Tight Quarters

 Day 57 - San Martin del Camino

      The Spanish cities are such a contrast to the many villages along the Camino.  The villages and towns are almost completely void of human activity outside the pilgrims and meeting their needs.  The cities are very lively.  Last night the lively partying didn’t stop in the street below until 6:00 in the morning.  As we exited our apartment, we had one painful chore to attend to: discarding Esther’s Hoka tennis shoes.  They were hardly used because they gave her blisters, but we lugged them around for 800 miles. With her new shoes, it would be pretty silly to pack them along.  We wished that we could have dropped them at a donation center, but we hadn’t a clue where to find one.  Into the dumpster they went.  

     We found ourselves walking against the flow again, as students, commuters and delivery services poured into the city as the pilgrims filed out. The scenery went back to the monotonous Meseta, though the distant approaching mountains promise a change of scenery, but with a price.  Esther’s new shoes are doing great. She walked ten miles in them before switching back to sandals the last five miles.

    Yesterday, after we took the opportunity to wash all our clothes, we decided to spread out everything that we are carrying on the bed and document it by a photo. My inventory consists of a shirt bag: three short sleeves, one long sleeve, a fleece vest, a windbreaker and a gortrx jacket (yet to be used); a bag of pants: three shorts and one long; an underwear ba, a sock bag, an electronic bag, a toiletry bag, a supply bag, sandals for the hostels, two sleeping bags and one of Esther’s Hoka tennis shoes (until today 😊)  a medical kit and various other small items.  My pack weighs approximately twenty-two pounds without water and food which some days can add five pounds.  Esther’s pack weighs eighteen pounds before water and food.

     Tonight we are in a newly built albergue, which is very clean and has nice facilities, except we are crammed into a tight room with less than two feet between bunks.