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The Trip is over. Bob's reflections on Saturday and Monday.

(this appears to have some parts of older posts embedded in it; I have not been able to remove them!) It is now shortly before 6:00 AM Saturday in Spain.  The Indians winning streak is over, and so is our experience with 19 friends and about 150 miles (240 km).  This blog entry will be written in parts, as I think of things that I want to share with my friends, family, and anyone whom I may not know but has been following our trip (and hopefully soon to be a friend!). Others who have walked El Camino de Santiago have told me that the best part is meeting new people and making new friends.   They have been correct.   While I do not even know the names of all of my new friends, I have enjoyed walking with people that I never met before for fifteen minutes, for one day, and even for several days.  It is a great experience to walk with someone for an hour, then lost them as one of us needs a bathroom break or a stop to eat, and then see the same perso...
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Day 14 - Madrid - and home

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We awoke in Madrid, and a cab took us to the airport.   We had checked our ticket and saw a a flight time of 11:00 AM.  Oops!  The people at the airport showed where we lost a decimal place - the flight was to leave at 1:10 PM!  This left us plenty of time, so we hopped onto the Metro and decided to check out some of downtown Madrid. It should have been no surprise - we got off the train at an area with lots of government offices - all of which were closed on Saturday and so were the shops!  There were a few restaurants open and we had a nice breakfast in one of them.  As we walked, we saw this monument to the great artist Pablo Picasso, with an adjacent park. I decided that I had one last chance to find a geocache in Spain, and sure enough, there was one placed in the park near the monument.  It was listed as a magnetic cache - and SUCCESS!!  Rose reached into a steel figurine and pulled it out! As we walked back to the station, we saw ...
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Day 13 - the trip home begins in Madrid

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We breakfasted this morning at 5:30 and the bus left at a few minutes past 6:00 AM.  We were at the airport in Santiago shortly after 7:00 - it sure was quicker driving than hiking!  We were all checked in with plenty of time to spare - and then got to enjoy the airport and each other's company for an hour and a half while the plane was delayed!  We arrived in the Madrid airport and headed to our lodging for the rest of the day.   On the way to baggage pickup, we passed through a hall with the following ominous warning "the aisle of no return": I went with Rose and Karen C to a very nice bed & breakfast operated by an equally nice man named Mario (who speaks English).  As it was now long past our early breakfast, we were very hungry.   We wandered through the neighborhood and found a very pleasant little restaurant which fed us well, and then went back. After we rested for a little while, Karen wanted to buy a few souvenirs, so Mario r...
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Day 12 (part 2) - after the zero marker

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After we took our pictures, we separated into several groups.  I wanted to look for some geocaches (a high-tech scavenger hunt), since that is a favorite hobby of my wife.  That search had me explore the area near the zero-marker more carefully than I might have otherwise.  In the end, I found   geocaches, but had some fun experiences in the process. I walked down a flight of stone stairs towards a large tower.  It probably was used for power or communications, but it also had this interesting pillar which captures the spirit of El Camino: Near the same place, I saw a number of people gathering for a group photo, and then one of them yelled “Alli esta el Americano” (“there is the American”).   I have no idea how they knew who I was, or why they chose me – but they figured that I was the right person to take the group picture!  It turned out that they are from Mexico City, and most of them spoke fluent English.   Perhaps...
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Day 12 (part 1) - Cee to the ends of the earth

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After a delicious breakfast of bread and orange juice (some had butter or jelly also), we left Cee on our last day of hiking.   Things did not start well for me - I had gone more than a kilometer before realizing that my room key was still in my pocket, so I had to return to the hotel and start over!  Here is a view of the harbor of Cee: After walking through town for a kilometer or two, I was stunned to find myself on a very narrow road between two stone walls: This lasted for a long time - at least one kilometer, maybe two, and the last part was a steep climb that lasted for at least half a kilometer.  When I finally came out of the narrow path, near the top of the hill, I began catching up with other members of our group.   Here are some pictures of us: Dave Bob K Barb had noted earlier in the day that many of the homes in Spain are very colorful.   I had not paid attention to this, but she is right.  Here a...
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Day 11 - Olveiroa to Cee

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We had a good breakfast at the hostel and set out.  The trip today would start with a short climb, but we could see from the map that near the end, there would be a descent of about 250 meters over two kilometers.   I spent about the first half of the day's  walk with Karen B and Bert.  We saw plenty of windmills - some were spinning and some were not.   Also some beautiful flowers, and something that looked like a cross between a flower and a mushroom! Windmill Bert is coming down the road as Karen awaits The color of the landscape Probably a mushroom - possibly a flower? At one place, we saw an interesting monument.   We don't know quite what it is: After a while, we encountered a woman who was walking at about the same pace as we were.  She is from Quebec, and this is her sixth time walking El Camino de Santiago.  She has used a different route each time.  We...
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Day 10 - Negreira to Olveiroa

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We left this morning as early as we could, with a 34 kilometer (21 mile) hike in front of us.  As expected, the hike was very hilly, so this was certainly one of our more challenging days.  And it rained for much of the day.   I guess we’ve had so much beautiful weather (low 60s and sunny or slightly overcast) that our luck couldn’t last forever.   We walked past this wall, and wondered if it was a walled city in the past. We had a large group together for a while, but slowly broke up into smaller groups.   For a while, I walked with about five senoritas who were singing, then went ahead of them and met up with a man and his girlfriend – his name is Oriole and hers is Mary.   They are from Catalan and have been walking for several weeks.   I learned that the bird “oriole” is named from “oro”, the Spanish word for “gold” because of its color.  Oriole is a librarian who is extremely interested in history and geograp...
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