So without writing pages and pages of details, the short story is things are going well. Yesterday i walked from Pamplona west and had planned to stay in a town on the mountain, and then take a whole day doing the downhill (since that’s hardest on my knees). I was walking along and bumped in to this woman:

She has turned out to be an angel for me, because the town we were both planning on sleeping in had only one albergue, which turned out to be closed. She immediately said she would stick with me, whether I ended up sleeping outside or catch a ride. Really an angel for me. We ended up hitching a ride out of town along with another woman from Ireland. The guy who gave us a ride was a big Russian guy who turned out to be really sweet, wouldn’t leave us by the highway so he brought us to a gas station where I was able to call a cab back to the town just on the foot of the mountain, Uterga. So I ended up skipping 6 km in total, but i think everything worked out so I would not subject my knees to the loose gravel downhill. Beautiful walking yesterday though:

This morning I left at 9 am and was so excited to be taking the long way around, to a Knight’s Templar hermitage that was built where the Camino Aragones that I was on in France meets up with this Camino. The way was well marked except for one turn, and I took the wrong way. After an hour and a half walking down the wrong farm road and trying unsuccessfully to cut across fields, I finally got to the hermitage at 12:00. And there was Marguerite waiting for me. What a treat for a tired, frustrated girl to see a familiar face. It had taken me 3 hours to go 4 km in the right direction (a normal walking pace for me is about 4 km an hour, although I’ve been going about 3 now that I’m taking it slow with my knee). The hermitage was worth the extra trip. Still has a lot of energy there. A very quiet, powerful place. The building is octagonal, like most of the Templar churches, with an outer ring of 33 arches.

And more beautiful walking into Puente la Reina.

“Puente” means bridge in Spanish, and this one was built in the 11th century by the Romans.

Knee is feeling pretty good as long as I go slow and take care of it. I’m doing a lot of stretching and have it supported with tape and am using two walking poles I bought in Pamplona. It’s been hurting a bit, maybe every 200 steps, in the morning but by the afternoon the joint seems to be loosened up. It has been a wonderful lesson. I am being forced to fix my posture after years of knowing it was bad. When I can remember to relax my core muscles it lets my hips relax, which carries down to my legs. I’m still taking it day by day and walking about half of what I was walking in France, but I’m hearing more reports of people getting injured and going home and I would much rather be slow that one of that contingent. Even though I’m walking at half speed, when I stop and look back, it’s amazing to see how far I’ve come, just letting one foot fall in front of the other.