Rebekka

Rebekka, German. Finisterre, Spain. May 17th, 2011, originally uploaded by Hannah is a Palindrome.

WHO: Rebekka, German.
WHEN: 17/4/11
WHERE: Finisterre, Galicia, Spain.

SLEEPING PATTERN: She and Angela bookended me to share warmth on our very last night, sleeping in the sand dunes at the 'end of the world'.

REBEKKA and Angela were walking together after instantly hitting it off. A couple of days of our paths crossing, and we organically joined up. It helped that we had very similar and realistic ideas about pace and comfortable daily distances. The two Germans also awakened me to European nudity, as many of our hostels had showers-sin-dividers and seeing each other naked after meeting a day or two before was a complete non-issue.
So after bonding through several days of walking together, the three of us decided to mark the end of the pilgrimage by sleeping under the stars. Our destination, Finisterre, means the 'End of the Earth' and besides Santiago, is a perfect place to terminate by staring out over the Atlantic ocean. We were all charged to celebrate finishing the walk but Rebekka was especially buzzing with determination and impending accomplishment. Rebekka somehow fit two bottles of wine in her backpack for our planned feast and as I followed behind her excited march towards the lighthouse, I watched the almond cake that she had strapped to the outside of her pack bounce up and down. As we reached the lighthouse in almost darkness we realised that the cliffs were way too windy to for sleeping, we complained together that we now had even more walking to do, to head back the way we came to reach the beach. But giggling and swigging wine in our little nest in the dunes and then waking up to the sunrise on that beach was the perfect culmination of our time together.