Day 38: Salceda to Santiago de Compostela
The hospitalero’s wife loaded four eager pilgrims into her van and drove us back to Salceda. Santiago was a day within reach on healthy legs, maybe two days on my legs. But, Andrew reserved two nights at the Seminario Menor in Santiago de Compostela on my credit card. I had no choice. Game on to Santiago.
At first, we made very good time, despite getting turned around in a few places. The Camino does change in response to construction, safety, and business interests. I looked for the site of a favourite picture I’d snapped of Andrew in 2013, but the Camino now skirted around the fountain at Santa Irena, and I missed it.
Still, for each memory doused along the Way, we enjoyed memories of other places and people. We simultaneously recognized the tree stump I sat on when interviewed for a Dutch video. Now that’s amazing!
Confusion over yellow arrows at Santa Irene.
O’Pedrouzo for coffee. No wifi. A handwritten sign in Spanish next to the cash register admonished patrons: “Do not ask for wifi. Talk to each other.”
Past a chain link fence stuffed with every possible bit of pilgrim garbage and blessing: shampoo bottles, toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, a poncho, letters, hair bows and elastics, a roll of toilet paper, single shoes, flip flops, holy cards in several different languages, ribbons, prayers scrawled on torn notepaper, and crosses fashioned from worn, knotted socks. A fence covered in humanity’s junk, yet more human than the fences of Cirueña stuffed with fake green garland to block prying pilgrim eyes. The fence along the woodland path through Cimadevila invited lingering and conversation and contribution.
On to San Paio for coffee and wifi. 
At Lavacolla, we stopped again for café con leche, wifi, and a long talk with Graham, the Scottish film producer in the midst of his Camino documentary. He snapped pictures along the Way to remind him of places and people. He looked to make a documentary about the Camino that differed from both The Way and Six Ways to Santiago. Those films, he felt, were similar because they looked more at Camino relationships than the Camino. After we parted ways, Andrew and I discussed Graham’s idea that a Camino film could be divorced from relationships. Good luck to you, Graham.
Monte del Gozo, the Mount of Joy. In 2013, I watched Andrew climb the hill and photograph the enormous four-sided monument honouring Pope John Paul II, Saint Francis of Assisi, and pilgrims. This time, I climbed Monte del Gozo with Andrew. I waited my turn as pilgrims, excited before the final five kilometre push to Santiago, snapped pictures atop the hill. The Notre Dame choir arrived ahead of us. The white-robed nun stamped credentials with the sello from the tiny chapel of San Marcos. Her habit dusted the tops of her dirty brown hiking boots as she bent over a table piled with the choir members’ pilgrim credentials. The choir sang French hymns inside the chapel. Divine. I forgot my frustration with them in a few moments of song.
Onwards to Santiago de Compostela. From experience, we knew backpacks were forbidden in the Cathedral, so we continued on to the Seminario…the long, I-think-we’re-lost, extra kilometres way. At the Seminario, we waited nearly forty-five minutes to check into our cells followed by a climb of eighty-six steps and several hundred metres to our beds on the far side. 
We are still married.
The Seminario deserves a separate blog entry. We slept separately in single cells with single beds. The communal showers were spacious enough once you were in. The opening to the shower was similar to pushing a camel through the eye of a needle. I thought I might need lube to squeeze my ass into the shower stall.
*****

Pilgrims walk to Santiago de Compostela for different reasons. Often, the reason you walk changes as you walk. When pain, reflection, and relationships give new perspective on the walk, and new reasons, the walk becomes a pilgrimage.
We held hands and walked together under the pilgrim arch into Praza Obradoiro Catedral. The Catedral de Santiago de Compostela remained majestic. Unchanged. 
We were different. 
¡Ultreia!
~Penny

Day 37: Arzúa to Salceda via Marquiño
I’ll keep this short, because the day certainly wasn’t. Still, the Camino does provide, and today, our Camino angel appeared in rough guise.
