Today I had the good fortune to decide to stop early.  This albergue is lovely, and the owners are true servants.  Alicia and her husband Oscar make sure every guest is cared for.

When I asked Alicia (Alethia) where there is a doctor’s office nearby, she offered to drive me into Pamplona to the hospital in the morning.  And when I checked in today, a man from LA came in about the same time.   Turns out he’s a Catholic priest.   We sat next to one another at our communal dinner.

Another man, who is walking 11 hour days (seems crazy to me), sat across from us and at the end of the table was a couple from Portland.   We got to talking about physical challenges and the priest mentioned my limping and asked what was I going to do.

The man across the table, Timothy, is an ER doctor.  He volunteered to examine me, to save me a day of hanging out at hospital.   His verdict is that even if it’s a stress fracture rather than the other possibility of muscular stress, I can keep walking as long as I can bare the discomfort.  So, I’m icing now and have gone back to my Celebrex.  I hope I can put in a good day of walking tomorrow.  Glad I brought surgical tape to create more stability.

This place is excellent.   Dinner was wonderful, and the conversations were diverse, interesting and fun.  One woman is celebrating her 50th tomorrow,  so various folks sang HB in English, Spanish, French, Danish and Korean

I need to look up Richard Rohr, a Franciscan thinker who marries Yungian analysis with biblical exegesis.  Timothy and Father Eugene had a great conversation about this, with the Portland guy joining in.

I am loving the Camino,  even if it turns out to be physically different from my expectations!  This is an incredibly wonderful journey.   I still am not sure why this called to me, but I think it’s going to change me.

[Sorry that my thoughts are all over the place tonight.  I wanted to get them down before I fall asleep. ]