Sunday, September 22
We took the morning bus from Estrella to Logrono today, finally leaving Navarre and entering the wine producing province of La Roija to the west. We shared a seat with two Irish veterans of the Camino, Seamus & his wife, Leah and had a lovely chat for the hour ride. We arrived in Logrono to find ourselves in yet another festival, this one a week long bash celebrating all this wine and the local harvest. The old city is jammed with celebrants and the noise level is high at our pension. We also are cursed by having a Jamaican street band performing right next door in the street. Go figure?
A bit of a downer is my realization that I'm not 45 anymore and have to tailor my expectations accordingly. My energy level has been decreasing since Pamplona and the last stretch into Estella really whipped me more than I thought. My right ankle is almost always in some degree of pain, my left hip and knee are tender and my energy today was at about 60 percent of normal. We worried about maybe high blood pressure or a low level infection but this being Sunday all the local pharmacias are closed. Poor Joan started carrying the load of possible outcomes (none good) if I got worse and our inability to communicate medical issues in Spanish became a looming fear. We didn't get into our room until 3:30 and once there I fell into bed. Something feels wrong and the thought of heading out from this big city scares both of us.
We tried to get some advice from our travel insurance carriers back in the States (HTH) but that was a waste of time. So we decided to wait until things open tomorrow and check my BP and temp at a pharmacist. Assuming that they are normal , we will cut back our daily stages to 5 miles or so for a while and if we have to jump ahead on the bus in order to get to Sarria by October 20 so we can get to Santiago by Nov 1st , so be it. And in the worst case, if it turns out that this us not the time for me to be continuing, then we'll stop and fly home early. Stay tuned!