The day was supposed to end at Salceda. We walked a bit out of our way to stay in a nice Casa Rural we remembered from 2013. We met with Completo, and practically collided with the tour bus pulling in as we hauled our sorry asses back to the Camino in search of a bed. 
A young Irishman who walked the Portuguese Way, but went off to meet his dad at Astorga along the Camino Frances, met us as we double-backed.
“Don’t go there,” we said. “Completo. You can see the tour bus parked on the road.”
“Fuckers!” Brian yelled in accented English.
He explained the situation to his dad when his dad and a Scottish film maker, Graham, came up on us at the intersection.
“Do you think we’ll find anything in Salceda?” the dad asked. “It’s been crazy since Sarria.”
Their group of three walked ahead of us, guaranteeing they’d snatch the last available beds. We watched Brian criss-cross the road, shaking his head “No” before they left Salceda.
Andrew pointed to the pensión Brian earlier crossed to. “We can ask,” he said.
“Completo,” the gruff hospitalero stated.
“Donde vamos por un albergue?” I cried. My Spanish sucked, but the hospitalero, José, knew what I asked, and could read the grief and pain in my face. He watched me for fifteen minutes as I drank my Coke and tried for a plan B with Andrew.
“Uno momento, por favor,” said José.
“Uno momento” became 90-momentos. That gruff Camino angel called as far away as Lavacolla, a town close to the Santiago airport. Had there been a place in Lavacolla, I’d have slept outside anyway. Walking another step was nearly out of the question.
Then, José instructed us to wait at his pensión until a hospitalero from a place called Marquiño arrived to pick us up. This other hospitalero would take us about fifteen kilometres away and off-Camino to his hotel. It cost us 36 Euros for the night, but we had a private room with bath and hot water after 5:00 p.m., and a ride back to Salceda the next morning. (I didn’t want to cheat by being dropped off closer to Santiago in the morning, although Andrew considered the option. He worried about my leg.)
Later that night, José drove an Italian couple to Marquiño for the night. It was well past 8:00 p.m., and they, too, were without a bed. José never financially benefitted in any way from this arrangement. He helped though, at first, I’m sure he preferred to look away. It was a late night for José, and Camino Angels need sleep, too.
I discovered I can be too tired to care about hot water that runs rusty from unused faucets, or so hurt that I’ll trust a complete stranger to drive us into the middle of nowhere in a foreign country. The Camino provides, all right, if you can trust and accept gifts disguised as isolated, failing hotels, and gruff exteriors. 
And I whisper a prayer of “graçias” because we are okay. Again. 
“Graçias, José. “Buen Camino and Ultreia from two very grateful Canadian pilgrims.
~Penny

Day 36: Casa Nova to Arzúa
Part 1: The road to Ribadiso
I slept from 7:30 p.m. until the early risers departed Casa Nova at 5:30 a.m. I slept in the clothes I walked in yesterday, didn’t shower, and didn’t care. But I needed to pee, and nearly wet my Macabi skirt while sliding my feet across tile floors enroute to the toilets.
Roosters broke the foggy morning silence, as Andrew and I set out in the damp fog. We could have/should have taken a moody picture of the trees along the Camino shrouded in the thick waves of mist, but neither of us cared to reach outside of the warm cocoons we’d made for ourselves from scarves to reach for our iphones. Sometimes, you gotta use your imagination!
First café con leche stop: Melide and wifi.
The walk to this point was mostly lovely, and far too pastoral and boring to blog about. What happened past Melide is the stuff of blog material.
Like the tv shows featuring two idiots on a quest, Andrew and I actually repeated the words, “Today will be a short day.” Didn’t Einstein say the definition of insanity was repeating a process and expecting a different result? He must have walked the Camino during the Spanish Vacation. I’d like to know what he did differently.
Destination: Castañeda. An in-between stage. (yup) Won’t be busy. (nope) Albergues with beds. (nope)
After bombing out at the albergue, we walked to a pensión offering two small beds in a small room with bath for 39 Euros. I may have been exhausted, but I’m frugal. We walked on.
