Hiking El Camino de Santiago for Cystic Fibrosis: Day 25: Molinaseca to Villafranca

From my Dad:

It's harvest time!

Life throws you curves and one came my way today. I've been wearing my right knee brace, but yesterday I knew something was settling in wrong with my left shin. The pain is more in the lower left above my ankle. The first ten miles this morning I was really quiet with Sue as I was concerned. So many peregrinos are derailed. We are determined to carry our backpacks together for all 500 miles ... we want to start and finish together. We took a break after four hours of hiking (I'm slower today) and I iced the shin, massaged, stretched and then applied Traumeel which is a homeopathic gel. I'm allergic to ibuprofen so this is all I can do for anti-inflammatory relief. The pain is so severe, though, that I had to start taking hydrocodone just to take the edge off to finish the last four hours and 10 miles. I was able to smile and enjoy the second half of the hike through some incredible villages and vineyards.

I talked with my physical therapist back home and it appears it's most likely tendinitis and not a stress fracture. I'm optimistic all will get better soon and I'll just grind through it for a couple of days.

Sue and I left at 7 am in the cold dark and proceeded to get lost going out of town. Fortunately, flecha Amarillo always shows up one way or another and onward we go.

We ran into 2 ladies from Washington state and they appeared so spry and excited. We were still recovering from the previous day's inclimate weather so we just had to ask when and where did they start and their answer was they just started The Camino one hour ago in Ponferrada. We've been on The Camino for 25 days so we had a good laugh. This is the norm now as many peregrinos hop on at the 100 or 200 kilometer mark.

We were so excited to run into our two friends Sophia and Alexandra from the states and had a nice chat as we haven't seen them in a week.

The final ten miles were out in the vineyards and wound up into the beautiful village of Villafranca.

We are blessed with incredible weather ... only 1 1/2 days of rain and forecast looks good into Santiago de Compostela.

Tomorrow brings the region of Galecia with incredible views in the highest regions 4,500 feet. We'll be hiking for 8 hours tomorrow so early to bed tonight.

Blessings,
Steve and Sue