Friday: Mistakes Were Made

Every pilgrim makes mistakes on the Camino. Let me tell you about two from today.

The first involves a wrong turn. I blame confusing arrows. And my support for calling them confusing is that mi amigo Michael was almost misled, too. I had just returned from my 20-minute detour when I found Michael about to make the same mistake.

In truth, the path I went down was well maintained and looked like it could be part of the Camino. It led to some photos I like that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Here is one:

When Sharon and I walked the Camino del Norte in 2023, I led us to a much longer detour. And that time, it wasn’t confusing arrows but my misreading a map after an albergue host told us about a beautiful coastal alternative to the main Camino path. The mistake cost us about two hours but it led to Sharon taking our favorite photo of the entire 500-mile journey. We like the photo so much that we had it enlarged on canvas and it hangs in our bedroom:

While on today’s detour, I discovered a mistake that was potentially more damaging: I had left behind the knee sleeve that I always wear on my left knee on hikes with significant ups and downs. Without the knee support, pain is sure to follow.

(On the first day of the Camino del Norte in 2023, I made — and learned from — many mistakes. Among them: I didn’t put on my support sleeve until my knee started hurting in the afternoon. That wasn’t good enough. It forced us to take a day off so my knee could heal before Sharon and I resumed our walk. After that, I wore the knee sleeve every day of the Camino, even when we had relatively flat days.)

Today, I knew exactly where the knee sleeve was: On a bedpost in the albergue I had left over an hour ago — too far to go back and fetch it.

Fortunately, I brought a second one in case my right knee started acting up.

Normally when you are carrying everything in your backpack, it would just be a matter of fishing out the knee sleeve and putting it on. However, this was one of two days that I transferred about two-thirds of my gear forward because of extremely challenging inclines. The knee sleeve would be waiting for me when I got to the next albergue — after about seven more hours of intense ascents and descents.

What to do? This was a remote area and I would not pass any pharmacies to get a new knee support. I didn’t want an injury, especially one that might derail the trip or part of it.

I looked through the first aid kit I’ve been carrying hoping to find something like an Ace bandage. No such luck. But there was a roll of gauze.

After consulting my favorite AI search engine, I wrapped the gauze strip in a pattern that mimicked the support areas of the knee sleeve. It didn’t offer the same compression at all, but it just might work. If it didn’t and my knee started hurting, there were stretches of the walk along roads where I could call a taxi.