Hospital San Nicolas

Leaving Castrojeriz, I have walked 18 kilometers, and intend to walk 10 more. I am hurrying to reach the top of a steep hill before my walking companion. Near the top, I bruise my heel, and hobble down the other side to the town of Itero de Vega, where there is an albergue, the Hospital San Nicolas. I check in, well short of my intended destination.

The Hospital San Nicolas is in a Templar Church, built in 1174. Other than a Gothic apse from the 13th century and a recent roof, the building appears to be unchanged from its ancient origin. It is cool and dark inside. The single room, maybe 5 meters by 20 meters, has a dozen bunks at one end, a long dining table and the raised apse at the other. There is no electricity, only candles and a gas stove for cooking. It is run by the Italian Confraternity of San Nicolas.

The hospitalaro, Massimo, stamps my Camino credentials and shows me my bed, but will charge me no money for dinner, bed and breakfast. The albergue depends solely on donations.

In addition to the three Italian hospitaleros, there are just five guests, a German, two Russians, a French girl, and myself.

The Hospitalara, Anna, is preparing pasta with fresh tomatoes, green olives, herbs and a lot of fragrant garlic. But before we can eat, we are summoned to the apse, and told to remove our socks. The three hospitaleros, wearing vestments and scapulas with the scallop shell of Santiago, pray in Italian for our safe travel to Santiago, and for the success of our pilgrimage.  Then the assistant hospitalero, Mateo, fills a brass basin with water and holds it while Massimo goes to each of us in turn, washing our feet,  and praying for each of us by name.

The communal dinner begins with pistachios Massimo has brought from Mt. Aetna,  followed by a wonderful Umbrian pasta.  The hospitalara is not eating. She doesn’t like garlic. 

Nobody at the table speaks much English, and the German and Russians don’t speak Spanish, so communication is rudimentary.

Wernher, from southeastern Germany, tells me that he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, but the diagnosis was wrong. Still, he feels depleted, as a man, and needs new life from the Camino. He is older, tired, more complicated, but makes me think of Andreas.

Benjamin and Irena are Russian. He is a big man, blond but somehow dark.  They started out on bicycles, but he had an accident, tearing his thigh open. He says, in very halting German, that the doctor told him he should not walk for three months, but he is walking across Spain anyway. It is painful enough to watch him hobble across the room.

Martine is a gamine, like the French actress Audrey Tautou. She has already walked from Le Puy in France to Santiago, and is now walking the return trip. I ask her what does she do?  She says “Before, I worked in finance, but now I walk the Camino. After? I do not know.”

The place is filled with spirits. After dinner the candles are reduced to three on the walls. Mateo shows me, 2 meters from my bunk, what is believed to be a Visigothic tomb, centuries older than the Hospital. 

I wake in the middle of the night to see the apse with its Italianate tryptich Illuminated by a single flickering candle.  I test my foot against the footboard of the bed.  It still hurts.

Every Camino story I have read has a knee, ankle or foot injury as its complication or crisis. Can’t I do any better than this?

We are awakened at 6:30 for prayers and breakfast.  The moon is a tiny waning crescent over the Hospital. As at every albergue, we must be gone before 8 AM.  I start limping toward Boadillo, 8 kilometers west.