June 7, 2018

WHAT A DAY!!! Rain, rain and more rain. We left Olvieroa at around 6:20 in the rain and arrived into Muxia after 32kms, in the rain, totally saturated.

The country side was fantastic, the trail was top notch, but it’s curious how much influence that the weather can have on your appreciation of things. Whilst the walking was not particularly difficult, despite some sizeable ascents and descents, the rainy, wet, grey atmosphere certainly played a major part on your perception of the surroundings.
And this in turn has a detrimental psychological affect on you, making you believe that the task is actually harder than it really is.

Muxia is a quaint fishing village on the north west coast of Spain, in the state of Galicia. This area is extremely green and lush, and now I can see why. The rainfall here is abundant, with creeks, rivers, streams and water ways flowing in all sorts of directions. The weather forecast for the next 7 days is at least consistent – rain for the whole outlook period; at least there is some consistency. The actual town of Muxia is known for little else (apart from the fishing), except for a lovely little church and surrounding sanctuary, which we visited. This was called the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Boat. The legend goes that the Virgin Mary appeared to James the apostle when he first landed in these areas, to inspire courage and spiritual strength for his preaching and conversion of the local inhabitants.
The weather was cold, the wind was even colder and whipping up the waves onto the rocks, causing the familiar crashing sounds and providing an eerie feel to the whole area. Because of the cold conditions we could not stay out there too long, even though we could have spent many hours out there, in such a spiritual place.
We were very fortunate to have our good friend Eloisa from Brazil, join us at Muxia.
She had been traveling on her own for a couple of weeks, on the coastal Camino and catching up with friends in the area, but now had joined us from Santiago De Compostela, and was going to walk with us to Finisterre tomorrow.

We had a pleasant dinner together with her and shared many tales of each other’s travels and Camino experiences since we had last been together.
Back to the albergue Bela Muxia for a much needed rest. Tomorrow promises to be another challenge, our last official walking day and the weather conditions don’t look great.