Good fortune

We have been traveling the meseta all week and our weather has been very good.  We started out fairly hot, in the 90´s but today didn´t get over 75, I think.  At least we have managed to have a breeze most days.  This is not living up to the harsh and hot reputation of this flat plain.  I feel blessed. 

My feet have become a permanent concern.  I have plantar fasciitis in which the weight of my pack and the distance I have travelled have begun to create small tears in the plantar tendon which creates the arch in my foot.  I bought new insoles for my boots, gel inserts, to no avail.  Stretching and yoga seem to help but I have had to send my backpack by courier so that I do not further cause injury.  I am hoping that I can make it the rest of the way to Santiago with only the pain I have now instead of creating a more serious problem.  Part of the issue is also the pronation of my right foot, or rolling inward that I naturally do with my gait.  I had purchased running shoes that corrected for this and I assumed the boots, because of their hard soles, prevented my foot rolling as I walked but I noticed today that it continues to do so.  With the weight of the backpack and the rough terrain I have sometimes been on it is not a surprise that my feet are breaking down.  Only time heals this problem and it will be another few weeks before the opportunity presents itself to heal. 

We passed the midway point today on the Camino from St. Jean Pied-de-Port to Santiago de Compostela.  It was somewhere on the plains, not marked, easily missed.  If we travel according to the book it will be 17 more days to Santiago, but we may take time off to rest.  Chantal isn´t feeling well today.  Maybe in Leon we will take a day off.  Leon is 3 more days away.  I am looking at having a couple weeks of nothing to do in Spain by the time we reach Santiago.  If I cannot walk to Finisterre I will take a bus.  Then I am not certain what I will do.  It might be more economical to take an early return flight, but then again, it may not be.  I know I will need the rest that the end of the road will provide. 

The scenery remains the same - wheat fields, a few trees, and open plains.  Some of the towns have been very run down.  We had planned to stay in Ledigos but it was not a welcoming town.  Many of the buildings were made of mud brick, or just mud with bits of straw, roof tiles, and whatever, stuck in to make it sturdy - a wall.  Amazing.  Moved along another 2.8 kilometers to a resort-like albergue.  It is nice and we may even have a room to ourselves.  The benefits of a room alone cannot be emphasized.  A few nights ago, in Fromista, I thought I would be sleeping in the backyard because there was some very unpleasant individuals in our bunkroom of 10 beds.  Last night we stayed in a convent, in an all girls dormitory, and I woke up in the middle of the night and swore the woman next to me had become a man.  I couldn´t sleep.  I´m quite certain she switched beds with a man as the person wasn´t wearing a shirt in the night!  Some nights are just plain weird.