arrived santiago yesterday. would like to fill in the gaps. but going to start with most recent and fill in gaps later. internet time is limited as gro is tied back up at albergue, probably barking, and im down at the cafeteria at monte do gozo using internet. so ill probably have to do this in stages..a.nd finish it in a week when i get back to ireland. yes, it will take me a WEEK to get back :)
Lets begin with Friday, the 20th.... i forget where to i dont know where.... hmmm.. lemme look at my shirt i just got a shirt with all the places on it and im wearing it so i can wash all my other clothes....... um.... yeah ok ribadiso. ribadiso to ....well....you´ll see...
started off in ribadiso frustrated from the night before (see in later postfor previous day in post i havent written yet...) but motivated. I wanted to try to do 35-37 k. ok not that i WANTED to but i didnt want to stop at arca after 22 and then have to do 20 to santiago the next day. i was having major feets problems and would rather just trash it through one really long day then stumble into santiago from mounto de gozo the next and make it for the pilgrims mass than have two long days and/or be trying to do 20k to santiago in the morning and make it by noon which i knew we absolutely couldnt. so i decided to see how much mileage we could put on even though id only done 15 the 2 previous days and even the 15 felt like it was gonna kill me. my feet have been reaching their last... and i didnt know how many more days i could work through the pain. the walk from ribadiso was nice once we got through arzua. we went a km or so out of the way though getting lost which was frustrating because we were already on a sort of tight schedule. we went through alot of eucalyptus groves which were really pleasant, but my feet and tendons were really killing me. we were going quite a pace nonetheless but after retying my shoes 15 different ways, i realized i actually had one last weapon to break out for the last few days... ALEVE painkiller. 4 left. and i tried to use it only sporadically when absolutely necessary. now was the time. i ate the most dense stuff i could find in my bag for lunch so as to not have the aleve burn a hole on an empty stomach, had a nice lunch in a eucalyptus grove, and we kept on trucking. we passed the last albergue around 6 pm..the next being 14 k away... i was still hoping maybe we could make it, even if it meant making it in the dark, or at least make it to the churchyard at labacolla, which would leave us only about 8 k the following day. we kept busting through the kilometers, and i felt like the last few kilometers were just melting away easily.....except at that poin t i thought the km markers were a countdown to santiago, which now im not so sure they were.... i think they were to monte do gozo or something...anyway, the markers and my book didnt match but i decided to trust the markers at that point which i think ended up being shorter.... right at dusk, when we couldnt possibly go any further on treed paths, we were supposed to be arriving at km 12 marker and then crossing some stream, the highway, then following the path to labacolla. i could see the lights of santiago in the distance, and i was still trying to judge whetehr we could make it to MDG with my tiny flashlight in the dark. i SO wanted to get there that night.... WELL.... the markers ceased to exist. i was doing my best to follow instructions in the book, but apparently failed.... i went over a stream then through a tunnel under the highway, headed for some lights which i imagined to be san paio, where i thought i would set up my tent cuz i was wrecked and it was dark. i had toyed with taking the road routes but didnt think that would make an authentic pilgrimage and my book made it look like MDG wasnt on a road runnign through it anyway... so we trudged in the last glimmers of dusk down this dirt road after the scary tunnel to this "village" which turned out to not be a village anyway but a farmer with a bunch of tall lights for a garage for fixing tractors or something..... we hadnt been follwoing a yelllow arrow but i hadnt been able to find ANY yellow arrows or markers or anything at all after the camino path started alongside the roadside. so i was going with my best judgment--which ended up being wrong. so now i saw only this farm had no idea where i was it was dark i didnt want to go back the way i came and i couldnt even ask at the farm cuz there were big dogs barking at us. so when i saw a guy at the farm barn i started hollering hola hola and finally he came over but im still unconvinced that he properly showed me wehre we were on my map as we remained lost for about the next hour or so.... we went back the direction we came but he told us we had already passed san paio or at least i thought he did and told me stay in labacolla. he said go back through the tunnel and along the road but i didnt want to go back through the tunnel and couldnt see a road to follow on my map anyway so we ended up trudging down the scary dirt road down alongside the raised highway becasue i had seen a highway sign for labacolla. but we couldnt get onto the highway because of fencing. so i was hopin g we could at the exit. problem was that there were TWO highways on my map and there was no way for me to figure out which one i was following. we finally came to another tunnel and got to the other side of the highway but then it was still jsut highway and no helpful signs. at least it was higher up and lit though and not quite as scary but still no civilization in sightn. eventually i saw another tunnel goign off under the highway again and it was marked with shells...but it was dark, AND no yellow arrows (NOT LIKE YOU CAN SEE YELLOW ARROWS IN THE DARK ANYWAY, EVEN WITH A FLASHLIGHT)...so we kept walking and finally saw houses, flagged down a car, and learned we were in san paio and that that WAS the camino path with the shells. the lady told me to just follow the road to labacolla though and it woudl be lit. i told her that we just needed a church we would camp in the churchyard and she said yeah there was a church there. it was really late like probly 930. plus we had passed no supermarkets all day even though i expected to so all i had was the food on me. i was glad at that point i had dragged extra food around that day. still not enuff though but by the time we finished grainne wanted sleep not food anyway. anyway, we finally got to labacolla and crossed the camino path and headed for the church, thinking we were home free... except i didnt count on the churchyard being a graveyard...one of those with the box-crypt type graves that you see so often around this part of spain. and there was NO WAY i was sleeping there. i was totally creeped out. so we looked for a spot of grass not on the main road or camino path cuz that didnt feel totally safe, but for something still in the town. i finally found something half suitable though if a car had been a drunk driver he would have gone off the road into us as we were only a few feet from the edge but it was a quiet road and the best i could find. there were 2 small dogs accosting us froma distance barking barking barking. grainne curled up on the ground and went to sleep while i pulled up branch stumps to put down the tent. those darn dogs barked at us for a good hour from a distance even when i threw sticks at them. then they stopped being as loud for a little while as if they had been put inside, then got let out again a little later. then at 7 am on a saturday they were at it again ..... we had a not very restful night but at leasxt we were not walking. i hung my shell on the outside of my tent, hoping noone would bother us when they saw it. noone did. except the dogs. i meant to take picture of the road littered with all teh sticks i had thrown at them but forgot ;) anyway that night my feet were killing and i didnt know how i could even walk the next day but suprisingly i was able to. . ok i want to finish this post about our day of our arrival into santiago but i want to put something on the next post too and im almost out of tim e so will have to finish later..... a nice lady gave us breakfast the next day..d.etails later...and also the end of the path the last few km into monte do goza is VERY POORLY MARKED...
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