Thanks for the info. My doctors are now recommending no more hiking (Caminos) with a heavy rucksack...sheesh!
At 63, after two earlier decades of being morbidly obese, my doctors are finally telling me that the menisci in both of my knees are shot, and arthritis is beginning to work on my ankles and hips...(family trait). At a time like this I am sure glad I am not a farm animal... Bone-on-bone grating of the knees sure does hurt on a rainy day in Spain. Voltaren and paracetamol work very well, but only for so long.
FYI, after FOUR Caminos, this time my rucksack was FINALLY down to 23 pounds / 10 kilos. This is less than my starting "naked" (eeeeuw!) weight of 246 pounds, or 112 kilos.
Talk about irony. It took me four Camino efforts over as many years, as Ivar can attest by my "down the road" shipments to him each year, to lighten my load. Each year, I struggled to shave every ounce and gram, spending money on the lightest quality gear money could buy. In the process, continually proved Albert Einstein's theorem about insanity...repeating the same rucksack loading experiment, while somehow thinking it would, somehow, trick the scale...
Karma being what it is, Nate & Faith will receive all my earlier "test objects" when I bring them to the Pilgrim House donativo in July. Nate and I spoke in April, and they are willing to take all my "surplus to requirements" Camino stuff off my hands. As I will work as a Voluntario through the Feast of Santiago, and for some weeks thereafter, checking a second bag through to Santiago is the easiest solution. It is time to pare back and give back...
After I had to quit at Sarria in April from the discomfort and pain, I am reassessing how best to continue to do a Camino as long as I can stand. It does not affect my ability to volunteer at Santiago each year, but it does affect walking a Camino.
Both the Correos and the commercial mochila services offer very viable alternatives for assistance with mochilas. I will work them into my future plans. As I typically do not stay in albergues, I should mot have problems arriving "assisted" by the mochila service.
On the plus side, I can now board most airlines sooner as a person needing extra time to board, as I must use a cane some days...in case one of my knees decides to go one way, when I want to go the other way.
Still and all, while getting old can be a bit$h, it sure beats the alternative of NOT living longer to get older...
Thanks again.