Today is a day of mercy, relief and medical necessity! And cultural encounters of the medical kind! We have been to four hospitals to find some sort of treatment for my feet! From the way that the Spanish carry on, nobody dares get ill, sick or need medical treatment during the siesta hours! Heaven can only help you if you do!

The military hospital looked very much like the photo we have attached to this blog entry! Good to look at, but not-a-lot-of-anything going on!

But after close on 300km of walking, our feet have been crying out for some respite! You shall see the photos, hopefully soon, of our feet and the blisters they have! But rest assured they even had a visit to the doctor. If you have ever seen photos of feet from any of the polar expeditions of old or even from Sir Ranulph Fiennes, then you will have an inclination of what our feet look like!

A couple of days ago I ditched my boots out of desperation. They were causing my baby toe to come in on itself and then blister. The blue stuff under the blistered skin was in fact blood and flesh. From a medical point of view, it is fascinating to see the inner workings of the body and how it fits together.

But from a pain point of view, lets say that this is not a forum to express the extend or amount of the swear words I have used since my toe, and other blisters, have pushed themselves to the forefront of my walking and waking consciousness!

I nicknamed my boots "the spawn of the devil" and Ing´s boots as "the daughter of the spawn"! So I am much happier now that I have donated my boots to a pilgrim hostel somewhere and Ing´s boots are taking a one way trip to the UK.

Now I am walking in a boots of shoes that I found in another pilgrims´ hostel. Very comfortable. Clearly, some poor pilgrim had the same problems as I did and did exactly the same thing too. It was literally blessed relief to have been able to put on these "new" broken in shoes. I think that I heard the angels singing in celebration. Probably because there would be far less profanities flung around over the course of the day!

Funny how one man´s pain is another man´s pleasure!

Walking is now a pleasure when the feet and their hurts don´t dominate your every thought. Yes, they ache at the end of the day. But walking 22km per day with 20kg backpacks is now considered a "short" day. 30km is a "long" one. But "doable" nevertheless.

It is funny to think that we have been walking for 12/13 days on the trot. It feels like a whole lot longer. Only about 18 more or so to go!

Buenos dias, amigos! Buen Camino!