Camino 2014: Day 20 Astorga to Foncebaddon (James)

Camino 2014: Day 20 Astorga to Foncebaddon (James)

Miles today: 16.9 

Miles total: 341.3

We thought we might spare ourselves the heat today as most our walk today consisted of climbing into the mountains.  We wrongly guessed that there might be trees and therefore shade along the path, but the intensity of the sun was unhindered and whatever shade there happened to be was few and far between.

For most of the morning we labored under a sun that was very noticeable, even by 9am.  On paper, these last two days should have been and I was counting on being really easy.  They were not.  It was a strange feeling to start measuring how much of the walking day you had left not in kilometers, but rather in minutes in the sun.  It was a far more accurate measure of what you had left in the day.  Above all, we are now acutely aware of how 3.8km at 6:30am are different than 3.8km at 2:00pm.

As far as our bodies go, we are up and down.  Sahra had a bit of an achilles tendon issue a few days ago, but that seemed to clear up.  Mimi's ankle seems to be doing a bit better.  Emily, however seems to have been bitten by the overuse bug.  A pain started to develop in her shin so we are monitoring that.  Lanie is injury free and has discovered cruising speed.  She was hiking at 5km per hour today...uphill.  

By early afternoon we climbed to Foncebaddon, a seemingly half abandoned mountain village.  There is not much to do here so rest and recuperation is the strategy for the evening.  In the back of our albergue you can look back down the valley to Astorga and further back along the Meseta.  It's crazy to think we spent a whole week crossing that thing, but now we are in the mountains once again and are within a couple of days of reaching Galicia, the last province of the Camino de Santiago.  From there it is less than a week to Santiago!  

We hope all is well back home!

James

Special thanks for the day go to:

Terri and Richard Roberts, Uncle Brad Anderson, Dave and Rachel Schiffer

Many thanks to our mile sponsors as well:

Ron Harmon, Mark and Susan Dahl , Jeff and Holly Tomlin, Paul and Ruth Westlund,