Day 47 - Camino Finisterre: Muxia to Finisterre

Date: Wednesday July 31

Start:  Muxia, Galicia

End: Finisterre, Galicia

Daily Mileage: 19.7mi (31.7km)

Total Mileage: ~597mi (~961km)

Today was the last day of our Camino journey across Spain. 

As with many of our long hikes, our last day was overcast and rainy. I’m not sure why this is the case for us, but it seems to have become a theme. Perhaps the trails are sad to see us go. Perhaps the meteorological odds are just not in our favor. Either way, we had a bit of a misty, drizzly send off. 

In Muxia, we started our day at the only cafe that was open at 8am – which was actually open at 8am – a combination of early morning workers, newspaper readers, and Camino hikers filling its tables.

After a simple breakfast of toasted baguettes and jam, some plain churros, and coffee, we were off, our last day of hiking. 

The route out of Muxia started along a road that paralleled the coastline. Despite today’s walk connecting two coastal towns, most of the route would be inland through forest. This early bit of the walk out of Muxia would be the last time we would see the ocean until we arrived in Finisterre in the afternoon. 

The morning was overcast, flat white clouds stacked on top of each other through the skies, a bland diffuse light settling over the day. I took some pictures along the rocky coastline as we made our way out of town. 

Early in the day, in an effort to avoid pavement where possible, we took a short route off the highway and along a singletrack trail that ended up being mostly overgrown; tall ferns and weeds spilled over the path. We did our best to clear the area of spider webs with our faces, eventually rejoining the highway not too far from where we’d left it. A worthy pavement avoidance? We think so. The spiders, not so much.

The day, as mentioned, would be an inland route, mostly through forest along with some fields and farmland. The skies were completely white with hazy fog. Hiking along the roads, we could hear the whir of windmills very close – the low hum of the generators, the heavy whooshing of their blades – though we could not see them. Giant ghosts in the fog. 

About halfway through our day, we stopped into a cafe in the town of Lires, the only significant town en route to Finisterre. Here, we found the Belgian couple, Fernan and Maria, that we had finally officially met only a day before our final day into Santiago de Compostela. We had crossed paths with them several times throughout the first week and half of the Camino del Norte, mostly while we were still in Basque Country, though hadn’t exchanged more than smiles and hellos until last week. 

While they had hiked into Santiago de Compostela later the same day that we had arrived, a large city, we hadn’t run into them while we were there. While we had spent two rest days there, they had taken only one and then started their hike out to Finisterre. They had taken the same route as us, heading to Muxia first, though stayed an extra day in Muxia, which is how we had now caught up with them again here. 

We chatted for awhile until they left, heading back out to finish their hike to Finisterre. At this point, one of the most recent people we had met, the man that had sailed his boat across the Atlantic from North Carolina to southern Spain, stopped into the cafe. We chatted with him a bit, as well. He was going to stay an extra day in Finisterre, apparently a fairly important/well known town in the sailing world. He grabbed a sandwich to go and hit the trail once again. “Alright, let’s go team,” he said as a little pep talk to himself, hiking away solo.

Finishing up our own sandwiches, we also moved on. The day was actually pretty chilly when you just sitting still, but it was nice and cool for hiking. With the inland route through forest and farmland, the skies didn’t matter too much, but I was a little bummed that there was unlikely to be much a view or sunset from the cape in Finisterre tonight.

There wasn’t much notable about the final miles into Finisterre other than the wildflowers, of which there were fields of all colors - yellows, oranges, purples, and others. Birds twittered off in the woods. It was a peaceful walk for the last day, if nothing else. Maybe having overcast weather for the final day of the route was a gift, allowing us to look inward and think about the journey rather than be distracted by new vistas. Let’s say that. 

It was around 3:40pm as we came into the outskirts of Finisterre. Yellow homes with red-tiled roofs climbed from the coast into the hillsides of the town. Everything looked sleepy at this hour of the afternoon. 

