Day 35: Fisterra/Finesterre: The End of the World

After a travel day from Santiago to the seaside town of Finesterre (Spanish) or Fisterra (Galacian) I strapped my backpack on one last time. I walked a twelve mile circuit that included an inland farming village, the Cape, the mountain, and a wild Galacian beach. By Camino standards it was a short hike, but I took my time to enjoy one unhurried last backpacking day where all I really had to do was bird and soak it all in. I timed my hike to last all day from sunrise to sunset with lunch in town and mass at the small seafarers church Santa Maria de Areas.

Port of Fisterra 

Today was more of a stroll, a sans terre, a saunter. It connected the landscapes of the Camino to the landscapes I love most - the rocky coast, sea and mountain. I thought of Mom and Dad who took me to the wild capes of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. I've adored the rocky coasts since I was three!

Pilgrim at The End of the World.

I hiked early out to the cape in a strong wind. No tour buses yet, few hikers, a camper truck parked discretely behind a berm of gorse and fern. A memorial, the last pilgrim coming ashore, his cape windblown in bronze, marked where many climbed from their boats and up the cliffs to begin their walk east to Santiago. The Irish, Cornish, Welsh, Scots, mostly came by boat. There are pilgrimage routes still traveled by sea. A group of Irish seafaring pilgrims was honored at Pilgrim Mass yesterday by the Bishop in Santiago. They sailed and rowed from one wild green mountainous coast to the other.

Wild Galacian coast.

I visited the last way marker on the Camino just before the Lighthouse at the End of the World. For pilgrims disembarked from their boats, it would be four day walk to the city, but for those of us coming east, you can go no further unless you've a boat to climb into. I gave the dolphins, swimming in a sea of boulder garden and grass, a pat. I hugged the lighthouse - more to shelter from the wind than to show affection! Gulls screamed overhead. Gannets drilled into the choppy sea for fish, emerging with bills full and wings pounding into the gusts.

A pod of granite bottlenose.

There are a few last shrines to visit for the finishing pilgrim. The places where boots are burnt and tributes made. These burn pits may well may have served the same purpose a thousand years ago as elements of the Celtic pagan traditions fought to survive against the overwhelming pressure of the Church. But look closely at the mass today , my pension host advised. "You'll see how traditions melted together like burnt shoe leather and wild sheep's wool."

Ceremonial burn pits for boots and gear.

Memorial to hiking boots.

I birded the open sea for a bit, until my shivering made holding steady my binoculars impossible. Still, I could make out more gannets, lesser black-backed gulls, herring gulls, cormorants, and little terns. A scan of a white-washed rookery appeared to hold more species , but I'll have to wait until I get home to study the pictures.

I'll study the white-washed shelves at home for more species .

I left the Cape as the first tour bus arrived. The sun was getting hotter and the trails that crossed the mountain were calling my name. My knees and back protested some more as I climbed higher and higher. Looking back to the Cape, the lighthouse and tour bus were but tiny fixtures on a whaleback of rock , jutting out into the Atlantic which was streaming with whitecaps.

Cap Fisterra.

"Look for the signal stones," my pension host suggested. These are stones stood on end, some ten feet more more high. "Galician fishermen at the time of St. James and before marked the cape's most dangerous passage. Stay close, but not too close, to mark the turn to safe harbor." I sat on a boulder perch and scanned the western slopes. All I saw was a confusion of stone outcrop and boulder beds. They were hard to see at first, but once my eye caught the pattern they were everywhere. Some marked dangerous shoals, others pointed to  small but safe anchorages when turning the Cape was too risky. I noticed shelters and cairns, paths marked with boulders of different colors than those around them. The way marking rivalled everything I saw on the modern Camino.

Signal stones, monolithic way marking.

There were paths for shepherds, fishermen, old roads worn down by millions of hooves. I walked a sunken road until the level of land dropped away over the cliff and I dared not follow, but on it went down and around a steep, slant of green and rock where I could hardly imagine a man walking upright much less his cattle or sheep! The steep path turned into a thread of a trail and still on it went. I clung to a boulder and crept out to see where trail went but all I managed to see was surf crashing into cliffs and that was enough leaning out for me!

A cattle and sheep road above the cliff.