Maybe ten metres later we approached a farm with a messy yard strewn with farm implements. A bare-chested, middle-aged man worked in his garden. Yes girls, he sweated. Andrew walked on ahead, always ahead, and past the sweaty, bare-chested farmer with John Lennon shades and dark curly hair with strands of grey. But the smaller details were harder to notice.
As I dragged on behind, Farmer Sean looked up and noticed me. I was staring, but mostly because he resembled an old high-school buddy of my ex-husband. So Farmer Sean, who resembled Paul B., left his yard and walked alongside me. 
“Hello!” he said.
“Hola,” I responded, not even realizing that he did speak to me in lovely English-accented English. 
We shared the usual small talk about the unusual heat and our destination. Andrew walked back toward me when he realized his wife was no longer bringing up the rear (or looking at his rear) any longer. He peered at me over my backpack, which he dutifully carried on his chest since Sarria. I introduced my husband, and stared at the Camino Frances route tattoo on Sean’s right side. 
“If Ribadiso is full, you have a place here.” Sean waved to the back of his grand farmhouse. I hoped he meant inside and not camped out back. We thanked him and continued on. 
We did regret not taking him up on his offer, given what awaited us.
Part 2: Ribadiso Completo
“Wait for me at the bridge.” I watched Andrew walk away with our packs in the heat towards Ribadiso. I was alone, but not quite alone, on a path between corn fields, and within shouting distance of a church choir from Notre Dame. They spread out over a kilometre, prayed regularly, and walked musically from Sarria. We tried to avoid them; they took up space in the albergues. But I couldn’t out walk them. Their priest in white robes and hiking sandals, and the two white robed nuns in hiking boots, kept the choir on a slow but rigid schedule of walking, praying, and eating. And as several police cruisers moved down a path not intended for cars, I was happy for the Notre Dame group’s presence.
I arrived at a highway bridge. It was not the bridge Andrew remembered or wanted me to wait at, and fortunately I was uncomfortable waiting there. So I moved forward until my right knee felt electric. In the distance I recognized Italian Heidi sitting on a rock waiting for her friends somewhere behind me.
“Can I offer you an ice pack?” Heidi pulled a plastic package from her backpack, cracked it, and ahhhhh, instant relief for my knee. We were soon joined by British Liam, a Taiwanese guy with traditional Taiwanese hat, and Heidi’s two friends. Then Andrew moved glumly towards us, carrying cold drinks and no backpacks. He made a cut throat motion with his hand. NO beds in Ribadiso, which was still two kilometres ahead. 
“The hospitalera booked us two beds about two kilometres past Ribadiso, in Arzúa.” 
DO THE MATH. At least four more kilometres to walk for a bed, and we had to make up time in case they gave them away.
We collected our bags in Ribadiso after two dispirited kilometres, thanked the hospitalera for her help, and made it to Arzúa. That blessed huge five floor albergue had an elevator! Rachela, the girl who gave up her bottom bunk in Casa Nova, and her two friends heard I’d scored a bed, and came to welcome me. I saw only Sylvia again during the pilgrims’ mass in Santiago.
Neither Andrew nor I wanted to give much credibility to the so-called bed race, but it is a reality during Spanish Vacation, and a problem for the injured. I can rise and shine at 5:00 a.m., but the Notre Dame choir, or various Boy Scout groups, or school groups, or summer camp groups will arrive before us. And although the Xuntas cannot be reserved, the large groups arrive quickly and take the first-come first-served bunks, leaving the injured (often the long-haulers) to continue walking through injury, or sleep outside. Of course, options include taxiing ahead to a place and taxiing back the next morning to where you left off, but that also adds euros to the cost of your night.
At our lowest point, I scouted a place outside in the corner of a field I thought we could spend the night. 
“How about there?” I asked.
“Too much toilet paper,” Andrew answered.
Another truth about the Camino: if you find a place sheltered enough to sleep, someone has already probably popped a squat there.
¡Ultreia!
