Day 18: Burgos to Rabé de las Calzadas
Well, I walked out of Burgos. I acquired blisters the size of pillows, and managed to leave behind my raincoat and 100% silk sleeping bag liner. It was on its second Camino, and I didn’t really use it much this time. Nothing like a European heat wave to make you crave sleeping on top of everything you own, and (potential) bed bugs be damned. 
Not much to say about the walk. It was hot and dry and unremarkable. At one point, we sat outside under a makeshift gazebo across from an elderly son caring for his very old mother. She stared evenly at me and Andrew, as her son wiped her chin. Eventually he wheeled her away across the dusty street, inhabited by dogs too tired and heated to care or bark. The pueblo had a definite sleepy unwild west feel to it. We swept through beaded curtains of the “saloon” to buy Cokes. Swinging doors would have been appropriate, but this is Spain, and beaded curtains in every doorway rule.
I was ready to collapse when we entered Rabé de las Calzadas. We made the right choice of albergues to stay at in this town of 200. We entered a dark former medieval pilgrim “hospital” run by a seemingly stern hospitalera. She ushered us into a small room that was close to three storeys tall. All four walls from floor to ceiling were covered in Camino de Santiago souvenirs and maps. This museum is her labour of love, as is caring for pilgrims. The little albergue slept eight, but only six of us took beds. Michelle, the hospitalera, also liked to spend individual time with each pilgrim as she checked us in. She carefully recorded our Canadian passport information and stamped our pilgrim credentials. 
Michelle was checking in an Austrian girl, Irena, when a Polish “gentleman” reminded Michelle that he had walked a long way and was tired, and could she please talk less and speed up the process. This same Polish “gentleman” had also jumped the queue, and cut off an elderly Italian pilgrim who’d been waiting longer in the museum. Michelle looked over her glasses at the Polish pilgrim and reminded him that this was an albergue, not a hotel. She also told him he was very rude, and too old to behave rudely. He should know better. Yay! Then she went back to Irena’s details. 
The most fabulous dinner ever was homemade by Michelle, and donativo. Andrew and I threw 10 Euro each for our meal. Irena, the Austrian, Furio, the Italian, and Pierre, the French Canadian, each put in 10 Euro for their meals. The Polish “gentleman” made a great deal of noise in his money belt, and put in…? Nothing. Our donations cover the meals for next day’s pilgrims. I hope he’s proud. He also spoke the loudest of all about the tastiness of the meal. Of course he did. We never saw him again. 
Michelle has been a hospitalera for forty years, and she tends to many pilgrim ailments. She took one look at my feet, and asked me, “Do you want to walk to Santiago? You won’t walk on those feet, unless you let me thread your blisters.”
Gross out alert: Michelle disinfected a needle and thread and my foot, then carefully pulled the thread through my blisters, leaving the thread in place. She removed the needle, cut the thread, and tied a knot in each thread sticking from a blister. She applied iodine, and my foot looked much worse than it felt. Still, she was terribly concerned about the blister on my left heel. I’d done some significant tissue damage, and the threading only drained a bit of the fluid.
Before I crawled into my lower bunk, she spread green clay all over my swollen left ankle and wrapped it in plastic wrap for the night. When I awoke after a cold night (damn losing my silk liner!), my skin was cold, the bed was cold, my clothes were cold, but that damn clay was almost hot. It had absorbed the heat from my ankle, and I was a sudden believer. Michelle wrote down what I needed to ask for in the Farmacia when I finally reached an open one on Monday.
Michelle had a lot of quirks for staying comfortable and bed bug free at her albergue. We had to place our backpacks in large black garbage bags hanging from hooks at the ends of our bunk beds. A separate bag was for our other textiles. No textile was to touch the bed. Fine by daylight, but getting ready in the darkness of the morning was tough. I manage to leave a ton of stuff behind while preparing in lit conditions. But eccentricities aside, I have never had a person attend so carefully to my wounds and inflammations as Michelle did. I was reminded of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. Touching the feet is so personal, so intimate. Michelle disinfected, threaded, and wrapped my injured feet, and I felt cared for and loved.
In the darkness of a Spanish early morning, we awoke to fresh coffee in urns, hot water and tea bags, little pastries, and fresh fruit. I took my first steps towards Hontanas on threaded feet and a light spirit.
¡Ultreia!
~Penny