Robyn, here. Greetings from Arzua, the town where the Camino del Norte joins the Camino Frances. We´re a few days ahead of Cindy so we won´t see her till Finnesterre (and I apologize for my spelling as I don´t have the guidebook with me). We passed the 100-kilometers-to-go mark 2 days ago, Cindy passed it today. She´s in Sarria.
Tom and I walked along the north coast until we reached a town called Ribadeo on the eastern edge of Galicia. There were ten of us in the alburgue that night so we fixed a big pasta dinner and then hired taxis to take us out to the Cathedral Rocks, a geologic formation of arches and columns and caves that are only accessible when the tide is out, and since it was nearly full moon, we had a great time exploring. Since then we have been walking inland toward Santiago, through eucalyptus forests and ranch (mostly milk cows) land. There are tons of gardens. It´s obvious why they feed us fried potatoes at every meal but we have yet to figure out where all the collard greens go!
The weather has been foggy in the mornings, with it burning off about noon. It´s magic to see the huge wind turbines appear out of the mist, turning lazily and generating Galicia´s power. The afternoons are getting pretty warm--low 80s I think--which is warmer than I like for walking. At any rate, we joined the Camino Frances today so our lazy days of not having to compete for a bed, of stopping for coffee (and beer) along the way and enjoying the relative solitude are over. Our alburgue was full by 3:00, but tomorrow night we´ll stay in a hotel in a town not pinpointed in the guidebooks and Saturday, solstice, we´ll get to Santiago.
We´ve been watching the World Cup, which is made much more interesting because of the diversity of people in the bar cheering for their home teams. Team Spain is on their way home....and they´ll come home to a new king since the old one abdicated 2 weeks ago and the new one took the reigns today. The only people who seem to care much are those who would prefer Spain get rid of the monarchy completely. We´ve see a few protest marches but nothing with much energy.
We´re off to have dinner with our Camino del Norte friends. After a rest day in Santiago we plan to walk to Finnesterre where Cindy, who arrives in Santiago on Tuesday, will meet us on Thursday.
Buen camino!
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