I first hit up an ATM. I had no American money—not one cent, and I figured it might be useful to have at least $20 in my pocket. Then I hit up the Chic-fil-A—my first fast food chain visit in over two months. =)

 

The flight to LA was uneventful, and arrived late at night. The next train to SLO wouldn’t leave until early the next morning, however, which left me with about nine hours to kill in Los Angeles. I didn’t really want to pay for a hotel for such a quick stop, though, and lingered at LAX for most of the night, sleeping on the chairs there. It’s great for a free place to stay—you have restrooms, water fountains, and food all readily available. Yeah, well, most of the food options were closed that late at night, but there were always vending machines if push came to shove.

 

By around 5:00 in the morning, I figured it was time to get to Union Station—quite a ways from the airport. There was an airport shuttle that would take me there for $7, but since I had many hours to get there, I decided to go for the city bus which cost a mere $1.50. I took a free airport shuttle to one of the parking lots, where I jumped off the bus to catch the city bus which would take me the rest of the way to Union Station.

 

The city bus was an interesting experience. It took about 1 1/2 hours to travel 19 miles, and I felt a little uncomfortable after about a half hour when the bus was packed with standing room only and I realized that I was the only white guy on the bus. Where were all the other white guys? I’ve seen white people in Los Angeles before. I know they exist! Or at least they used to…. What happened to them all? Not that I have any problem with people of all sorts of races and nationalities, but people of all sorts of races and nationalities would have also included white people too. Why did they seem to be excluded? I had this strange feeling like I wasn’t supposed to be there, and it didn’t help matters when a guy carrying a large painting he made got into a loud argument with someone who accidentally bumped it on the crowded bus. There was a lot of anger and yelling going on, and I worried that one of them might suddenly pull out a knife or a gun and my little bus journey would wind up on the morning news.

Fortunately, they both got off the bus, at separate stops, without coming to blows, and I finally got off the bus myself near the end of the line at Union Station where I had another couple of hours to kill before my train to SLO departed.

 

I bought a sandwich, and read my Kindle while waiting for my train to depart, which it did. The train from LA to SLO is absolutely wonderful to ride if you ever get a chance. It follows along the Pacific Ocean for much of the route with amazing views practically the entire way. Although it seemed strange to be admiring the Pacific Ocean. It took me two months to hike the Atlantic Ocean, and now two days later, here I was looking at the Pacific with barely any walking at all.

 

The train route also takes you through Vandenburg Air Force Base—where they launch rockets and satellites on a fairly regular basis. The west coast version of Cape Canaveral. I wouldn’t be riding on any spaceships getting back home, but it seemed like that was the only form of modern transportation I wouldn’t be riding on this journey.

 

I finally arrived in SLO, a few minutes early, about 60 hours after having left Fisterra, covering a wide range of modern transportation options: Bus, train, train, bus, plane, plane, bus, bus, train. My mom picked me up in her car, rounding out my travels with a personal vehicle. Truth be told, though, after so much time in buses, trains, and planes, I could have been perfectly happy walking the rest of the way to my mom’s house from the train station. =)

 

My adventures were done.

 

For now. ;o)

Day 65: The End of the World!

October 15: It rained once again overnight, but once again, the rain had stopped by the time I woke up in the morning. Early in the morning, the sun even came out for a bit. Just to say hi, then it curled up back in its blankets (i.e. clouds) and went back to sleep.

 

Walking to Muxia, I could count on one hand the number of people I passed along the route. Literally. I passed four people, all hiking in the opposite direction, heading back to Santiago. Walking from Muxia to Finisterre, I met nobody going in my direction, but I did pass half a dozen people heading into town as I left it, and today I passed an additional 30 or so people walking in the opposite direction. By all means, that’s not a lot of people compared to the rest of the Camino Frances, but compared to the numbers I passed on my way to Muxia, it was a dramatic increase!

 

And the walk into Finisterre was largely uneventful. The last several kilometers were downright awful—along a busy road with fast moving traffic.

 

My first stop was heading to my hotel to drop off my gear. Turns out, it wasn’t really a hotel at all—more like a multi-story house. It sat near the top of a hill with fantastic views of the city of Fisterra. The door was locked, and I knocked, but nobody answered, much to my annoyance. There was a phone number one could call, but that’s hard to do without a phone. I sat down on the bench on the porch and waited for someone to arrive and read my Kindle to kill the time.

 

But it was windy and cold outside, and now that I wasn’t walking around anymore I grew increasingly cold. Tired of waiting, I put my Kindle away and headed into town. At least I could see the sights and maybe find some people I knew. 

I found the alburgue, which was currently closed and would be until 3:00 in the afternoon. 

 

Finisterre is known as the “end of the world” because, hundreds of years ago, people thought it was the westernmost land in the entire world. Of course, back then, they didn’t know that the New World even existed, and measurements for longitude were notoriously imprecise. Not only did they not account for the New World, but it’s not even the westernmost land in the Old World either! Portugal sticks out much further west, as do islands such as Iceland.

