Finisterre and Muxia

Rental cars, it seems, are not too common in Santiago de Compostela as the only ones we are able to find are at the airport. With a look of complete seriousness on his face, Joey says I should just get up early in the morning, take a cab to pick it up, and then swing back by the hotel so that he doesn’t have to get up so early. Flying quite close to the sun that boy.

It takes about an hour to get to the lighthouse at Finisterre and considerably easier in a car (thanks for the tip, Dale). It is just as amazing as we remember it, and we wander down past the crowds to find some quiet spots to sit and look out over the water. This definitely feels more like an ending so when my fellow adventurer tells me she’s been called back to do the camino again, I think we’ll add this last piece on again.

From here we plan to head north to Muxia, but first, we need to stop for food in the town of Cee, where Angela will tell you they serve the burger that saved her life. Somehow we manage to find it and, while things are often better in your head than they are in real life, this is by far the best burger we have had.

Muxia is a short twenty minute drive further on and, just when I thought it couldn’t get any better than Finisterre, now I’m not so sure. It is also a old fishing town but one that doesn’t really seem to have grown up. There are no tour busses and, this time, the end of the road takes you right down to the water.

There is a big bay here and you can see several sandy beaches around the rim that all seem completely empty. If I ever need to just disappear for a while, this feels like the kind of place I could do just that.

Back in Santiago, it is fireworks night (ostensibly for the festival, but I choose to believe they are because we finished the camino). We make our way back up to the cathedral and join the crowd of people that fill the main plaza. The TV personalities are there and we follow the countdown on the giant display.

At 11:00 the sky lights up in all directions. Or so it appears on the TV. The plaza is surrounded on all sides by buildings a few stories high making it quite possibly the only place in Santiago where you can’t see the fireworks. Fortunately, the show goes on for quite a while and by walking a block or so we are still able to catch a part of it. It’s not perfect, but still a pretty darn good way to close this chapter of our adventure.