September 30, 2023
We took the bus to Muxía yesterday morning after saying goodbye to Heather and Ines at the hostel. It was kind of nice to travel 3 days worth of walking in about 1.5 hours.
Stepping off the bus, it was immediately clear we are in a beach town because of the ocean smell and the seagulls swooping everywhere.
We grabbed lunch in Muxía while we waited for our apartment to be made available. Then wandered through a grocery store in our typical daze of being overwhelmed by grocery shopping. We got food to make a simple stir fry. I have missed cooking and so I enjoyed the novelty of a different meal as well as the act of cooking. We also found our selves enjoying the fact that we had a TV and after switching the settings to the original English audio, we enjoyed a few BBC murder shows.
After dinner we walked out to the point, to watch the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean. It was lovely and then we got to watch the full moon rise on the other side of the hill. It felt serene to be surrounded by the dying sun and the rising moon on either side. I felt a lot more connected and fulfilled than I had in the Cathedral in Santiago and am really glad to have added this to my trip. I also really liked that between the moon and the last remnants of sunlight was the town of Muxía spread out below us with the yellow streetlights mirroring the celestial lights. It was a fantastic feeling to see the contrast of the human built world – some pieces of which are so old and formidable that they have a significant gravitas of their own – with the power of nature – the ocean crashing on three sides of us, the moon glowing the majestic brilliance, and the last flecks of sunlight turning everything orange. It was really magical.
This morning we slept in, and it was glorious! I was mostly able to ignore the chorus of dogs barking, people shouting, and cars driving by and slept well on the pull-out couch in our apartment living room.
We had a yummy breakfast of scrambled eggs with spinach, mushroom, onion, and cheese. The novelty of a different type of breakfast was really nice. No coffee for any of us, though. Ines and Heather would not approve.
The fireworks started at around noon, and after heading to the local library to get wifi, we realized it’s a festival day, which explained the loud booming. These sorts of festivals seem to happen a lot here in Spain. This is at least the second one we have experienced. It was fun to see the Galician bagpipers and drummers who paraded past the library in costume. While fireworks during daylight don’t make sense to me and the booming is startling when you don’t expect it, it’s still cool to get to see pieces of the local regions festivals.
After lunch, I went swimming in the Atlantic! There was a small protected cove that was really lovely to bob around in. There were gentle waves and a sandbar through the middle. It was a great people watching spot and was also nice to just float in the water and enjoy the gentle waves.
We tried to go see the sunset again after another dinner in, but the fog rolled in sometime between when we came back from the beach and when we went out again. Being utterly surrounded by fog where there had been gorgeous views the night before was fun in its own way.
Now, I’m listening to the festivities still going on at 11pm and wondering if it is worth getting up to go check them out. Rallying the energy to do that though is difficult.
Cheers for now!
