Day 22: Castojeriz to Frómista
First, let me admit to being good at telling other pilgrims to respect their bodies, to cab forward, to take rest days. I’m awesome at offering tissues to wipe tears of disappointment. Second, let me admit to being an asshole about taking my own advice. Tears and snot mingle on my frustrated face.
Andrew left me this morning to make the hard climb up and over Alto Mostelares. I packed, put on flip flops, grabbed hiking poles, and…found standing on my left foot excruciating. Our Hungarian hospitalera suggested a taxi to the small hospital in Frómista. My wound seeped infection through the dressings. I needed immediate medical care.
Miranda also required a doctor. She had spent two days in Castrojeriz, and really needed another off her feet. Like me, she could dish the advice, but she wasn’t taking any of it. We were sharing the taxi until she decided to heft her wounds over Alto Mostelares. I wished her well, and never saw her again. There are so many ways of ending a Camino. Infected blisters are one of those ways.
The cab driver with the handle-bar moustache picked up my pack and sticks, and helped me onto the seat. I cried. He drove. 
The good man stopped at significant sites along the way so that I could enjoy what I could not pass on foot. He spoke in Spanish about the history of these places, and again I quietly thanked my high school Spanish teacher and my many Spanish-speaking students. 
We arrived at the hospital, and the driver explained my needs to the front desk administrators. He called me “bonita”, tried to refuse the tip, and put a clay shell with silver glaze around my neck. 
I won’t go into another frustrating hospital/doctor story. I will say that this year’s hospital experience is radically different from 2013, and largely unpleasant. A sympathetic white-coat offered me free advice, and I limped to a Farmacia on the opposite end of Frómista. The pharmacist gave me 27€ of tensor wraps, antiseptic spray, and antibiotics. He wished me well, and I lurched along the street to the central plaza to wait for Andrew.
The rest of the day was the usual pilgrim fare: find an albergue, unpack, launder clothes, find food, find wifi, check mass times, go to mass, go to sleep. In this routine, we find time to write, blog, explore, and talk to other peregrinos. Andrew and I didn’t explore much of Frómista. Our attractive albergue was on the far side of town, across from the small hospital I visited earlier. After a brief and unexpected storm, we moved our laundry inside to dry, then headed for the emotional pilgrims’ mass. 
Frómista hosts three massive churches. It seems the smaller the town, the larger and more numerous the churches. During the Pilgrims’ Benediction, a group of nuns handed us prayer cards in our language. The priest welcomed us at the front of the church and wished each of us well. Upon leaving the church, we saw a pilgrim we’d earlier seen during mass. His little dog, Amigo, waited on the church steps. 
Dennis is a pilgrim from Madagascar. He had already walked to Santiago from Paris, and was returning on foot to Paris with Amigo. After receiving the Eucharist, Dennis stepped outside to stand quietly with a tin plate. He never asked for money. He smiled at everyone, and thanked us kindly when we placed some Euros in his saucer. Dennis accomplished all through the kindness of strangers, and the love of a dog.
I spent much time in Frómista walking to and from doctors and pharmacies, talking to pilgrims over beers in the plaza, and waiting for Andrew to come down from the mountain after his six hour walk. I know that Frómista has three magnificent churches and a few albergues. But the Frómista I write fondly about includes a priest who loves pilgrims, (even those who rely on charity), the nun who passed tissues to an overwhelmed Dutch peregrina, the barmaid who made melt-in-your-mouth cheese cake, the healing pharmacist who spoke English and tended to my feet as I sat broken and alone in his Farmacia, and a plaza placed along the Camino for pilgrims to refresh and reconnect. 
In that plaza, in that town, a wife can wait for her husband, surrounded by laughter, buoyed by church bells, and nourished by cheese cake. When things seemed bad, they couldn’t have been any better.
¡Ultreia!
~Penny