Day 7 -- Coast of Death (Costa da Muerte)

This part of the coast is named Coast of Death for the treacherous coast line and the many shipwrecks which happened here (some caused by natives with erroneous signals for ships). The coastline is not straight but jagged with peninsulas and bays. After the morning coffee (mornings start after 10 am here), we set out driving along the coast toward the little town of Camarenas about 20 km from Laxe. The first stop was at a small fishing village of Camallo where a German man built a tiny house on the edge of the water and garishly decorated the land around with dozens of “sculptures” made of local stones. The largest oil spill in Spain in 2002 devastated it and he died soon after, the legend says of sorrow that his beloved pristine coast was damaged. There is a museums there in his honor. From there we drove up and up on a very narrow road with the sea on one side way down below. The views were absolutely spectacular. We were looking for a site called Cementerio de los Ingleses -- a cemetery of hundreds of English travelers killed in the shipwreck in the 19th century. We followed a sign towards the cementario, but the road soon changed into what looked like an unpaved walking path and there was even a sign there saying that it was a pedestrian route. Al wanted to continue, but Bo got scared that there will be no place to turn around later and wanted to go back to the paved road. That’s what we did and followed it to the bigger fishing village of Camarenas, which is know for lace making and its lighthouse. We drove to the lighthouse first, an imposing structure high up at the very tip of the peninsula. There was a field of windmills on one side of it and a big salt plant on the other. We had lunch/comida of fish empanadas and a platter of clams and drove back to Laxe We parked the car by the hotel, had a little rest and set out for a hike to Playa de Soeste, a secluded beach about 3 km away. Laxe is on a peninsula with ocean on 3 sides. Our 6 km hike took us over a hill to the other side. The scenery was magnificent. On the way we met a group of hikers, but the beach was totally empty. We spent some time walking on the white sand. The water was pretty cold and it got quite windy so after a short rest we walked back to Laxe.
Dinner (or rather the evening meal) here starts at 8 pm so after 8 we walked down to a tapas place by the beach and had mussels and fish croquettes with wine (Bo) and beer (Al). All drinks in tapas bars are served with little snacks for which they don’t charge. Sometimes it’s a tiny roll with local sausage, sometimes baked sardines with potatoes, sometimes little bowls of potato salad or a meat ball; this evening we got slices of cheese with sardines on top.