Day 17 - Final Walk - to Finesterre

5 October 2018

18.8 miles in 7 hours 35 minutes (including breaks)

Today was our final walk of the Camino de Santiago.

Progress Map

We left before daybreak from Muxía and hiked through dense fog, over mountains and through thick coastal forests. We finally reached Finesterre, the place the Romans called the 'end of the earth'. Heading out to sea west from here presents nothing but ocean for thousands of miles.

Our Camino is now done - 220 miles total (355 kilometers). We'll never forget this awesome experience!

After today, we return to Santiago de Compostela for a day of sightseeing, then onto Paris for a day. We then fly to Romania, Moldova, Serbia, and Albania to explore our next possible humanitarian service in managing clean-water well projects.

The Camino de Santiago will live within us for the rest of our lives. What an amazing opportunity we had to experience this pilgrimage firsthand!

Our walk started before daybreak. This is a shot across the bay from our hotel as we walked into the cold to start the walk.

After an hour we had climbed the first mountain. We noticed that thick clouds were blowing over from the other side. Soon we were in fog so thick that we couldn't even see the nearby wind generators, eventhough we could hear their blades spinning.

The fog was so thick at times that I could hardly see Sandy down the road.

We dropped in elevation, and as the day went on, the fog eventually melted away and showed that we were next to gigantic eucalyptus forests.

You meet all kinds of people on the Camino de Santiago. This was a German couple that we ran across who were wearing their traditional outfits for their hike today.

Once the fog lifted, the forest exploded with color.

The walk took us along the rugged seacoast. Occasionally we would pop out of the forest and see the beautiful blue ocean.

Even the ferns were changing color as we moved further into autumn.

We stopped in a little village called Lires to get some hot chocolate and pastry for a late breakfast.

Finally, after many hours of hiking, we reached Finisterre and its cute little bay.

We had to take a photo of our shoes that had carried us so far on the Camino to the 'end of the earth'.

We took one last parting shot from Finisterre before leaving by bus and returning to Muxía.

Once back in Muxía, we went to the pilgrim office and picked up our certificates stating that we had completed the final walk of the Camino. (They are written in Gallego, the half-Spanish and half-Portuguese language of Galicia.)

We were starved, so we picked up a delicious Galician dinner: calamari (squid), raxo (pork), roasted chili peppers, fries and bread. This filled us back up after our final hike of the Camino. 

After dinner, we returned to our favorite place on the edge of town. We could sit for hours watching the breakers on the boulders.

One last moment on the ocean was never enough.

The sun was setting as we walked away from a last view of the church on the rocky coast.

As the sun set one final time over the city of Muxía, we gave thanks for this chance we had to come to Spain and participate in this pilgrimage.

We returned to the rocky point at sunset to watch as the sun dipped below the horizon.

And so our Camino de Santiago is now completed. This was an experience we will never forget. 

(Given that this was such an incredible adventure, we may return again and complete the first part of Camino de Santiago from France to León that we missed this time around!)