In town, we found our hotel, located above a sports shop. After cleaning up, we went down to a small seafood restaurant by the shore, one of the few places where we could still order food in the late afternoon, mostly bar-style snack foods, but something to eat nonetheless. We got some fried monkfish, calamari, and fries. Afterwards, we went to a Hungarian cafe so I could satisfy my sweet tooth with a slice of chocolate cake. 

At this point, Shawn’s tendon was pretty much finished for the day. It had bothered him throughout the walk, but he’d pushed through to finish the final leg into Finisterre. Now that we were here, it was time to rest. 

Despite the overcast weather, I decided to make the final jaunt to the end of the cape in Finisterre, another two miles (3.2km) from town. With what I figured would be fairly easy walking terrain, I went in my flip flops. My trail runners would soon be retired to the trash can. 

More documents for the green tube. 

On the way out of town, I spotted the Belgian couple up ahead. Once I caught up, I chatted with them. They had done the same thing that we had. Once they arrived in Finisterre, they checked into their hotel, showered, and did laundry. Shawn was actually doing our laundry while I was making this final walk to the cape, like a good little house elf. 😘

Since the weather for the rest of the evening and tomorrow was forecast to be overcast, they decided not to bother with sunset or sunrise and just hike out to the cape early, which had also been my thought process (though sunrise had never really been on the table, ha). 

The two of them had just come from a mass at a church along the route. Fernan said they had been late for the mass, but arrived just in time for the blessing, popping in at just the right time. As he put it, “okay, I was late, but I guess I’ll take this blessing,” pantomiming how he’d walked in the door and immediately been blessed. He laughed as he told the story. 

The two of them had made the final plans for their return to Belgium. After a bus back to Santiago in the morning, they would fly home on Saturday. They were anxious to see their seven year old grandson after over four months away.

Pilgrim’s Monument (imagine the sea in the background).

En route to the cape,  I took a picture for them at the Pilgrim’s Monument and, when we’d reached the cape, at the 0.0 km marker. The end. Upon arriving, the cape was completely closed in by fog. You could see only the slightest bit of the ocean along the rocky shoreline below. Such a pity. You could tell that on a clear day it would be a beautiful setting - staring out into the blue from the rocky cape. As it was, we would stare out into a wall of white.

Finisterre Lighthouse

I walked around to various areas along the cape as the fog rolled in and out – sometimes forming a completely opaque white sheet backdrop, sometimes clearing a bit for a few moments so you could catch glimpses of the ocean sprawling out from the shoreline, or a small island off the cape. 

I walked past the lighthouse, descending along the rocky area at the far end of the cape. Delicately hopping along in my flip flops, I made my way down to a rocky prominence where I watched the seawater swirl about along the rocks below me. Just a slit of visibility along the shoreline – beyond, only fog. 

I walked back and forth around different areas of the cape for nearly an hour, catching glimpses of views as the mists rolled in and out. At one point, there was a fairly significant clearing of fog west of the cape. I quickly took some photos. This view lasted only a minute or so before the dense mists rolled back in again. 

After some time of this, I decided it was time to head back to town. While it was not the finale that I would have hoped for, sipping a glass of wine while watching a perfect sunset sink below the horizon from the romanticized ‘end of the world’, it was still a memorable moment. And, we’d had a beautiful sunset in Muxia last night, so there wasn’t too much to complain about. 

In the end, we’d had a really spectacular journey.

In the coming days, I’ll be putting together a last summary post with some numbers (total distances, ascent, etc.), other interesting facts/figures (shoes, backpacks, number of clothes melted – that kind of thing), and our final thoughts about both the Camino del Norte and the last jaunt out to Finisterre. 

Until then, we have a busy travel day tomorrow. Today marked not only our final day along our Camino journey, but also our last full day in Spain. Tomorrow we bus back to Santiago de Compostela and then, after a few quick errands in town, have an evening bus on to Porto, Portugal. 

More to come soon! For now, thanks so much for following along with our journey!

Thank you for your service.