Days 30 and 31: Cacabelos to Sarria/ Rest day in Sarria
I finished my last post with the tearful farewell at Cacabelos. Anna, the cleaner, had been helpful to Andrew the day before, letting him out and in through the locked iron gates so he could locate drugs and Compeed for me. Her cleaning partner, Luis (?) kissed me on both cheeks and implored me to stay one night more. Neither he nor Anna imagined me in Santiago de Compostela. And they struggled to understand the powerful call El Camino exerts over its pilgrims. They watch year after year as wounded pilgrims drug themselves into denial, their hearts and eyes and hiking poles pointing West.
We took an inexpensive bus backwards to Ponferrada, then sideways to Lugo. In Lugo, we discussed “next steps.” Stay in Lugo and walk the 2000-year-old Roman wall? Continue on to Sarria on the next bus out? Umberto, a young Texan with tendinitis, helped our decision. He’d purchased his Sarria ticket, and the Sarria bus left in 90 minutes. Done! Umberto and Andrew ditched me at the bus station with the other wounded pilgrims while they stamped their credentials at the local cathedral and walked a portion of the Roman wall.
Sarria had not changed much in two years. I remembered some things, and saw sites for the first time. In 2013, I walked with my head down. Then, I carefully planted my crutches and feet, and knew pavement and dirt intimately from Sarria to Santiago. Today, we climbed part way up a long, familiar flight of stone steps to arrive at an albergue we stayed at in October 2013. I DID remember that place. Clean. Organized. Welcoming.
The hospitalero gave me a cot under a window, which I slept in for two nights. Roosters woke me early both mornings, lightning woke me during the night. Andrew cooked a fabulous Thai meal after our Canadian, Puerto Rican and American friends showed up our second day in Sarria. Much as I love a pilgrim’s meal, home-made food at Andrew’s hands is a real treat. Sharing it with an assembly of foreign pilgrims in a lofty kitchen with wood beams is heavenly. 
We stayed two nights in our albergue. I iced my knee and ankle with bags of frozen peas. I shopped for new sandals in a Pilgrim shop, but failed on two counts. They didn’t carry my size, and I couldn’t walk to another store. Andrew scouted some possibilities, only to have an elderly Spaniard pantomime his desire to cut Andrew’s long hair. Gotta love the Spanish “no filter.”
Sian, the British peregrina sidelined by a fucked ankle and subsequently abandoned by her group, helped wash dishes with Canadian Iain. Together we discussed walking through injury and the inevitable dirty looks from doctors upon returning to our various homelands. Doctors are one with the Cacabelos cleaners: they don’t get it. And we should listen to them and our bodies more. And it is easy to say from the comfort of our cushy couches in the front rooms of our houses, “I will honour my body. I will stop. The Camino will be here for me another time.” 
Then we arrive in Spain and become things obsessed. 
And this close to the Santiago, there is no room for quitting…only continuing. So we ritually bandage and drug and talk ourselves through another 115 kilometres. We set the alarm earlier because it takes time to wrap swelled feet and shove them into hiking shoes. 
And it’s NOT healthy, yet we are ridiculously happy when we cover the distance to the next café con leche, the next pilgrim meal, glass of wine, warm shower, and bunk bed. We draw strength from “Buen Camino” when paired with “Animo!”
And with each hard step I know there is nothing I’d rather do than walk this crazy path.
¡Ultreia!
~Penny