Stage 15 – the day I gained an audience with El Farmaceutico

Start: 6:00, 11 ºC, sunny

End: 12:30

Distance: 27.5/344.9 Km

Stayed at: Amanacer de Campos

OST: Pegasus Fantasy

A week earlier, anything more than 25 Km per day sounded like a death sentence.

Today’s almost 28 Km went by without too much pain.

It got pretty hot pretty quickly, and with little shadow on offer I found myself having to carefully tackle the risks of sunstroke AND dehydration. Luckily I had plenty of water – I needed that for the final part, when I was just drenching my hat to ensure some comfort along the way.

The day was quite uneventful, until… I tried to rest for 5 minutes on a bench, finding myself assaulted by mosquitos. MANY mosquitos – I literally could not smash one in time, the moment I lifted my hand a new one had jumped in.
I rushed ahead, tired and in great discomfort, to find a pharmacy.

El Farmaceutico held all the power in our relationship, and he knew it.
I paid a million trillion dollars for some cheap cream. Well, it worked instantly – and I could pick up the pace and finish the stage at a decent time, before it was even hotter.

Agua es vida.

This stage marked the beginning of a welcome new tradition – cold showers. It turns out that putting my feet up did little to help with swelling and pain – intense pain at this point. I was pushing myself more than I thought, evidently. Overconfidence and all that.

Not much to say about Poblacion de Campos – it’s a fairly small town with a couple of nice places to stay in.

Another private room.
Private rooms are a bit of a dilemma – do you HAVE to stay in a dormitory 100% of your nights?

And does it have to be a Municipal Albergue only?

And can it have warm showers? What are the thresholds, who makes the rules?

I used to be much more judgemental about Turigrinos.

Now I am more like

1)if you can carry your backpack, you definitely should

2) walking is more important than sleeping

3) if you need to recover your energies, go for a private room

Self indulgent? 100%. On the other hand, this was a huge physical and psychological challenge, and private rooms, at least once every 3-4 days, made all the different in the world.

You simply can’t rest as well in ANY dormitory.

Next stage: Stage 16: Poblacion de Campos – Calzadilla de la Cueza