Day 21 - San Martin del Camino to Astorga

This post will be in the form of an open letter to the Merrell shoe company (which will also be mailed to them with pictures).

Dear Merrell,

You'll have to excuse my bluntness here, but your shoes suck. I bought a pair of Chameleon 3 Ventilator GTX hiking shoes to do El Camino de Santiago, a 500 mile hike across Spain over varied terrain, including sand, grass, gravel, with the majority of it being paved track. The shoes were ordered from Zappos.com on July 7th so that I could have ample time to break in the shoes and make sure they'd work well (my first day of walking El Camino was September 28th). They were definitely comfortable and walked very well. I only put about 75-100 miles on them in preparation for my trip.

Merely three hundred miles into my trip, I couldn't use them anymore: both the soles had worn through and the right shank collapsed, noticeable altering the support of my arch and making a squeaking/creaking sound with each step I took. I'm not an exceedingly heavy man (175 pounds at the start of the trip). The Camino Frances route I took allows for shelter every night and plenty of food and water along  the way, meaning that I only carried 25 pounds at most (including snacks and water). I certainly would not have expected both soles to wear through in only 400 miles. I would've gladly sent you the shoes to see the damage firsthand, but there was not a snowball's chance in hell I was carrying them for 200 more miles (I didn't shave for 5 1/2 weeks because I didn't want to carry shaving cream and a razor) or pay to ship them from Spain. I did, however, take pictures to show you the wear of the soles and the tear in the Gore-Tex caused by the collapsed shank. They are enclosed.

Luckily when they were finally unusable, I was very close to a town big enough to have several sporting goods stores. After spending a couple hours trying on different shoes and spending $147.89 on new ones (after converting the Eurodollars to the horrible U.S. Dollar), I had nothing but fear that I would get blisters since the new shoes of course weren't broken in. Of course there was nothing I could do about that except take excess precautions (foot antiperspirant, vaseline, thin socks under thicker socks, airing my feet out every few hours, Compeed on hot spots, etc.). Despite all of the precautions I took, I still got a few blisters.

At dinner after purchasing the new boots, I met a German gentleman who was doing El Camino for the FIFTH time...IN THE SAME PAIR OF BOOTS. His hiking boots have traveled underfoot over 2,400 miles and aside from having nearly treadless soles, were in decent shape. Your hiking shoes, the third version of the Chameleon model, I should add, didn't even last 400 miles. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. Given the circumstances, I'd like Merrell to pay $147.89 for the replacement boots I was forced to buy and I'll eat the cost of the necessary blister prevention supplies and the pain and suffering I endured when I got blisters anyway.

I look forward to your reply.

Dissapointedly,

Thomas Lin

Day 20 - León to San Martin del Camino

Today's walk wasn't bad. I kept it short on account of too many Calimochos the night before. San Martin del Camino is a quiet little town, as many of them have been. There were very few pilgrims staying in the municipal albergue (there were 3 of us!). It was rather cold already in the afternoon, so we knew it was going to be a cold night. The heating at the albergue was not on, so I was a little worried about the night. My sleeping bag (the Marmot Pounder) kept me plenty warm throughout the night. Getting up in the morning was difficult as I didn't want to leave the warmth of my sleeping bag.

The three of us in San Martin del Camino made me realize how my trip was really the United Nations del Camino. One guy was French, but also spoke Spanish. And the other guy was Brazillian, but spoke Spanish as well. Notice that nobody else spoke English. With my French better than my Spanish, I was speaking in my horrible French to the French guy who was translating it to Spanish for the other guy. I took several years of French in school, but the last time I did that was 1993. The last time I've tried to use French? 1993.

Here's a list of the countries of people I've met on this trip (in no particular order):

• United States (VERY few)
• Canada
• Australia
• Holland
• Belgium
• Spain (incl. Mallorca and the Canary Islands)
  
• France
• Germany
• Austria
• Iceland
• Poland
• Brazil
• Argentina
• Italy
• England
• Ireland
• S. Korea
• Estonia
• Denmark
• Japan
• Norway
• Finland
  

It was quite an eclectic mix of people. Generally, everyone speaks English. I noticed a lot of the Spaniards (doing El Camino) didn't speak English. But we were all able to somehow communicate our needs and they were met.