Today I am feeling particularly lonesome because I´m sick. But I couldn´t have chosen a better town to be in — it´s called Hospital de Orbigo, if you can believe it. There used to be 4 hospitals here for pilgrims. I´ve had a sore throat, a unnerving cough, and ear issues. The hospitaler here at the albergue took pity on me when I arrived at 12 (pretty early for a pilgrim) and gave me a quiet room to nap. When the farmacia opened at 5pm (siesta hours are so strange), I went down there and she was pretty concerned about the ear thing.

So now I´m taking 125mg of amocicilina 3x-day, 600mg of acetilcisteina (for mucous), and 2mg of dextrometorfano bromhidrato/15mg of benzoato sodico. That ought to give you something fun to research. 🙂 She was super nice, listened attentiviely, and I was blown away that she could prescribe antibiotics without a prescription. Above all, it cost me a whopping 16€ fior the lot. I´ve just taken it and feel a little drowsy, but relieved to have been seen by a Dr and have a good explanation as to why the last 2 days of walking have felt so hard. I felt soooo tired and my joints were even achy.

Walking alone has been okay. I´ve talked to several people during the day, yesterday a film producer from the Canary Islands and today a finance executive from Indonesia. Facinating folks and it´s been nice to have company, even if it isn´t as fun as walking with the girls was. I was almost caught up with Katrin, but she´s so fast, I may not see her again until Santiago.

As for the roncadores, it´s been okay. The last few nights I´ve blown my bdget on cheap hotels to get a private room but man, were they seedy. I´m happy to be back in an albergue today. After a day of walking solo, it´s nice to be surrounded by fellow pilgrims. I often take my decongestant if there are a disproportionate number of men in the room (there often are) and that seems to help a lot. I figure, they can´t help it, so getting annoyed doesn´t really help.

I feel a little danunted by the itinerary in front of me. I´m really walking about 20-22km per day and that won´t get me to Santiago in time to walk to Finesterra which I really want to do. There may be another bus in my future — or sending my pack ahead to the next albergue and walking faster without it. We´ll see. I want to see how I feel in the next few days on antibiotics.