~Penny

Day 35: Gonzor to Casa Nova
“I know you’re suffering. We have extra days, so let’s make this a short day.” Famous. Last. Words.
There are no short days when you travel with all of Spain along the Camino, and they get to the albergues first…because they started two days ago, while you’ve walked for five weeks and hundreds of kilometres. No, I’m not bitter. Frustrated, maybe. I understand how it happens. I just wish there was some way to accommodate those of us who have done the distance and look and smell like we’ve done the distance. 🙂 But there isn’t.
Andrew quit blogging tonight because he sounded negative, and he did not want to sound cranky.
We headed out on a positive note with the Spanish conga line. I continue to be impressed by families with small children as young as six who choose to put in 115 kilometres…and call that a vacation. Twin boys with Spiderman backpacks passed us. They were six-years old, and walked better than I did. (Okay, I am a bit jealous.) Maybe those six-year-olds will grow into long-haulers.  
We aimed for Palas de Rei. It was a stop for us in 2013, where we enjoyed a nice albergue and meal. This night, in that albergue, we could have taken two beds in separate rooms. Not a problem for us. We sleep in bunk beds anyway. However, because my ankle/knee issues are so severe, and moving in the morning is difficult after everything seizes during the night, Andrew preferred to stay in a room with me to help me prepare in the morning. Honestly, you would not believe the extra time it takes to bandage my foot, rub down my knee, and swallow a small farmacia of drugs at six a.m. in the freaking dark.
BIG MISTAKE!
Next shitty albergue had a small room with three beds and no private bath for 40 Euros! WTF! 

Next city, next albergue. Completo.

Next city, next albergue. Completo.
Next city, next albergue, twelve hours walking, 24 kilometres of injuries…the last two beds in Casa Nova.
I was tearful as Andrew went ahead to check on bed availability. Across the street, a French peregrino who remembered me from Cacabelos, was in shock that I still walked, and pointed out the albergue with the (possible) two beds. An old lady called for her missing pooch. I saw the dog running towards her, but she didn’t see it, so we had a strange moment when I motioned to her dog, yelling “Esta aqui, esta aqui!” and she thought I mean the albergue. 
She, it turned out, was the hospitalera. So, a good deed, turned into another good deed.
The woman allowed me my hiking poles to climb the many steps, gave us the last two beds, and asked/demanded a young short-hauler to give up her bottom bunk for me. 
Now, the top bunks in Casa Nova were fairly low, so I figured Andrew could shove my ass up. The hospitalera never gave him a chance. After ordering poor Rachela out of her bed, she started removing Rachela’s things and tossing them onto the top bunk that was supposed to be mine. I stood mortified and protesting, but Rachela came over and wrapped her arms around my shoulders while I sobbed with embarrassment and relief. I did not want her to think this was my plan, and she did understand. “I would have done it anyway,” she said. “You are injured. No one had to ask me.”

I gratefully crawled into my lower bunk at 7:30 p.m. with a much different feeling toward short-haulers, and slept immediately.
¡Ultreia!
~Penny

Day 33: O Pena to Gonzor
When I began this post, I typed O Pena to Gondor. There’s a nod to Lord of the Rings fans. But, as we struggle to remember names of places we’ve been to or are heading into, the name association works. Until it sticks and you can’t remember the Spanish name, and someone wants to know where you found a bed and in what city…! And if they’ve never read Lord of the Rings, then you get strange looks. 🙂
Andrew and I started out, two peregrinos, (okay, one peregrino and one peregrina) amidst a sea of brightly dressed short-haulers. They spread out across the dirt paths. The bicigrinos yelled or rang bells from their handlebars, unheard by the hoards listening to loud music through earbuds and shouting at friends walking at their elbows. For the first time in seven hundred kilometres, I respected and had sympathy for the bicigrinos. They, at least, had pedalled their butts from afar. The bicigrinos and long-haul peregrinos were on the same Camino page. 
