A Camino to Remember

Today we walked to Ponferrada! It’s a city of 65,000 people. It was raining a lot this morning and there was a steep downhill with some treacherous rocks, so we and our friends, Lisa and Lisa shared a taxi to go around that portion. We got out in Molinaseca. Then we walked about 8 km into the town where we are now. Along the way we met up with some other friends, who were telling us all about the castle in Ponferrada, dedicated to the knights Templar. We got a crash course in what the Knights Templar were all about. It was kind of funny because later we met up with our friends, Lisa and Lisa. And one of the leases was telling us about the Knights Templar, but had an entirely different take on them. Apparently they’re kind of a controversial group. Some people think they were great and unjustly persecuted. However, other people think they were kind of religious zealots, gone rogue. We were googling about them today and found that they’re often portrayed in movies as villains.

When we got into town, we ate lunch with the Lisa’s. Then we went over to see the castle. It was built as a monument to the Knights Templar. However, it turns out that most of the castle was actually built in the 15th century by a different guy who had nothing to do with the Knights Templar since they were abolished in the 1300s. There were some remnants of the buildings that the Knights Templar had built. But it was pretty apparent that their focus was not on architecture or engineering, because the ruins were pretty much crumbling. The castle was really big. They had a video about castles all over Spain playing there. Imagine, living in a country that has dozens of medieval castles! We learned that castles that we’re all built around the same time really don’t look very similar. Having visited a castle now, we realize that building a castle is a massive undertaking! It was really big, and when we were ready to go, we had a hard time finding our way out!

This afternoon I discovered that my new shoes were giving me another new blister underneath the blister prevention adhesive bandages. I decided that was it! I will do all the conscientious things to break in those shoes when we get back to the United States, but it is crazy to try to walk the next 125 miles in shoes that make my feet hurt. So we looked online for shoe stores in the city. They have a Decathlon store here. It’s like a big sporting good store. So it was raining and it was a ways to walk there so we figured out how to use the public buses here in Ponferrada. That was a bit of an adventure. We bussed out to the store and picked out some new shoes and also got some gloves to wear on our hands when it’s rainy. When it’s raining, you are holding onto your hiking poles with your hands, and they are exposed to the rain for hours so they get really cold. Sporting goods in Spain cost about 1/3 of what they cost in the US! Let’s all hold a good thought for these new shoes. I really hope they are as comfortable on the trail as they are here in the hotel room.

David’s back is feeling a lot better. We’ve been shipping his backpack ahead and putting our outerwear and water and snacks in my backpack. It’s been working well! Oh, also, our hiking poles are in my backpack, but we bought cheap folding hiking poles on Amazon, and they are super lightweight and they work great. Today I threw away the last of my decongestant, so I am officially declaring myself healed from Covid. Now we have 10 more walking days and every one of those days has a forecast of rain. So we will be walking through lush, green territory and getting a little bit wet.

We are having a wonderful time, and we so appreciate all of our friends that are supporting us at home! Since we stop in churches to pray, along the way, one of the things we expressed gratitude for regularly is the support of our friends and family! Thank you so much!

Our friends, Lisa and Lisa took some nice pictures of us at Cruz de Ferro yesterday. I will put a few of those on today’s post, because I really like them. We have two more days of hiking with them, and we will really miss them when they end up moving a day ahead of us! They are going to arrive in Santiago a day before we get there.Read more