Cruces

Today was eight easy miles. Because I am now a person who walks eight miles and says “pffft.”

After breakfast I find my way easily back to the Camino. I run into a bus group outside a church in Padrón. The guide is leading about 50 people in funny calisthenics. I gotta get away from these guys. I can’t outrun them, so ultimately end up stopping for an espresso and a pee break. I have reached the stage In remembered Spanish vocabulary that Spanish speaking people think I am fluent. This is problematic. the cafe worker and I do, however, share an “Ay, Dios mio” as the bus people gibble-gabble by. Dang, they’re loud.

I’m still walking slowly, but it’s a good day. There’s a bit of forest, some farmland, and the edge of a hamlet to enjoy. I spend some time in a sweet church and light a candle for a friend. (I’m not Catholic, but she is.) I say hello to a statue of not-stabbed-seven-times-through-the-heart-and-only-slightly-somber Mary. I even get to watch some cyclists competing in a big race whiz by on city streets, twice.

I come across a fellow maybe in his 40s or 50s ambling along as slowly as I am. I catch up to him. I share my Tylenol. This makes me happy: to help a fellow hobbler in need.

My accommodation tonight is a cheap motel across a big intersection from Muuuundoooooo Sooooooofaaaaa. There’s not much else here. Two hotels for pilgrims and the sofa store. There are four, rock hard twin beds in my room sporting 70s era striped spreads that even Greg, Peter, and Bobby Brady would reject. But there is an object here I have not seen since I started back in Lisbon.

There is, and I say this with unbridled joy, a bathtub.

I spend the afternoon, hand towel stuffed in the unpluggable drain, soaking. I wash my disgusting, 3-weeks-of-showers-aren’t-enough toes until they gleam. I make bubbles with the motel shampoo. I fall asleep. It is glorious.

I arrive at the Santiago Cathedral in two days. In a rundown motel across from The Sofa King, I am cleansed and ready for the finale’.Read more