It was a miracle that we didn’t get sick after being exposed to standard Galician weather (cold and wet) in the mountains. At first I found this fact surprising, but then I started thinking about it. Let’s lay out the facts. All through our Camino it was cold outside for many hours and often even inside of albergues. We never stopped walking because of cold rain showers and we never stopped showering when the water was cold. We had been walking for a month carrying heavy backpacks.
As a result, we did not only get stronger, but also more weather-proof.
The weather forecast for the next three days looked cloudy, around 10-15 °C, almost no rain. Interesting. A Spanish cliché is that it always rains in Galicia. Maybe because the Gallego language has 70 words to describe rain! Check out this video. Our Camino friend Ruben, who was 3-4 days ahead of us, did the last five Camino stages in heavy rain. We got lucky to only get clouds, an occasional drizzle and humid air. I concluded that my clothes were good enough for the weather, but Juan decided to buy himself a pair of rain pants. He didn’t try them on in the store, just bought his regular size. Well, he got one chance to show them off on the Camino! They looked like a space suit in highly reflective light gray color. Also, they were so tight that Juan seemed to walk on the Moon. Astronomical fail.
Once you are so close to the goal, you start ignoring the surroundings. Marco joined our walking crew again and adopted our bread hunting habit every morning. Conversations between us were more entertaining than the landscape. We passed Galician “lugares” (meaning places), which are something smaller than villages. Lugares are groups of farm houses and barns. Our path often crossed with cows, goats and sheep. Excrement of farm animals covered the asphalt roads in lugares, so we obviously felt much more relaxed in the forests. When we arrived to our Airbnb in Sarria, we noticed that Juan’s shoes were giving off a terrible acid stench. Did he step into something smelly? Or, to remind you, Juan also peed into his shoes a day ago. We were unable to determine which animal to blame.
The Airbnb in Sarria turned out to be just as cold as the albergues. We had a gas heater that switched off after half an hour and we couldn’t restart it. We assumed that the tank ran out of gas and it took many phone calls to the grumpy owner to bring us a new one. We got it around 10 pm. In the meantime, we realized that the heater automatically switches off when the concentration of CO reaches a dangerous level. This gas heater should never be used indoors according to a large sticker on the side of the device. In the end, we were glad that the heater stopped. We wanted to warm up in the shower. It was hilarious to hear Juan explaining how it works to Marco. He pointed at the taps and described them as “caldo (hot)” and “CALDO CALDO CALDO (boiling)”. The “caldo” tap was still too hot for me, it was stuck, but I managed to fix it.
Our walk was now renamed to cute Camiño de Santiago in Galician language.
Nevertheless, Galicia was my least favorite region of the Camino.
Not only because of the dirty and messy “cow shit villages” (as Matthias always referred to them). The region gave me an abandoned feeling, like a grand civilization swallowed by nature. Moss was covering everything from trees to stone houses, emphasizing the cold and rough features of this region. In Galicia, buried people are stacked in square boxes above the ground, which strongly remind me of IKEA furniture. Another typical architectural item of Galicia are horréos – tiny wooden or stone houses on pillars, usually around 2-3 meters above the ground. They would definitely be great homes for witches, but Galicians use them for storing grain.
It was quite easy to get lost in forests. One morning Juan, Marco and I climbed a steep hill in a forest. When my sleepy brain finally got enough oxygen, I realized that we hadn’t seen a Camino sign for a while, which is usually a bad sign. Juan bought a hiking app, Guthook, that saved us many times when we lost the trail. The app confirmed my suspicion – we were not supposed to climb this hill. Several hikers were following us, so we redirected them as well. When we arrived to the crossroad at the bottom of the hill, there was no Camino sign either. More pilgrims arrived in the meantime and one of them noticed that the Camino sign was wrapped in a white plastic bag.
Someone did not want us to follow the trail, but did not mark an alternative either.
We all chose to follow the Camino and a plastic bag couldn’t stop us! A few hundred meters later we discovered a construction company with excavators working next to a river. Apparently, a bridge had washed out due to torrential rains and erosion. The men reluctantly showed us a spot where we could safely cross the river. They probably didn’t want pilgrims to interrupt their work all day long. Seemed like they rather had us stranded in the forest!
