Camino Day 4 - To Valada

There is an age-old saying on the trail that “the Camino provides”. And most Pilgrims believe it. If you’re down on your luck and struggling, you have only to believe that the Camino will provide.
Last night I had no place to stay tonight. This morning when I woke up, I still had no place to stay tonight. For the life of me, I could not find accommodations anywhere. A lot of Pilgrims just show up in whichever destination they feel like going to that day and hope there’s accommodations. And most of the time there is. But I have a bag to send ahead so I have to book and know where I’m staying the next night so I know where to ship it to in the morning. So I was getting a little concerned. There may be fewer Pilgrims at this end all right, but there’s also less accommodations for them.
I somehow found this Albergue in the guidebook that I didn’t see the night before. But I had little hope because they often won’t book ahead. Well not only did she agree to hold a room for me, she gave me a private room with two twin beds and a private bathroom. Yay!! So the Camino did indeed provide!!
I walked 22.4 km today in searing heat with little shade and little wind. It was a tad difficult to say the least. The temperature was up to 29° today and no clouds. Little break from the heat.
The Canadian I mentioned meeting a few days ago, well I ran into him again along the trail today, and met a German lady who was with him. He had planned to stay at that town while her and I moved on to the next town.
Well something went wrong with his accommodations so he tried to catch up to us. He sent messages but we didn’t hear them. So he pushed hard to reach us. Big mistake in that heat! Especially for a 64-year-old. When he met up with us, he started retching and near vomiting. I quickly took him to the shade and wet his towel to wipe his face down and fanned him. Within some minutes he felt quite a bit better so we walked to the closest coffee shop which was nice and cool inside and there we sat for 30 to 45 minutes. Meanwhile, the German lady took off long ago.
At that point he took a taxi to his new hotel (same city as I was going), but I walked. Pretty scary how fast heat exhaustion can come on. Dangerous. And it can creep up on you no matter how much prevention. Case in point, the journalist Matthew Power who accompanied Levison Wood along the Nile (book named Walking the Nile) and died of severe heat stroke and heat exhaustion. Despite all their preventions. Very scary.
Not a lot of pictures today. Focused on walking in the heat.Weiterlesen