By Jim
What is a kilometer? When we arrived at Cee last evening, our guidebook told us that it was 12.9 km from there to Finisterre. This morning we walked for 2.5 km along the trail and found a marker that told us we were 13.5 km from Finisterre! The French created the meter in the 1790s. They defined it as one/ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the north pole along a meridian through Paris and etched it on a standard iron bar. Although the definition and the standard have changed over time, the distance has remained practically unchanged. But along the Camino there is little consensus as to the actual distance between two points. The guide books and apps often differ from the trail markers in their estimation of the distance for a stage and the Albergue and bar signs are the most unreliable, always underestimating the distance. Our mapping app uses gps data to track our activity. This is what we record at the end of the day and inevitably it is a greater distance than we were expecting. So, in our case kms does not represent kilometers, rather it stands for kreugometers (the distance travelled by Kreugers).
Our short walk was gentle, beautiful, and treated us to a smorgasbord of weather. Cobblestone streets gave way to shaded paths and eventually, sandy beaches. Soon Finisterre was in our view and held our attention until we arrived. We decided to have lunch before continuing on to the Cape and lighthouse (another 2.5 km). Rain further delayed us, so when we did set out at 4 o’clock a thick fog had set in. The lighthouse was dark (Burnt out bulb? Unpaid power bill?) and the view ended at the shoreline with a thick curtain of fog. Cabo Finisterre was literally the end of the Earth!
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| The marina at Corcubión, across the harbor from Cee. |
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| Village cobblestones… |
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| …gave way to shaded paths… |
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| …and eventually, beaches. |
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| Fog gave the Cape an eerie feel… |
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| …that somehow seemed fitting. |
A Google Earth flyover of Cabo Finisterre.
(What we could have seen!)
You can actually say you went to the end of the world and back, that is if you come back;) It looks cold-even the pilgrim statue looks cold.
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