Believe it or not, there is a safe way of getting lost on the Camino. It all started in the middle of the forest, because I felt warm. I placed my backpack on a stone wall because I had to take my jacket off. Suddenly, my Camino shell broke into two pieces! I’m not superstitious, I would finish the Camino even with my wisdom tooth as a talisman, but still, it was a sad moment. The day turned out to be sunny and warm, and we certainly didn’t bring enough water. Usually pilgrims can refill their bottles in numerous water fountains along the way. Lugares simply did not have any and closed albergues had also disconnected their water supply.
Fortunately, the Camino has trail angels. A few kilometers before Sarria we passed a table full of food and juices beside a large gate. Inside we found an old house with huge couches, meditation spaces and musical instruments. This place was run by a young Israeli girl. I loved these hippie places on the Camino. They always had what we needed the most on that day and appeared out of nowhere. At least my guidebook never mentioned them and I am very thankful to the author for keeping the secret. One of the trees in the garden had Camino shells hanging like fruits. According to a sign, pilgrims could leave their shells behind and get a new one in Santiago. The old shell symbolizes any life burden that pilgrims carried until now. The new shell symbolizes a pilgrim’s new true-self. I decided to adopt someone’s burden and carry it to the end of the pilgrimage. In life, I prefer to take burdens on a long adventure and get to know them better and not simply leave them behind. Who knows, they might crack during the journey. After refreshment, we all got happily lost in our thoughts, wandering in a stone labyrinth.
Juan bonded with many animals in Galicia. The hippie place had a big cat with big balls, who loved sitting on Juan’s lap. As we were passing a friendly horse, Juan had an idea to feed him acorns. The horse had eaten all acorns on his side of the fence and Juan was the only one who understood that he was asking for more. Juan always says that cows are curious animals, so he often does something random to get their attention. This time he was playing them my favorite song about farm animals, Il pulcino pio. Marco was just laughing, I know the worst Italian songs! It’s very catchy, I am warning you.
The three of us found a great place for a sandwich lunch one day. It was a closed albergue, which had left a table and plastic chairs outside. As we were peacefully chewing our bread, an enormous dog slowly walked in. Tap, tap, tap, tap… and no sign of the owner. I was terrified and frozen. Juan instructed us not to make any sudden movements. The dog was almost reaching for my sandwich close to my face, when he was distracted by Juan, who threw him a piece of jam\’on. When he came begging for more, Marco said no, in a firm voice. He has a husky at home and knows how to command dogs. The dog understood and lied down in front of us, facing the entrance. Ten minutes later, an even bigger dog appeared. He seemed to know the first one. I felt even more uncomfortable, but the feeding technique worked again. We got ourselves two guard dogs! They successfully protected us from the third dog trying to enter our territory.
The Camino lost part of its charm after Sarria.
If you want to get a certificate that you walked the Camino de Santiago, you must do at least the last 100 km. In non-covid times, the walk turns into a procession of hikers. In October 2020 we saw maybe 30 more people who joined in Sarria, which doubled the number of pilgrims on our Camino. We could easily identify them, and not only because we knew everybody in our Camino family. The newcomers were walking faster, carried lighter backpacks and treated the walk as a holiday. Every time they passed us and greeted us “Buen Camino!!!”, my heart skipped a beat. We got so used to walking alone for weeks, that these energetic people scared the hell out of us. We named them “sneakygrinos” or “sarriagrinos”. Unexpectedly, I had to put an effort into finding more secluded places to pee.
The density of albergues rapidly increased, but most of them were actually closed. In the end, the lack of open albergues brought pilgrims closer together. We met an interesting 20-year-old Dutchie who biked here all the way from Rotterdam. It took him a month. We could also enjoy a big pilgrim meal together as local restaurants were less strict about covid regulations. By this point I was not impressed by Galician food. The famous pulpo gallego didn’t look cooked, but drowned in olive oil. Potatoes were overboiled and paprika was a weak effort to add flavor to the meal. Tarta de Santiago (almond cake) was a bit dry. However, there was still one Galician specialty that I haven’t tried. Cow shit villages produce marvelous steaks!
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