Well, my shin splints got worse today and the first blister has appeared. Walking El Camino today was the most difficult.
On the bright side, we ran into a number of friends we have already met along the way and got to catch up with them and enjoy their company to ease the pain. At one point, David pulled out his guitar and played for several hours attracting a few other pilgrims to walk along with us.
As noon was approaching, a lady we had met earlier named Nancy caught up to us. Turns out she is an American who has her own company to help people set up El Camino experiences. She had a lot of knowledge about the pilgrimage and history of it, which was interesting to listen to and helped us pass the time through the pain. We invited her to join us for lunch and she suggested a typical Gallego restaurant that served the specialty of the region, octopus. Dave and I ordered a large octopus and I must say it was delicious.
In the afternoon the clouds started rolling in and the trail became more sparse of people. I was holding up Dave with my walking much slower, but he entertained himself beat boxing (I think that's what that was). Just when I thought we wouldn't be seeing anyone else, a couple we had met a day or so ago caught up to us. Bill and Claudia are from Santa Barbara. He works as an executive director for a nonprofit and social services, and she works for the county government. They are sweet people a bit older than me who have very interesting lives and shared stories freely. Again, helped me forget about the pain and even helped me pick up the pace a bit.
We parted ways around 6PM as they had arrangements to stay in the town where we had arrived. We wanted to go another 6 km so we pressed on. We arrived to Arzua around 7 PM and quickly found a pension that had a bathtub where I could soak my aching shins!
Tomorrow could be really tough. We have two more days to cover 40km, which is less than we have covered per day, so I am hopeful we will be fine, arriving to Santiago de Compostela Wednesday afternoon.
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