The Meseta Is Flat (Day 16)

No, seriously flat. Look at the altitude graph from my hike today:

I’ve climbed higher to get something out of a cupboard

At one stage there was the standard route along the road or I could follow an alternate route. I chose the alternate route and think that I made a great choice. It followed along a river and was shaded and quiet. From my route I could see the other pilgrims trudging up the road in the sun and honestly, it looked miserable.

You can’t really see them in this picture but the other pilgrims are out there along the highway in the sun.

That’s something that you don’t hear a lot about the camino. Portions of it follow the highway. There haven’t been a ton of them so far but they are there. I envisioned perhaps a little more trail walking and a little less road or sidewalk hiking but when you are travelling this distance and interconnecting with towns it’s not realistic to think there would be public trails to everywhere. With that said, the road walks haven’t been bad but you do feel it on your feet when the sun is out and heating up that pavement.

A portion of the route next to the highway

My route however was off the road and I had some shade.

The alternate path

There’s not really too much else to report. I did get to have a final dinner with Glenn, Jan and my friend Joe. Glenn and Jan were on a bit of a different itinerary and are finishing before me so our routes diverged a little while ago. Starting tomorrow Joe is on the same faster track. Luckily we came together one last time tonight as their schedule puts them in different towns than me each night moving forward. It was, and I’m trying to find the right word here, easy. It was easy to have meaningful conversation. Easy to laugh. Easy to make fun of each other. The only hard part was saying goodnight and the sentiment was genuine. It’s the most fascinating part of this journey so far, the closeness that I can feel to these fellow walkers so quickly and it’s mutual. There’s some sort of accelerated bonding that’s happened and I’m trying to pinpoint the causes. Regardless of the cause I’m damned happy to have got to experience it and I hope it continues. I do wonder if I’m a bit guarded when I’m not travelling. I’m going to try and work that out. I’ve got at least four more days of flat hotness to go over it in my head so maybe I’ll have an epiphany. Or heat stroke. I might get heat stroke.

The bugs came back