Today is Day 4 however for me it was Day Van.  My knees had started to hurt 
after the 2nd day but it was just a soreness.  Yesterday it got progressively worse until I finally simply could not go down a hill.  A couple of times I found myself, literally out in the middle of nowhere, standing about 1/2 way down a hill and unable to move.  I won't go into the pain; I just blocked as much of it as I could but undeniably something was going wrong and doing it in a hurry.  FINLLY I made it to the picnic spot, had lunch, then rode to the hotel with one of the Guides, Lu.

I asked to be taken to a Doctor and that's when Jorge stepped in.  He IS Spanish so he knows the drill.  I told him I was probably going to need a cortical steroid/local anesthetic injection in each knee.  He knew that the public clinics would not be able to go there so took a taxi out to a private clinic.  Quick note here; it was already 6:30pm.  In Spain, almost every business stays open much later than in the States because of their 10pm dinners and 3 hour lunch.  These customs irked me when I lived here but I was grateful we weren't going to have to go to a Hospital Emergency Room.

The Doctor (a Woman - I think a lot of Doc's are women in Spain because the men are too busy being Spanish) asked me if I had tried Ibuprofen.  If I had a mouthful of something at the time I would have spit it all over the office laughing.  I explained that this was not an  Ibuprofen problem and he relayed that to her.  Fortunately Jorge was VERY bilingual an I explained to him what she needed to do.  Once she got the gist of what was going on, she ordered up a  massive injection.  I believe I heard her say 10cc.  I don't know how many of you have seen a 10cc syringe but it's about the diameter of your middle finger (my middle finger); it's a big shot.  But, the nurse that gave the shot was a  magician.  I showed her a cheek, she swabbed it with alcohol, then she was telling me she was done.  I honestly did not feel a thing and if I hadn't seen the red spot where the needle went in and felt the lump under my skin, I would have sworn she didn't do anything.

So today I rode in the van.  We drove about 30 minutes, set up lunch then waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Finally the first of our group showed up but it was hours before everybody made it.  We left our last hotel around 8:30am and we didn't get here until around 4:00pm.  Way too long to be on van duty.  I'm trying to ascertain if it's safe for me to Trek again.  Just because the pain went away doesn't mean that it's safe to put that tendon/muscle back to work.  I've got feelers out to get an opinion I can trust.  I really don't want to spend another day in the van but what would be worse would to harm my knees irreversibly and end up in the van for the entire 35 day trip and go home with yet another medical condition.  Before anybody asks, yes, I am going to take the cautious route here.

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You don’t realize the enormity of what you’ve taken on until you see, literally, your first road sign after leaving the first hotel.  That is a long way to walk – it’s a long way to drive!

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Tim keeps trying to talk me into moving to North County because there are some “cool” houses up there.  Well Babe, here’s a cool house literally in the middle of nowhere in Spain.  Why don’t we move here, raise goats and sell goat cheese for a living?  It is a COOL house.  LOL

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Not my best photo but I couldn’t get out of the sun.  This is one of the 5 hexagonal churches in Spain.  They belonged to the Knights of the Templar;  a group shrouded in Myth.

Lu - Tour Guide

This is Lu (not sure of the Spelling).  Her and Jorge are our guides.  She is with us the entire trip while Jorge (I might have referred to him as Miguel) is going to come and go.  Not sure why.  She’s great.  Very bubbly personalty.

Girl with Bra

Classic Pilgrim.  Her shirt is hanging off of the back of her pack and her bra is hanging off the side (to dry)

   Note

These are just some of the many, many snapshots I have from my trip so far.  I’m trying to mix it up a bit or all you will see for 35 days is dirt, cows and goats.  I’m uploading more video which usually takes all night so, with any luck,, you will have a video page tomorrow or maybe even later tonight.  If you have any requests, please feel free to ask for them in the Comments section.  If you can’t make a comment it’s because you haven’t registered for the site yet.