We walked through more forested areas, very beautiful, humid sections along walls of stacked stone. We kicked greying pine cones along the path. Some nearly the size of a foot. The forests provided shade, but no breeze circulated between the trees, and the air was close and heavy.
We emerged into sunny open areas with breeze, but the sun was brutal. Although we travelled with water, I needed electrolytes. And when it looked like (Gondor) Gonzor wasn’t close, we slunk into a farmer’s hayfield and slept under a row of trees. It was a picky bed, but I entertained spending the night there anyway. Andrew feared we’d be wakened by grazing cows, so we packed up and continued the dreadful walk through wasteland.
I remembered Gonzor. In 2013, I photographed Andrew feeding a black and white kitty next to his red plastic chair. The cat was gone now, but the red chairs remained. We checked into a nice albergue wedged between a barn (smelled manure) and a cemetery. To connect to wifi, we returned to the bar, where Andrew enjoyed a big-breakfast style supper, and I wolfed down a salad. The white asparagus makes an appearance more and more in Galicia. 
We drank more than necessary because we needed the wifi. But we also needed to meet the 10:00 p.m. curfew, so we cut short our choppy FaceTime conversations with family and friends six hours behind us. They had trouble understanding that adults needed to run back to meet curfew or face a locked albergue door. Gotta love Camino albergue life!
I reread my Camino journal before writing posts. This day, remembered for its stifling forests, breezy burning paths, and picky hay field beds, also showed me a stork in flight. Beautiful. Before coming to Spain, I’d never seen a stork. Since coming to Spain, I’ve seen nests weighing at least one hundred pounds atop ancient abandoned churches and chimney stacks, storks nurturing their young, and indescribable stork sounds from the church towers in Logroño. 
Then Andrew pointed skywards to a stork outside of Gonzor. Against the blue, blue sky, attended by the ever-present little birds, I saw a stork, resembling a heron in flight, search for food over a hayfield. Another wish granted. Another circle closed.
My notes included a description of a tiny roadside cafe that sold trinkets, including painted shells. After seeing shells attached to hundreds of backpacks and sold from every store and café con leche stop, the shell becomes part of the taken-for-granted in Spain. But these shells were artistically painted in fine detail and rich colours. Spread individually across two display boards, they livened the Camino with artistic talent. Again, I felt excited and strangely happy. 
And, though it was a day ago, I reread my notes on three times having to wait while cattle farmers herded their lazy shitting beasts along the Camino. We stepped outside their path. Herding dogs kept the cows focussed. Men and women farmers gently tapped the cows’ hind ends to keep them moving, and wished us a “Buen Camino.” I would spend nearly eight-hundred awesome kilometres dodging cow and horse patties along the Camino. Yet, what we find delightful, a Brazilian woman found complaint. “Is the entire Camino going to smell like this? When are they going to clean it up?”
Sleeping in Gonzor next to a barn smelling of “honey” is one of the Camino’s many charms, along with waiting out a cattle log jam, hand painted shells, and storks soaring high above a hay field during my siesta.
It’s not for everybody, but this peregrina keeps discovering her bliss.
¡Ultreia!
~Penny

Day 32: Sarria to O Pena
Ah, Sarria! After an emotional start on crutches from Sarria in 2013, I looked forward to a different exit from Sarria this time. Again, be careful what you wish for. “Different” can involve pain without crutches. Damn!
Our hospitalero hugged me on our way out the door. The front door sat about four steps up a long-ass flight of stairs I could not avoid when leaving Sarria. I passed the arrow I’d posed beside two years ago, but resisted taking another picture there. No point mocking the past. I did not want to invite any more trouble.
Our upward climb was greeted with more hills, but the uphills wind through lovely forests, past stone walls covered in mossy green, along softer paths. We were in Galicia. Yet, even green Galicia wore the scars of the scorching heat wave that earlier swept through Europe. Berries hung like little stones, unwanted by passing pilgrims or birds. I remembered enjoying their juicy deliciousness in the autumn of 2013.  
