Day 14- Hontanas to Boadillo

So today we hiked from Hontanas to Boadillo de Camino a 28.5 km walk (about 17.5 miles) . Not only was it a bit chilly this morning but a heavy fog greeted us for about 90 minutes. It was definitely an eery feeling as our headlamps would cut through the fog!
Hontanas sits down in a bit of a valley and the valley is rather long so until we walked up and out of it, we had the mist. As such the sunrise was uneventful so no good sunrise pics today!

The Meseta is true to its form in that it is a flat plateau but today we did have a peak to deal with. 1100 foot rise with a 12% incline. It was the first time we have seen an incline sign ! We marched up relatively easily and the views were just stunning as you could just see forever! With that said the decline was marked as an 18% decline which with my knee I considered unfair:) I hobbled down it literally one step at a time!

The odd thing that happened while hiking this mountain was after we rested at the peak and started to approach going down, a police vehicle drove up the path onto the top of the hill. We were already 400 yards away but we could see the police get out of their car and start talking with the other pilgrims. I was hoping that they had come up the hill to offer rides down however no such luck.:) After we descended they did drive down the path and the car was marked civil policia so not sure what that was all about.

I have forgotten to mention in the past but often the Camino path acts as a road …for farm tractors especially. Those guys come rolling along on machines with tires that stand taller than me and they don’t slow down for pilgrims:) it is either get out of the way or be smushed!

After we came down the mountain we had about 10k to go and then I asked CJ about whether I should continue on with the pilgrimage or hop ahead and get the leg some rest. He said “ Dad I have watched you limp along for 30 + miles in the last two days but you got to give that knee sometime to heal and it isn’t going to heal while you are walking all day every day. I have calculated and planned it out so that you go to Leon now and I will continue to walk and be there in 4.5 days. I would like a few days rest after I get there so we can pick back up in Leon after that which will give you 7 days to rest that knee and we will still be on our schedule . Yes you will miss 75 miles of hiking but the rest of the trip will be that much more enjoyable for you. I know you can and want to tough it out but you just shouldn’t.”
SO that is what I have done. Here we are in the middle of freaking nowhere but I got a phone and cell reception. We had already gotten a number of a taxi driver who serves the Meseta area so sent him a note using the What’s app platform and got him to meet me at the albergue we were headed to and take me to Leon( 75 mile trip!) Then found a 1 bedroom apartment in downtown Leon to hole up in , and confirmed that my pack that I had shipped this morning to the next albergue would be there by the time we were so the taxi could pick me up when we arrived. All told took about 30 minutes…you gotta love the internet!

While I am seriously depressed about missing that section with him, I can’t help but admire his knowledge and logic not too mention how he has learned to handle me:) he is a pro!

I know I will be bored to tears but I will stay off this knee except for food runs and I hope that this will enable me to carry on to the finish line in Santiago with CJ at my side. I will not miss that even if I have to do it in a freaking wheelchair!

So this will be the last update for awhile but I would like to thank everyone who has sent notes of support. They have meant a lot to both of us!Read more