Day 8 - Najera to Santo Domingo de la Calzada

I am in such I good mood I should be ashamed of myself.

No, seriously, I know that this sounds crzy, but I feel so brilliant. We had a shorter day today, walking only 21km, and I walked with almost no pain (I took some painkillers in the morning, but also, none of my blisters have gotten any worse. In fact, they're way better today!) and the weather was gorgeous and the walking fun even though we had a headwind all day and we talked a lot and ate chocolate croissants (I think any weight I lose will be gained again straight away!) and chocolate and water and juice and other things. Thank you all for your wonderful tips and advice and comments! I think whatever that hospitalero did last night worked miracles for my feet (or so Alberto - another pilgrim - thinks!) or something, because they are awesome. I have no bandaids on and am walking around the city and my feet are good. Ha. The rash is also better (it comes and goes), maybe it is just like a stress rash telling me I have walked too far (!), but I will probably get some antibiotic cream or something for it in case. Have to dig out my phrase book... again.

Also to add to that, Santo Domingo is a wonderful city and I think I want to move here. The main street has all the names of the towns on the camino carved into the tiles, and I bought a phone card and new bandaids and we found something like three supermarktets (most of the time we have trouble finding one) and free internet at this special camino center! It has a virtual camino tour that tells you a lot about the history and an exhibition about Santo Domingo's history and the famous myth about the town. It goes like this:

Some time in the middle ages, a couple and their son were walking to Santiago and decided to spend the night in Santo Domingo. There, the son attracted the attention of the innkeeper's daughter, but he rejected her advances. She was mad at him and hid a silver goblet in his bag, so the next day when she noticed it missing, the son was searched and arrested, then condemned to hang at the gallows. His mother and father were devastated and went to Santiago where they prayed for him. On their return, they found him still hanging there, and alive. He said that Santo Domingo had spared his life because he was innocent and kept him fed and alive in the time it took his parents to return. The parents went and appealed to the magistrate, and when they told their story to him he laughed and said 'your son is no more alive than the cockrel and hen I am about to eat.' At that moment, both chickens grew feathers and began to sing, alive. The magistrate of course was so amazed that he cut the son down at once and pardoned him. No one knows what happened to the girl, but I guess she didn't get off very lightly.

So now, when you go into the cathedral, there is a cockrel and a hen kept in a cage at one of the ends, and pilgrims go and bang a staff against the bottom of the cage in the hope of a white feather dropping from the cage, a symbol of good fortune on the way to Santiago. Also, if the cockrel crows when you enter the church, it's meant to be good luck. There are also chickens out the back of the albergue where we are staying tonight, and when we went out to do our laundry they crowed at us! I think I'll take that as a great sign from Santo Domingo.

Anyway, that's all for now, as I have to get back and make dinner before it gets too late! We get up pretty early, generally before 7am, so we like to go to sleep early too. Tomorrow there is a big medieval market here and we're going to stick around for a bit, see what happens. It all sounds really awesome.

Sorry to have worried you so much... This camino thing is a real emotional rollercoaster, it's worse than the whole last year of school. But I'm good today, really good. I guess that's all that matters.