Just talked with Keith a little while ago and he sounds worn out. He said that he could’ve kept walking, but he’s still needing more sleep to snap out of the time change. Another reason that he stopped for the day was because his pack (which is heavier than he planned–around 22 lbs) is making his shoulders ache. He said it felt like someone had snuck a cinder block into his pack when he wasn’t looking. He’ll experiment with the way it’s packed to see if he can either lighten the load or get it riding better. I’m sure after a day or two he’ll figure it out. He said he’s eating his supply of Clif Bars because that’ll help lighten the load some. He found one kind he particularly likes called “Gary’s Panforte.” It tastes like fruit cake and Keith is one of the few people on the planet that actually likes fruit cake. Still they’re hefty bars and I can see how they’re a mixed blessing weight-wise. :)

He made it just over 12 km today, which is not bad for a first day with jet lag. He walked some of the way off and on with three other people and at one point he almost got lost because the Camino markings changed colors from a real visible yellow to more of a bronze color that blended into the walkways a little too well in one town. He said that a nice lady from the town helped point out the way, though, and kept him on track. He seemed pretty grateful.

Tonight he is staying in a small, but very clean albergue (a hostel—which is the type of place he’ll stay most nights). It has only about half a dozen beds, but he said it’s very clean and everyone is bustling around with all this unrelatable energy. He still needs to do the basics—shower, do laundry, have dinner, etc. before he can sleep, but I know the sound I heard in his voice and he’ll be struggling to stay awake to get it all done.

For those who are interested in the weather (and I know there are some of you weather geeks out there :))—today was overcast and he ran into drizzle in a few spots, but nothing bad. It made for a pretty good hiking day, as he was worried it was going to be too hot. He does have rain gear with him if it starts to pour, but the weather forecast looks like he’ll have a slightly warmer day tomorrow (high of 72F), then two days in the mid-80s and no rain at least in the next 5 to 10 days.

As a side note—laundry is something you do pretty much every day on one of these walks because you only take a few changes of clothes to help lighten your pack. Fortunately for Keith, there was a “holy year” in 2010 (more than 272,000 pilgrims made the pilgrimage that year!) that influenced some towns and albergues to install washer and dryers for those on pilgrimage and I recommended that he especially take advantage of any of those benefits to keep his strength for the walk instead. Today he sounded like he might do just that.