 

But back in the day, Finisterre was believed to be the “end of the world.

 

 

Pilgrims, at the end of their hike, have a long tradition of burning the worn-out clothes from their journey. Evidence of fires littered the place, although I’d been told by other pilgrims that fires were no longer allowed after one of them broke out into a wildfire years ago. If fires were prohibited, though, there weren’t any signs I saw saying so, and clearly a lot of people chose to ignore that rule. I had no intention of burning any of my perfectly good clothes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I noticed a second stamp resting by the first one and asked the man about it. The second stamp, he told me, was given to him by a Korean, and he’d stamp that into the credentials of anyone from Korea. “I’ll be happy to take it too!” I told him. I’d only replaced my credential barely a week earlier, so it still had a lot of empty space. He stamped that in my credential as well—the last stamp I’d get of my hike.

 

 

 

Walking back to my hotel, I realized I had left my trekking pole back at the restaurant. And I decided not to go back and retrieve it. I didn’t need it anymore. I had plenty of them at home already, and it’s hard to travel with. It can stay at the end of the world.

 

My room was quite nice! =) The views out the windows were awesome too!

 

This is the view out the window in the previous photo. =)

 

Karolina runs into the ocean. At least the shallow
area, after the waves have already crashed.

 

I pose with MM 0.0. The trekking pole, alas,
would be left behind 

 

The lighthouse at the end of the world!

 

My certificate for reaching Fisterra.

Day 64: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

October 14: It rained hard overnight, pounding my tarp with a terrific noise waking me up several times during the night, but I stayed high and dry curled up under it and the rain stopped by morning. The ugly clouds continued to linger, however.

I packed up camp and headed out. Next stop: Muxia, one of two locations that pilgrims often walk to beyond Santiago. By all accounts, it’s the less popular of the two (the other being Finisterre). Most pilgrims I knew planned to stop walking in Santiago, but a large number of them intended to bus on to Finisterre. Even if they didn’t plan to walk it, they still felt compelled to push onward. But nobody—absolutely nobody I talked to seemed interested in visiting Muxia except for me.  If you’ve watched The Way, they filmed the ending in Muxia which I would have thought might give it some added pull for some people, but it hasn’t as far as I can tell.

Regardless, I wasn’t expecting much myself—just another milestone along my journey to Finisterre. A big one, though. =)

I pulled on my pack, popped on my iPod and marched to the sea.

I had long since hiked off the edge of my map shortly past the fork in the trail leading to Finisterre and Muxia and was hiking blind at this point, dependent on the waymarks to guide my way, so I was a little surprised when I crested over a small hill and saw the ocean just a couple of kilometers away. Although I had no maps, I did know the distances between landmarks and towns on the trail, and Muxia was further away than that. I had assumed the trail would hit the coast at Muxia, but it didn’t. It hit the coast north of Muxia, then followed a series of roads southward towards Muxia with wonderful views the entire way. The trail itself didn’t actually touch the ocean here—it just wound through the coastal towns, and I had no desire to get off the trail to get to the ocean. I’d get to it when the trail was ready to take me to it. In the meantime, I enjoyed the wonderful views the trail did provide of the ocean.

Another hour later, the trail ducked through some eucalyptus trees to a boardwalk through the sand, a beach just outside of Muxia, and I stopped. The view took my breath away. I could see the town, set on a peninsula jutting out into the ocean, with a cute little harbor filled with boats in front and a nice little hill rising up behind it. Wow. I really had no expectations when I arrived in Muxia, never having really seen any photos about it or even heard much about it, and the stunning beauty of the area took my breath away.

I stood there, just looking, tearing up, for a minute or so. I was here! At the Atlantic Ocean! I had made it! I didn’t expect to get so sentimental—I still planned to hike all the way out to Finisterre. My hike wasn’t over yet, after all! But this felt like the end of the trail for me. Santiago was a major milestone to be sure, but this was the end. The real end. Maybe if I walked to Finisterre first, I’d have felt like Finisterre was the real end, but standing there within stone’s throw of the Atlantic Ocean, that feeling of having reached the end of the trail overwhelmed me.

I set my pack down on the boardwalk to keep it out of the sand, threw my trekking pole into the air in celebration and walked out on the beach, running my fingers through the sand and the surf. When was the last time I had touched the Atlantic Ocean? I couldn’t remember. Hiking through the Florida Keys, perhaps? In 2008? I picked up some rocks to throw and skip into the Atlantic.

I went back to the boardwalk, sitting on its edge and took more photos. I spent about a half hour there, just admiring the view, feeling a little reluctant to keep going and actually finish my hike. I really didn’t want my hike to end just yet.

When I got up to continue, my iPod started playing a Kelly Clarkson song I had downloaded (for free—legally!) just before I started my hike which had a catchy, upbeat tune and a refrain about “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger… Stand a little taller! Doesn’t mean I’m lonely when I’m alone…” It somehow seemed immensely appropriate for the end of a 1000-mile walk, and I set my iPod to keep playing it over and over.

