Two days from Santiago

I left the solitary Camino de Invierno yesterday, with a walk through cow country. Walking through cow country in Galicia means a couple of things -- having to dodge cow poop constantly, having to step aside when the herds go in or out to graze, having lots of local people to talk to early in the morning when they go to milk the cows (I talked to one woman whose 20-odd cows produce 350 liters twice a day, and she told me when she was young, they did it all by hand), and, worst of all, lots of loose dogs whose main job is to guard the cows but who also enjoy scaring the daylights out of me.

Since this Camino is un-traveled, the dogs are much more likely to be loose. I´ve had a lot of growling, mean looking dogs get near me, and have surprised myself at how I just kept on walking. Well, what else was I to do? Anyway, I am glad that the dogs on this last part of the walk will be tied up, there are just too many people around for dogs to run loose.


So, here I am on the end of the camino I walked last summer. I´m going to take it slow, since I don´t have a hotel reservation in Santiago till Sunday. Two more days of about 12 miles a day makes for a pretty lazy end to my camino.

Last night in my first albergue in a long time, I met a bunch of characters -- a German guy who has been walking for more than 6 weeks and who leaves every day at 4:30 a.m., a Spaniard whose only goal was to get to Santiago and who walked straight along the highways defying death at every turn, and a sweet Portuguese couple who try to make it 5-8 miles a day. So I will probably not see any of these guys again, but oh well.

Finishing a camino is always a double-edged sword. Not much elation, but certainly some sense of relief -- whew, I´m here. But there is also the very strong sense of, oh, no, I´m not going to walk tomorrow, what will I do. I will just have to figure out how to reconcile those emotions, like I always do, and I usually deal with it by starting to plan my next Camino. So if you are interested in walking next summer, now´s the time to speak up and be heard.....