I slept in late in the Albergue Azabache. Then rose and I took our packs over to the San Martin Hotel where they keep the to floors for Pilgrims (23 euros including breakfast) and were able to check into our single rooms. They are pretty sparse. I think they may have been the nun’s rooms when it was a monastery. I wandered around town watching Pilgrims. When it was time to go to lunch, we decided to go for good food so we were headed back to Malak, the fabulous restaurant from last night. We ran into Jan, Ellie, & Kate who still had to get their Compostela so we waited for them. Great lunch.

I realized that I had to put more Euros on my SIM card. None of the ATMs would work for that. Yikes! So I went to the tourist office. They told me there was an Orange Store in town, but when I found it, it was closed for siesta. I realized that I may have trouble explaining what I wanted to them. So I went to the Pilgrim House ( the one that young man from yesterday told me visit –  a non-profit place to help pilgrims). At 5:00 one of the volunteers who spoke Spanish went with me. I now have enough wifi time for the rest of my trip.

There are many places in town to eat, but we were a bit (maybe more than a bit) tired of pilgrim meals, so Rose and I went back to Malak – again. The waiter/cook is so much fun and the food is great. Then, of course, we went out for ice-cream cones.

I spent time the past couple of days trying to figure out what I was going to do for the last days of my vacation after I finished walking. I was looking at other places in Spain or even in Portugal. Then I realized I wasn’t going to go anywhere. After I walk to Finisterre and Muxia, I will want to go home. I can’t imagine going from walking the Camino to being a tourist. It just doesn’t feel right. So I worked on getting my plane ticket changed. It was not an easy task because Skype was not working and I was ‘t sure if it was going to be possible. At about midnight I gave up.

During our breakfast at San Martin I use the Internet to get a flight out of Santiago de Compostela to Madrid to go home after we return from Muxia. Actually the cost turned out to be less than what I had seen last night.
Ellie, Jan, and Kate rented a car and are going to Paradores.
Some people have written to me to ask me why I want to continue walking to Finisterre and also to Muxia. What can I say?  They are there and part of the Camino for both Rose and me. We have planned a slow walk (6days to Finnisterre; 2 nights there; 2 days to Muxia; overnight; and the 6:45 am bus back to Santiago). So off we went this morning. I was all ready for rain, but there wasn’t much.

We had a view of the top of the Cathedral in Finisterre as we walked out of Santiago.

It was a lovely walk through eucalyptus forest. We seemed to be walking for a long time before we finally found a bar for lunch. I thought we had reached Augapesada and asked the waitress where the Albergue Casa Riamonte, the one we wanted, was located. She didn’t quite understand us and was sending us back up the road. We stopped a car on the back roads to ask. He said he would give us a ride. I really thought he was taking us to the wrong place, but he was right. Turns out we were actually in Ventosa.

The Albergue was a lot of fun. As soon as we arrived there, it started to rain. Javiar, the owner, was a stitch. We met Claudia and her 11year old daughter, Mary Louisa, from Germany who were on a short vacation so walking back to Santiago from Muxia/Finisterre. We also met Fernard, a man from Germany. Then Mary and Maureen arrived and they needed to take a private room because we only had one bed left in the 6 people Albergue. When the sun came out, we were able to sit outside for tea.

We had great soup for dinner. After all this time, it still seems strange to eat dinner at 7:30 or 8:00 and then, basically, go right to sleep.