Andrew and I could not stop recalling the people and coffees enjoyed at different spots. These memories do not mock the past the way a New and Improved Penny photo might. We enjoyed pointing out the exact rock I sat on when exhausted, or the secluded area where one of us…ah…peed in Nature.
However, we also experienced another element of Spanish culture that was somewhat stressful: the Spanish vacation period. The Spanish vacation period begins August 1st. Crowds of Spanish tourigrinos, summer camp pilgrims, school groups (religious, choirs), families (we really liked these short-haulers), and what seemed like various exercise club members hit the Camino. One Spaniard, a long-hauler from France, lamented, “The Camino ended in Sarria, then the Carnival began.”
The Camino from Sarria became: a noisy, chatty, overrun, colourful, Spandex, scantily-clad fashion show. In some perverse way I enjoyed the gaping of the teenage group. Their eyes openly shocked when I aired my ugly bandaged, bloody, blistered feet at the ends of slightly (?) hairy legs. If being a pilgrim meant looking like that….
Our hospitalera in O Pena explained that the 115-kilometre short walkers reach into their closets and grab whatever matches and looks good, then hit the road in thin-soled glittery flip flops to have five cheap days with their friends. They order their food and expect it prepared instantly. “Even at Burger King you must stand aside and wait for them to make it,” she explained.
I was not as annoyed by the shift in atmosphere along the Camino as Andrew was. I became inexplicably proud of my Camino wounds and hunchback of Notre Dame schlepp, and so proud of Andrew quietly bearing the burden of two backpacks. I started to come to terms with how the Camino shifts your perspective. Here, 115 kilometres is a short walk. BUT, if you were to say to friends at home, “Hey! We have a week’s vacation. Let’s walk 115 kilometres over the next five days! What do you say?” …well, you know…
Keeping that thought before me, it was easier to be gentler with the short haulers who, for whatever reasons, walked 115 kilometres that my own kids would never consider.
Still…we arrived in Ferreiros looking for a bunk. Completo. 
We went to the next place. Completo. 
I hated the word and the short-haulers.
We walked on and almost past a tiny albergue in A Pena. The owner is from the Philippines. She speaks seven languages and makes everything, including amazing ice cream in unusual flavours: ginger-cinnamon, olive oil, dulce de leche (an Argentinian favourite), and chocolate. We enjoyed our meal with two old Sicilian friends, Salvatore and Vittorio, and were later joined by a young German couple. Six beds in the albergue. Six pilgrims. Perfecto!
We toasted the night with wine and complimentary shots of Grappa. We fell into lower bunks, or climbed metal ladders to top bunks. Lights out for six tired pilgrims, including two Sicilians we felt we’d known a lifetime. Another gift of the Camino.
¡Ultreia!
~Penny

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

Days 29 and 30: Ponferrada to Cacabelos/ Rest day in Cacabelos
I love the Camino, but the Camino does not love me. 
I’m not sure how many times I played that mantra as I hauled my pack from Ponferrada to Cacabelos.
The pain in my right knee was now more severe than the throbbing in my left ankle. I used my hiking poles like crutches, and prayed for level ground. I watched each step, as a misplaced foot often meant skating across a large rock and wrenching any number of achy places. But the Camino is also Ultreia…upwards. So I continued to be rewarded when I looked at the blue Spanish sky, the terra cotta tile rooftops, and stork nests atop church towers and industrial chimney stacks.
Do stork nests function as communities? Their size is grand. Imagine pterodactyls building nests! But between Ponferrada and Cacabelos, we observed a nest on a lower level, and watched as smaller birds worked in and around the nest. It appeared, at least, as though they lived there too. Now think pterodactyl nest as a condominium. I don’t know if this is the case, but these smaller birds (maybe the same birds that appear to annoy the storks) are always fluttering in and around the nest. The stork landlords don’t seem to mind.
We also passed many vineyards, and compared the vines on each side of the path to the vines at home. Some vines were skinny and tall, like the Niagara grape vines Andrew used to tie as a kid. On the other side of the road, the vines were short and stocky and unsupported by wire. We promise ourselves that we will check these things out once we’re home.
