Hot, sunny, long endless roads -- and the allergies come at no extra charge!

I have arrived in Salamanca, one of the most beautiful cities in Spain, in my humble opinion. The last few days have been through extremely large tracts of land, occasionally with cows sitting on the camino, lots of wildflowers, snow covered mountains, it has been beautiful. Small isolated towns with a hundred inhabitants or so, all of whom are bewildered by the presence of all these pilgrims, but in general very helpful and eager to talk to us.

Yesterday´s walk had the first significant ascent, which led to a beautiful view at the summit, but then at the end, we had about 4 km at the end of just straight slog -- hot, sunny, no shade, walking past bull pastures. People have different strategies for dealing with this kind of camino. Some just put their head down and forge ahead (that's me), but others play games with themselves or imagine things or try to recount something from memory. In any case, no matter what the strategy, we all arrived in San Pedro de Rozados totally wiped out. I got there at about 2:30, having left the albergue in Fuenterroble at the very decadent hour of 8:00 am, and I resolved that from now on I would be up and on the way by no later than 7:00.

But the best laid plans.... Last night the owner of the hostal where I was staying assured me that she would be up and making coffee for us at 7:00. Well, 7 came and went, and I couldn't leave because I had clothes hanging out to dry inside her bar (she did a wash for me). At about 7:40, she showed up, and then told me that it would take a while -- "un ratito" is a very unspecific amount of time -- for the coffee machine to warm up. So I took off without breakfast and am still paying the price of not having had any caffeine all day.

With another late start, I had some hot hours making my way into Salamanca, where it's graduation weekend and there is no room at the inn anywhere in town. We found a youth hostel that would take a group of 4 peregrinos (a Spanish man and his 32 year old daughter, an Austrian guy, and me).

My allergies are getting pretty bad -- I had the foresight to bring along the leftover medicines I got in Portugal last year when I had bad allergies on the Via de la Plata. About two days ago, in the town called Fuenterroble de Salvatierra (unknown to anyone outside Via de la Plata circles) the pharmacist drove 35 km to pick the same medicines up for me and brought them back to me in the albergue. So I am well medicated but suffering -- mainly chest and nose, my eyes seem to be ok.

A free day in Salamanca, don't know what I'll do with myself. It was kind of a shock to enter the tourist world, it makes us realize how totally remote our camino has been. One priority will be to try to stay cool, because the temperatures are rising. And 85 degrees sitting in the shade or walking back and forth to your car is a lot different than 85 degrees walking for hours with 20 pounds on your back. But I am not complaining because this is spectacular.