Santiago - Hendaye, Spain

Sunset in Finisterre: imagine this...we finished eating dinner about 9:30 pm and knew we needed to hurry up to the lighthouse to catch the sunset; it is a 40 min. walk. neither of us wanted to go for a walk but on the other hand we did want to go to the lighthouse, the end of the world. in nicole and arizona fashion we needed to do some fast walking, i mean realllly fast. the sunsets here in spain are around 10 pm. as usual there was an old woman who pointed to her watch probably telling us we needed to hurry. gracias, and start running some more. nicole and i love to challenge each other saying silly things like: i can walk faster than you; i´ll push you over the hill if you don´t move it; both of us can´t walk side by side, move it; i´m younger than you i can walk faster, laughing i of course zoom ahead; then nicole is running her tiny little feet faster and making me laugh even more; cars are passing and we´ll say something like...great can´t you see we´re pilgrims and offer us a ride...haven´t we walked far enough...laughing more, asking what would we do if someone stopped and offered a ride, laugh some more..knowing we would not get in a car when we are so very close to finishing the camino and touching the last milestone marker. well, you get the point; we don´t take things seriously and laugh a lot! when we get to the top it is just about dark and really don´t notice a sunset. we take a couple of pictures of ourselves and someone else then walk further on to the point, more pic´s. it´s at this point nicole wants me to take a picture and i tell her i can´t because i have to go to the bathroom, i really have to go. she tells me there aren´t any people around you can go there, or there. i look at her and say i´m not going to the bathroom in a bush...here, you´ve got to be kidding. it´s getting dark and i can´t tell who is nearby and it isn´t the appropriate place to go as we have done all along the camino...it´s what a pilgrim does. i tell her i have to find a place, i run and notice the lighthouse restaurant and gift shop still has its lights on...i run to the door, it´s locked...i knock and a man opens the door and i plead as best i can in spanish to use the aseo; he lets me in, gracias. outside it´s really getting dark, i softly yell...nicole...again...nicole, no answer. i can´t see and don´t figure she is still out at the point so i head back to the main area where the road starts to go down...nicole...no answer. great, i don´t know where she is and she didn´t know where i ran off to. i see two guys that may have seen the two of us together but they say they didn´t see anyone else down at the point. i´m starting to wonder if she decided to start walking back to the hotel thinking i did the same. problem was, we both had black shirts on, the only thing light was my hair. the two guys ask as best they could in english if they could help...yes, yes please. so we start back down to the point, i´m getting a little anxious not knowing where she might be. while walking i´m saying nicole, nicole...where are you. finally i say nicole and she answered...she had been waiting down at the point where i last saw her. we were both a little anxious not having anything like this happen during our entire trip...very interesting...i decided we need to have a reflector tape of some sort on our clothing so we could see. the two guys gave us a ride down the mountain to our hotel, gracias. we weren´t laughing and hopefully we learned something. a long story i know and i hope you were laughing as you imagined the situation...so it wasn´t the great sunset we imagined but yet we had a great time until it got dark. LIFE IS GOOD.

tomorrow morning on july 22nd we are leaving by train to hendaye, spain not far from france. we´ll spend the night in hendaye and the next morning (july 23rd) go to lourdes, france where we´ll spend the day and then take another train later that afternoon to bayonne to stay with our wonderful friends francoise and jean-marc.

on july 25th we´ll take the TGV train to Paris here we will stay with our neighbors mother (genvieve, and aunt bernadette) for one night. on the 27th we will take the metro (train) to friend´s who live in fountain hills and are in france during our stay. they´ve invited us to their family home where they have a large family (i believe) and a planned activity...putting on a new roof on the farm house...i´m really excited, i brought my work gloves and ready to pitch in. we´ll leave patti and benoit´s either the night of the 28th or morning of the 29th to go back to genvieve´s. nicole and i will try to get in a quick trip to paris and spend the night with my wonderful french ladies then leaving the morning of the 30th to catch the plane from paris to philadelphia. we´ll arrive in the evening around 8:30 pm. that is our agenda so i´ll write very soon as i still want to be in touch. Love to Everyone...ILY...LIFE IS GOOD...Have Fun...AriZona