Five kilometres outside of Cacabelos, I fell asleep on a park bench at a Vine Inspection station. Well, as there were no churches available, it would do. Andrew went in search of cold drinks to help us reach Cacabelos and its unusual albergue. But even with the outdoors nap and cold water, I felt ill shortly before entering the town.
I considered vomiting in the abandoned park on the outskirts of town. “Don’t puke here,” said Andrew. “You won’t feel like walking anymore.”
I didn’t feel like walking at all. The toxic cocktail of painkillers, anti inflammatories, and blood pressure meds mixed in my gut, as Andrew ran ahead of me to find the albergue built inside the wall that surrounded the ancient church. I bent over on the streets of Cacabelos, my backpack pushing up towards my neck, and barfed on a city street in full view of random Cacabelos-ites. 
“Thank God it’s siesta,” I thought. “Thank God I’ll never see these people again.”
When we reached the San Augustino(?) place, we claimed our single cell with twin beds, unpacked, and munched on some treats buried in the bonnets of our backpacks. But I was finished walking.
The pilgrims in the courtyard sympathized with my pathetic attempts to walk. They murmured in French, Korean, German, Spanish, Hungarian, and sad body language about the poor peregrina, and how the Camino had just claimed another knee.
The next morning, Andrew and I held that talk. We discussed going home a few weeks early. We discussed how to change flights. We discussed how to cancel our Morocco trip. We discussed Andrew continuing alone.
By three o’clock, I “enjoyed” an appointment at the hands of another descendant of a Spanish Inquisitor, now called an Osteopaedist, and left with my knee wrapped in blue osteo tape, and severe bruising from the deep massage.
By 6:30 the morning after the Inquisition, after the cleaners hugged and kissed me and mourned my decision to continue, I schlepped towards a bus station. Camino on…from Sarria. 
The Camino tests the peregrino through physical, mental, and spiritual challenges. The Camino spirit helped this peregrina answer the challenge in ways medication and massage could not.
¡Ultreia!
~Penny

Day 28: Foncebadón to Ponferrada
After days of skin-melting heat, we awoke to fog and 11°C. Andrew zipped on the legs to his travel pants, and I wrapped my Joe Fresh scarf around my hands and hiking poles. Then we began our ascent to the iron cross, the Cruz de Ferro, standing 1504m above sea level. The higher we climbed, the colder it felt. The fog seeped into our clothes.
The very simple iron cross stood shrouded in fog. An Italian man, and a woman passed us during the climb, and stood at the rocky base of the cross. We waited politely for each pilgrim’s moment at the cross before Andrew climbed the rock pile. I watched him place something, maybe a rock, on the collection of pilgrim offerings. Then it was my turn.
Each pilgrim’s moment on the rock pile is personal and private. The fog helped. Pilgrims watched as I climbed alone to the iron cross. Andrew took a picture. But in that moment, I felt alone on a pile of rocks, rosaries, holy cards, scraps of paper, and pictures strapped to the great post beneath the cross. 
For a second, I wondered if they bulldozed the heap of resolutions and memorials once a month or once a year. Would my Sauble Beach rock be there next year? It would survive the elements better than the pictures and small flowers anchored by heavy stones. So what matters at Cruz de Ferro? Certainly not the item left behind. But the eternity in the moment it took to place my rock from home mattered. 
We never discussed our experience at the iron cross. Andrew helped me down the last few feet, the Italian man took our pictures, and we parted with a “Buen Camino.”
The Camino is charged with moments. 
*****

The sun finally burned the fog from the trees and valley. We arrived at Manjarín, population of one! The sole resident is a self-described modern Templar knight, and offers a simple stay without electricity or indoor plumbing. Here we met another Vancouverite, and discussed the monstrous several kilometre downhill that awaited us into Molinaseca.  
