Day 21: Hontanas to Castrojeriz
After ineffectively battling infection in one stubborn blister for days, I indulged in a taxi ride to a medical clinic. It was only a few hundred metres from my albergue, but the albergue was about forty stone steps straight up to the front door and a fabulous view. I was done with climbing and walking for now.
I waited outside the open clinic at 8:10 a.m. By 9:00 a.m., the locals arrived with their blood work papers in hand. “Pobre peregrina,” they said, and pointed to my oozing foot. They also told me to come back at 11:00 a.m. 
By noon, a doctor in a 1950s house dress met me in the waiting room. She winced at my foot, poked it a bit, and told me the nurse would take care of it at 1:00 p.m. The doctor “doesn’t do blisters.” The doctor said I’d be first in line.
At 12:45 p.m. Andrew and I watched the two-room waiting room fill with old and young and infant Spaniards who were all somehow ahead of me. Two nuns mingled with the patients. The younger of the two threw her weighty rosary around, and managed to jump the queue jumpers.
At 2:30 p.m., an officious nurse in a stylish striped skirt emerged from the infirmary, tossed her Coach bag over her arm, and locked the door.
I can’t say for sure that I didn’t use some of the Spanish curse words learned from my Spanish-speaking students. But I did put up a Spanglish fight. An old lady chimed in. We ganged up on the nurse, but she was leaving. She tap tap tapped her watch with her beautiful nails until…the frumpy-house-dress doctor stepped from her office to see WTF. 
The nurse reopened her office and breathed heavily, furiously over my wound. She was pissed, and, I think, recalled her past life experience as a torturer during the Spanish Inquisition. Yet, unlike those poor bastards, I left the clinic feeling some relief. 
While enjoying my San Miguel in the plaza, an attractive Spaniard named Maribel approached me with her warm hands. She is a Reiki master, and asked permission to do Reiki on my swollen foot. Later in the albergue, Maribel did a full-body Reiki session for me. Maribel arrived the day before to Castrojeriz, dehydrated and heat-exhausted. (This terrible heat also catches the Spanish pilgrims off guard.) Our Hungarian volunteer hospitalera took care of Maribel, as now Maribel cared for me.
My twelve daylight hours in Castrojeriz consisted of medical clinics, Reiki, beer, and mountain scenery. Well, maybe they’re hills, but this girl from St. Catharines sees mountains in “dem hills.” I’m hoping the cocktail of modern and ancient medicines gets my peregrina ass over those hills to Frómista tomorrow.
¡Ultreia!
~Penny