Lots has happened. I finished the walk a day early due to all night mobbing. I got to Finisterre on the 24th and slept on the beach. Epic. After two days of stress, a twelve hour train ride, I night spent in a bush in Alicante, and eternal wet feet I arrived in Pedreguer, a medium sized fishing village on the east coast of Spain between Valencia and Alicante. I am working for an old man named Ken Upton. He looks almost exactly like Bilbo Baggins. His house is a cluttered rat hole filled with experiments and alternative energy generators built out of plastic bottles and crap. The man is a genius, and completely insane. I will be helping him invent hydrogenerators, build homes for fishes, maintain and sail his boat Puff which is rigged with a horizontal sail system that Ken invented. I am currently the only volunteer and I have my own fully equipped apartment. I got the wood burning stove working with a little persuasion from a hammer, and I finally got the gas for the hot water and range going. I have a house. It is sweet. Lots of rain in Spain for the moment, but it is so good to be in one place for a moment. I may be moving onto the ship soon. Time will tell. While it rains we have been occupying most of our time drinking tea by the fire and talking about ridiculous science.

After exactly one month of walking, Santiago! I'm here! It's very odd. Now that I've reached the end I don't know how to feel. Part relief, part sadness, large part tranquility. It is raining and I will now continue for another 100km to Finisterra and the ocean.
       During the time I spent walking alone I discovered that cows are good listeners. When I would come across a group of cows I would tell them a story or some other kind of oration, and they would listen attentively without interrupting. Polite creatures, cows.
     Clothing blowout has become an issue. The buckle that holds my pants up has shot off. My base layer shirt appears to be rotting. One pair of socks has disintegrated completely. The rest of my socks have become poison as the toes of my boots have torn away and the mud flows in and out of my shoes freely. I just hope these boots will keep their soles until Finisterra.

Cities are a plague to me. I am currently stuck in Ponferrada with night falling rapidly. I have to either hike through the city and the sprawling suburban nonsense, sleep under a bridge, or find an albergue. We shall see. Also of note, I was blessed by a monk. I went to a service at a tiny church in the isolated mountain town of Rabanal del Camino. The only people in the church when I entered where two towns people and three monks dressed in saggy black robes sitting across from each other along the walls before us. We waited in silence, three more pilgrims filing in. With the six of us, we nearly filled the place.   We sat still in silence for some minutes until the bell echoed its chime for seven o-clock. As soon as the resonance ended one of the monks, a cherub faced man who may have been forty, began singing in the most beautiful voice I've ever heard. He looked straight forward and sang in Latin. It sounded exactly like one imagines a monk singing to sound. He would sing one phrase, then the other two monks opposing him would sing a response. The entire service, lasting nearly an hour, passed like this, in song. At times we would stand, at times they would sing from a book, but always the same format: the one singing solo, and the other two responding in harmony. It was hypnotic. At one point the lead monk approached us, had us stand, and blessed us in song, asking for protection on our passage. After that they stood up, and silently left via the back door. Very cool. No pictures, because that would be unfathomably rude.

The whole town was filled with kids jumping over pumpkins.

We slept there.

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Random excavation of human skeletons.

It got cold.

There are hobbit holes everywhere! Whole towns of them!

I´m walking by my lonesome now and headed off the flat valley up towards the mountains. Things happen so gradually that sometimes I don´t notice when I completely change landscapes. At one point I found myself walking through rolling hills covered in oaks, and I wasn´t able to remember how I got there. Very odd. More pictures here.

The trail was following along the side of a road that seemed to be frequented only by tractors. As we came around a corner I noticed a creature lying on the side of the road. It became apparent (in the slow way that all things do while walking) that the creature was a dog, a Jack Russell Terror my by guess. There were no houses nearby, nothing but bushes, a very odd place for a dog to decide to nap. Just as I was beginning to hypothesize (again, slowly) the dog's ears perked up and it moved into a crouch, head low, preparing to attack. I stopped in my tracks but it was too late. The dog sprinted at me so quickly that I had no time to react more than by throwing my hands up. As it leaped for my waist the potential future generations flashed before my eyes. When no pain came I looked down to find the dog hugging my leg. I've never seen a dog hug before, but that's exactly what it was doing. It was staring up at me,  its little dog arms just embracing my knee. When I tried to shed it and leave it behind he attached himself firmly to my ankle with his dexterous little paws and I had to haul him down the street, step by step. Pictures to come, as always.

Walking. Still walking. Mostly through farmland punctuated by tiny towns with massive churches. The sun has come out finally, marking the end of nearly a week of rain. Cold mornings with crunchy frozen grass. About halfway to Santiago now.

Drawbridge for real!

Abandoned mansion ruin where we slept.

Cave dwellings cut into the land.

San Tiago himself

Ancient organ sheet music.

More pictures here.