The Big Walk

Away from the end of the world – Day 2

 It’s an overcast morning, and the long stretches of sandy beach that lead us away from the town are not at their best. The medieval pilgrims who walked from all over Europe to reach the shrine of St James at Santiago de Compostela often continued on to Finisterre –making a pagan end for their devoutly Christian journey. It was on these beaches that they collected the scallop shells to wear on their cloaks for their return as proof that they had successfully completed the journey. The shell became the symbol of pilgrims, and eventually of St James himself. We scour the beach but none are to be found; unsurprising as the pilgrimage has been going on for almost a thousand years. Tens of thousands undertook it every year at its peak. Disappointed, we continue along the road.

We pass a building with a large window and open door with a few loaves inside – it must be a bakery, but it’s unlit and looks uninviting. Each of us tries to goad the other into going inside to buy something for breakfast, but pathetically we both refuse. Further on, we reach Cee, a workaday coastal town of factories and tatty-looking nineteenth century houses. As in Finisterre, many of the houses have black flags with a blue slash across them hanging from upstairs windows, emblazoned with the words Nunca Mas – Enough. This is a protest which has spread across Galicia in the wake of the appalling oil spill a couple of years back. The local fishing industry has been devastated and beaches were covered in thick black oil. The government had tried to tow a rusting, leaking old tanker, the Prestige, towards the Third World, beyond the glare of the media. Unable to take the strain, the ship broke up, resulting in a catastrophe for the Galician people.

After our no-go bakery, we are relieved to find a shop where you serve yourself – but the chocolate we buy turns out to taste like it’s full of grit – it’s intended for melting to make thick drinking chocolate. That’ll teach us to buy the cheapest stuff.

Beyond the town a few arrows painted for pilgrims lead us to a steep rutted lane heading away from the coast and up into the hills. A few peregrinos are descending towards Cee, looking as apprehensive as we are; I suppose they are contemplating their return to normal life. The sun begins to shine and the temperature soars as we head over a series of seemingly endless rolling hills, pausing to rest at ermitas – tiny, isolated chapels by the wayside. We’re pretty exhausted when we do finally reach a village. Olveiroa looks like an English farming community from the 1930s, with its crumbling, ramshackle buildings and locals straight from a costume drama, but their faces are smiling. A pile of rucksacks outside one of the barns marks it as the refugio – a free hostel for pilgrims. In spite of the rustic scene outside, the interior is beautifully converted, with two rooms full of bunks – and two spaces for us. We’re not sure we’re really allowed to stay – we aren’t really pilgrims and are walking in the wrong direction – but luckily no-one challenges us. After a shower we head to a bar on the main road above the village, which strangely has no other pilgrims, just a few locals sipping beers. They don’t do food here but offer to rustle up a cheese sandwich – which turns out to be two halves of an enormous crusty baguette.