I walked into Muxia, swinging my trekking pole around wildly in tune with the music, feeling on top of the world. I didn’t stop in town, except long enough to take the occasional photo, pushing through towards the harbor and walking out to the end of the jetty protecting the harbor. The view of town from the tip wasn’t as nice as I had hoped for, but that was because it put the sun directly behind the town and really muted all of the color of the town.

But I was still on top of the world and that wasn’t going to get me down. No, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It must be true—it’s right in the song! =)

I still wanted to climb up to the top of that hill behind the town, though. I saw a map of the town while walking into it which looked like it had a trail leading to the top of the hill from the end of the peninsula, so I started following a road in that direction.

I passed a nice little church, which was just getting out and edged around the side and out of the way of all the people exiting it. I passed a couple of small houses—wondering how they ended up out there all by themselves.

Then I turned a corner and stumbled into a jaw dropping view of a magnificent church overlooking enormous waves crashing against equally giant boulders that made up the shore line. I gasped audibly in surprise, having no idea that that was there. Above and to the side of it was a rock monument that looked like an enormous slab of rock with a jagged crack through the center. Clearly a man-made construction, and I had no idea what it represented, but the sheer size of it fascinated me. The whole view was overwhelming, but in a good way, that that feeling that I really reached the end of the trail hit me again. I might keep hiking for another day to Finisterre, but Muxia was really the end of the trail.

I took more photos, then found the trail leading up to the top of the hill overlooking town—fantastic views. I threw my arms in the air, punching my fists in the air, doing a little jig of happiness with Kelly Clarkson. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger….

Eventually I came back down from my high, both figuratively and literally, and walked back into Muxia where I stopped at a restaurant for lunch. The restaurant had wi-fi available, which I used to check my email and booked a hotel room in Finisterre for the next night.

Leaving town, I was a little sad. As much as I wanted to stay the night, I was still drawn to Finisterre. What if it was even better than Muxia? After all, that’s where nearly everyone who continues past Santiago winds up going—not Muxia! Nope, I wanted to keep going. Finisterre or bust!

Leaving town, I let my iPod start playing other music now. Looking back at Muxia, I was a little disappointed with the views. On the way out of town, the harbor and “downtown” area were out of view on the other side of the peninsula. This side was kind of plain and boring by comparison—rather anti-climatic compared to the view I had going into town. I passed a few people straggling in, having walked all the way from Finisterre that afternoon, and felt a little sorry that their first view of Muxia was from the “wrong” direction. But they’d see the nice views soon enough. =) And really, it was a nice view from this direction—just a little boring compared to the phenomenal views from the other direction!

I walked for a couple of hours out of town, eventually setting up camp between Guisamonde and Frixe in a field that didn’t seem to be used for anything at the moment. I set up my tarp again—rain was still in the forecast, and condensation would likely be an issue regardless.

Somewhere near Muxia, I passed the 1,000-mile mark of my hike. Not that anyone paid attention to miles in Europe—at the end of the day, I had calculated, I had walked 1627.4 kilometers. Knowing that something like 1.61 kilometers was 1 mile, it was easy to figure out I needed to pass 1610 (or so) kilometers to equal 1000 miles, and I was now 17.4 kilometers passed that.

I wrote in my journal and read my book until it was too dark to see, then I laid back and listened to my iPod until I fell asleep for the night.

I’m not really sure what this is. It looks like a machine built to
pump trash into a trash can, but what?

I’ve reached the Atlantic Ocean! That’s Muxia in the background.
And the hill behind the town that I wanted to climb up.

Running my fingers through the surf. =)

A small church where services were just ending as I passed by.

This slab of cracked rock is obviously a monument of some sort,
but I don’t know what for or why. I found it strangely
hypnotic, though. =)

Stumbling onto this really took my breath away! The photo
doesn’t really do it justice, though. They never do. *sigh*

The harbor from the top of the hill behind Muxia. I first walked out to the point
on the left jetty when I got into town. =)

Muxia from above, and you can see the Atlantic Ocean surrounding it on both sides.
From the top, you can turn around and see yourself surrounded by the ocean
on three sides, but that’s much too wide of an angle for my camera to get!

I have no idea who this is. I just liked her silhouette against the rocks. =)

Walking back into Muxia after my trip to the tip of the peninsula.

Make up your minds—left or right?! =)
Actually, this section of trail has people walking in both directions.
For those waking from Finisterre to Muxia, they’ll to right.
For people like me walking from Muxia to Finisterre, we go left.

You see a lot of these raised stone structures used to keep corn or other
foodstuffs away from animals in Galicia. I’d wondered at first how
they got into them since there was no obvious way into them,
but this one had a ladder leading up to it. Ah-ha! =)
The very first photo of this blog entry has one of these raised
structure on the right side of the photo. Obviously, in this
photo, I was more interested in the ladder than I was the structure
itself. I like how it’s framed from under the structure! =)

Home, sweet, home. For tonight, at least. Late in the afternoon, the
weather actually started to get nice! But it wasn’t expected to last very long….

Just because I know you wanted it. ;o)