After walking a few kilometres past Manjarín, we were pleased to find a vendor selling refreshments, and…a pilgrim bus! The pilgrim bus was organized by a surgeon named Luis, whose 71-year-old mother was walking the Camino with a number of his and her friends. The huge bus moves forward several kilometres and waits for pilgrims to board if they cannot handle the terrain, or are ill, or heat exhausted, or need to take medication.
Andrew spoke to the surgeon as I limped to the vendor to buy a Coke. Behind my back, he and the surgeon arranged for us to take the bus (free) to El Acébo (thus avoiding a knee-breaking descent) and down further into Molinaseca. I refused, at first. But as I enjoyed my Coke, Marco and Anna, a young Italian couple, insisted I take the bus. They were. 
Anna already had both knees operated on, and Marco had both knees supported by elastic sleeves following a multitude of soccer injuries. The surgeon offered two seats on the bus to them earlier, and they pleaded with me to be sensible. Marco said, “The point of the Camino is to reach Santiago de Compostela. The point is not to ruin your body getting there.”
The bus ride showed me skilled driving.That driver manoeuvred through the ancient narrow streets of El Acébo and between jutting balconies. Several times I waited to exhale. I was sure he could not squeeze through. It was the first time I applauded a bus driver. Loudly. The bus pilgrims were prepared to give him a standing O.
And so refreshed, Andrew and I resumed our hot, sticky walk into Ponferrada. We lost our way and searched hard for the monastery where we would spend the night. Once there, Andrew cooked supper for seven pilgrims bored with the usual pilgrim fare, and we managed to attend mass.
“The Camino provides” is heard almost as often as “buen camino,” but today proved that the Camino does provide…even though I stubbornly first refused its bounty. The descent into Molinaseca would have destroyed my damaged knee and ankle. We watched as pilgrims leaned back while clutching hiking poles thrust before them to slow their descent over rolling rocks and dirt. 
At mass, I quietly thanked Luis, the bus driver, Andrew, the young Italians, the Camino, and God for the opportunity my pride first refused, and for the common sense that got me on the bus the Camino provided.  
¡Ultreia!
~Penny

Day 27: Santa Catalina de Somoza to Foncebadón
Andrew and I left Santa Catalina de Somoza for breakfast in El Ganso. We must have been sloppy tired, because Andrew left his hat behind at the cafe. He did retrieve it, and on his way back to me, he saw Bella bending over a hand-made jewellery display. We’d lost track of Bella after Burgos, and were thrilled to meet up briefly. 
Pilgrims become individual in a host of ways: the stuffed things they dangle from their backpacks, badges, hats, unusual shoes, hair decorations and tattoos. Bella wore a short, bright, fuschia skort. Imagine the awkward moment when Andrew explained how he knew Bella from her backside! But Bella in the “short, bright, pink skort” (what guy would say fuschia?) was practically a nickname by now, so awkwardness was avoided. 
We continued on to Rabanal and considered staying there overnight. Instead, we moved into the shade of a Benedictine church, and leaned against our backpacks in the grass for a glorious nap. I’m discovering that I love sleeping in the shade of churches. As the Way provided a challenge further on, the nap proved necessary.
Not long after we left the church, we began an upward climb along a path we figured even goats refused to use. Except that we dodged goat turd every other step. From behind us someone called, “Hey! Can anyone tell me the way to St. Catharines?” For the second time that day, we enjoyed a reunion with someone we’d lost since Burgos. 
Iain walked with us when we detoured to the highway. It wasn’t the safest route. The many road switchbacks resulted in frequent blind corners, and we were unsure of which side of the road to walk. Iain hobbled well on ahead of us, and reached Foncebadón before we did. Bella-in-the-short-pink-skort and her friend Mattias were already there.
Foncebadón is unremarkable except for its location at the base of a long climb to Cruz de Ferro. Aside from eating a fabulous meal in the albergue and drinking beer, all that was left was sleep. So, as the night turned cold and the fog engulfed the hills, we crawled into our bunks and curled under borrowed albergue blankets.
¡Ultreia!
~Penny