The whole trail between Fisterra and Muxia is, well, not exactly desolate, but devoid of typical touristy glow that says, Welcome, 21st century pilgrim. There are farms and houses, but the only center of activity is Santo Estevo de Lires that sits exactly in the middle between Fisterra and Muxia. I’m glad we decided to do two smaller stages instead of one large one.
It is a beautiful area, there’s tall forest, varying landscape and glimpses of the ocean here and there
Muxia is smaller than I imagined, to be honest, a quiet town diminishing further still (my guess is, fishing industry in decline, but I don’t actually know). A bit glum atmosphere about it.
After getting installed at the albergue, we eat a simple but tasty seafood meal and stroll around, spending quite some time among the rocks down at the Punta da Barca where the stories about a “ship of stone” are being poured on tourists by multiple tour guides. The legend talks about the barca de piedra in a casual way, without explaining how it worked – has it always been of stone? Did it turn to stone once it’d arrived? Also, here they say, Virgin Mary arrived in it to Iberia to encourage James to evangelise here, but I’m also sure I’ve heard it was James’s body that was brought here in the stone boat after his execution in Judea. Could all be true as there’s more than one rock that look like boats or parts of boats here. Anyway, we frolick here a little.
Another night, another sunset and the plans are made to witness this one as well. So when the clock is in the right place we head out.
The pilgrims who walk approximately at the same time is not such a numerous group, so you bump into each other the whole time and maybe it’s time I stopped calling each such event a miracle. But when the only people atop the hill that we climb are friends – hey, Beate and Klaus (Philip)! – it still feels a little bit like it.
Another day, new friends are made – back to Santiago tomorrow after our last night in an albergue.