I scanned the ledges below to see if I could see where the old path went and caught with my unbelieving eye the shape of a fisherman casting from the dangerous cliffs below. How did he get there? On hands and knees? By rope? By boat? I was breathless watching him cast, then catch fish the size of my arm. He nimbly stood to reel them in on his heavy surf rod, then balanced as waves broke at his feet, to unhook the fish he caught and string them on a chain. There was a story not long ago about a cliff fisherman who found boots and a backpack not far from the lighthouse, the pilgrim drowned, washed away in surf that thundered clean the ledges.

Stonechat and mate.

I continued hiking and looped back across the summit to the harbor side of the mountain. Stonechats were common and seemed to enjoy sending up the alarm of my arrival and passing. A black kite flared its tail in flight over the heather and disappeared before I could dig out my camera. I heard the bells of the church below, the call to mass. I hurried down a dirt road and arrived in time for the readings and sermon. A children's choir was rocking the house down with Galacian fishing songs-turned- hymns and the packed house couldn't help but applaud after every raucous tune to the delight of the kids and the priest. St. James would have been dancing in the aisles. His kind of sea shanty!

Fishermen's salvation retablos.

When mass ended I spent time admiring one most moving retablos I'd seen on my trip. Waves pulling at bodies of fishermen, drowning in storm tossed seas, pleading to the Holy Mother and Child for mercy and rescue. "Fisterra has lost many many to the sea," a kind elder said to me. "We remember the wrecks and those missing as far back as memory allows us. Then we put them in songs so we can't forget. We hide them in hymns and turn hymns into chants." He showed to me a memorial to mark the sinking of a fishing vessel and the rescue boat sent to assist. At its base was a tomb of a fisherman - a local saint, unofficial, he said, according to Rome but beloved by locals nonetheless. The worst loss of life was a British ironclad that wrecked on the cape shoals with five hundred lost. There are many stories in Finnesterre.

Memorial to those taken by the sea.

I followed the church goers back into town and found some lunch by the harbor. Tour buses were filing in now and I wondered how the little village, much expanded recently with new housing , albergues , hotels, and eateries was faring. I thought about the fishing towns on my side of the Atlantic, mostly resorts, cluttered, congested, cookie-cutter versions of ocean towns up and down the coastline. There are few wild beaches left and of those, hemmed in by vacation home sprawl and outlet shopping strips. There is still Lewes, Henlopen, Chincoteague. But there is nothing like Galicia left on the U.S. Atlantic coast - not anymore.

Twin capes and wild pocket beach of the Atlantic side of Fisterra.

My hike continued with a climb to the summit to Monte Facho, wild, windswept, hot. From the heights I spotted my destination and finish point - a wild pocket beach suspended in the hollow between Facho and the craggy fins of San Martino shores. A major conservation area, Mar de Fora is wild dunes high into meadows and an arc of brilliant shell-sand. It was where I had planned to spend my last Camino hours to watch the sun set over the Atlantic.

Looking west from a high summit meadow.

The trail clung to the westward slope and led by steep road, some it old Roman stone and clay, to a vast saddle of high dune. A conservation boardwalk crossed the delicate ecosystem of prostrate plants, delicate blossoms, and a universe of multi-colored lizards. The beach was a shining half-moon of shimmer in the eight o'clock sun. I dropped my pack, leaned into it as my back rest, and joined a few other pilgrims spread far apart to wait for the sunset.

Mar de Fora

The scallop shell that has been attached to my pack since Roncesvalles.

I waded into the cold water of the Atlantic and stood as long as I could, which wasn't long. My legs and feet were soon numb! I detached the scallop shell that has been tied on the back of my pack since Roncesvalles at the foot of the Pyrenees. I gave it water and let it warm in the hot sand. Some pilgrims down the beach were burning their boots. I promised my boots I wouldn't do that to them!

A playful soul to spend late hours with.

As the sun dipped lower a few dogs came down the boardwalk, their owners far behind. Within minutes a bright, happy soul joined me for some fetch into the gentle waves. After a while, a tall young man approached and introduced Fila properly. " She was a Camino dog left behind by the pilgrim she had followed. I took her in. She loves playing with pilgrims." I noticed how all the dogs were playing with everyone! I wondered about Bell and her Canadian pilgrim and if he might be going to Toronto or dropped off in some end-of-the-road village. "This is a nightly ritual for the dogs! They love it!"

Sunset on the Atlantic.

The sun slipped into the sea. My Camino came to an end on a wild beach in Galicia.  Five-hundred and fifty miles walking until the trail ended at the ocean that binds our histories and people together.