October 05th, 2013

Yesterday we´d planned to walk 26 km from Carrion De Los Contes but had to pull the plug after 23 km.  It´s not that we couldn´t have done the last 4 km to  Terradillos de los Templarios, but by the time we´d walked the 23 kms and reached the town of   Ledigos  it was almost 6 pm, about as late as you ever want to roll into albergue, especially since most of them serve the pilgrim meal around 7 or 7:30.  The reason we´re always the last ones to arrive is because I´m the slowest walker on the Camino.  I also carry the lightest backpack. These two plgrim life-style choices, along with keeping my boots tightened and doing a few yoga stretches at night and in the morning, are my attempts at avoiding joining the ranks of the Camino injured, which includes almost everybody at this point, (I´m not exaggerating) whether they´re in their early twenties or past retirement age, and cutting across all genders and nationalities.  Injured toes, blisters, shin spints, painful  knees, tendonitis.... somebody could write a book entitled, "Injuries of the Camino:  What, Why, And How To Prevent Them."  But I don´t want to talk any more about injuries lest I jinx myself and Tom - though I suppose, technnically, Tom did recieve an injury on the Camino, his cut knee, but that was more an accident that could happen anywhere as opposed to the repetitive stress-style  injuries the pilgrims are suffering from, and which either of us could wind up with any day, though not yet, so far, knock on concrete  (with a walking stick).  Still, one of the drawbacks of carrying the lightest backpacks on the Camino -Tom´s is about the second lightest -  is the reason they´re  so light:  we carry only one change of clothes.  (Exception:  we each have three extra pairs of socks, since socks are critical!).  This means that every evening we have to wash out a full set of clothes for each of us, (why I´m so in love with the laundry services when we can find them) and if  our clothes are  not dry by morning we have to pin them to our backpacks to dry while we walk.  If they don´t dry we don´t have any clean dry clothes to wear that evening.  So, the first thing we do upon checking into an albergue is to get out of our grungy clothes, take a shower, and put on our clean clothes which we wear for the rest of the evening, sleep in, and walk in the next day.  (Exception:  I usually don´t wear my hiking pants to bed, I have a light skirt I like to sleep in, and Tom usually slips out of his hiking pants and sleeps in his skivies, as do most of the guys.).  On the other hand, at least we don´t have to walk around with backpacks full of dirty (heavy!) clothes.  Anyway, yesterday our 23 km took us again across the Meseta under the hot sun along a path between endless brown fields where there was little shade and no water fountains or towns for 17km from where we started.  We were prepared for the sun, though, since that morning as we were leaving Carrion De Los Contes we stopped to follow our noses to a bakery shop where the baker, after she´d given us our cream doughnuts and complimented me on my good Castillian Spanish (heck, I can order a cream doughnut in any dialect!),  pointed upwards and said, "no lluvia", so we knew what we were in for.  So then, 23 kms later when we reached the town of Ledigos we checked into a private albergue, ¨Las Palmeras" (or something like that) for 8 euros each.  This was the funniest little place (well, not really so little, about 54 beds, supposedly), it reminded me of a house from a story book, with rooms, hallways, doors, bathrooms, showers going off in every direction, there were so many doors, we pilgrims were wandering around all evening trying to figure out where we were!  Not one section matched another, everything looks like it was just a quick, half-finished add-on job, cobbled together done by the owner´s brother-in-law, or something.  But it was nice, we stayed in the attic, a cute loft with fiberboard walls and timbers (also not quite finished) which we shared with five other pilgrims,  but it was nice because we had real beds, not bunnk beds and a couple of bathrooms scattered about.  The meal at the albergue was good, too:  9 euros for some kind of noodle soup followed by two huge pork chops with a mountain of french fries, ice cream for dessert.