On Day 17 I woke up miraculously better.

My foot felt fine, my stomach had gotten over it’s emotional meltdown and the world just seemed like a better place.

So I did the only logical thing – I started walking.

(After a huge breakfast of course).

Eating felt good. Walking felt good. The moonlit morning felt good. The sun rising over the country felt good. I felt good. The universe was doing it’s good old daily thing and I was stoked to be apart of it. Pilgrim Kat had made a comeback.

The weather was perfect that day and everyone I met was wonderful – a few days of isolation makes me even like people apparently…

I was on top of the world and if my life had a soundtrack the entire day would have consisted of “Walking on Sunshine” being played on repeat.

I was back on my feet and after spending the day meeting very few English speakers I stared to see one man over and over again.

He was quite young and had quite a limp.

Although I was make to my normal speed, every time I stopped to snack or have a drink he would pass me. He was a tough cripple that’s for sure.

Eventually – seeing him as a kindred foot-injured spirit I told him how impressed I was and he laughed and admitted to being in a lot of pain.

We were approaching the big city of Leon and spent the afternoon on the Camino de Santiago together – distracting each other from our own injuries.

I realised that I had accidentally been walking 38km and for the first time on the Camino de Santiago I decided that I would like to stop in the big city – mainly because I could hear my physic-friend Jacquie and my mother shouting at me from Australia “DON’T PUSH YOURSELF – YOU’RE INJURED!”

My new friend, who was from Denmark and called Kian, had booked a hotel room for a couple of nights to recover from his injury so after we walked through the outer suburbs I found a bed (the last bed) at the first albergue we passed and Kian headed off into town. We agreed to meet up later for dinner to celebrate our successful crippled day on the Camino de Santiago.

My albergue was super modern and clean and seemed like the opposite atmosphere to every other albergue I had experiences. The ‘homey’ feel was replaces with modern all-white-everything and I felt like an extremely dirty pilgrim in such a sanitary-looking place.

I cleaned myself up and headed into town. My foot was a bit tender after a day back on the Camino so I had a slight limp that the local older men thought was hilarious as they seemed to whizz pass me with their walking poles.

Kian and I bumped into each other outside of the towns gorgeous Cathedral and rather than head inside we scored a table at a restaurant in front of it where we ordered some amazing food (by amazing I mean not a ‘pilgrims menu’ just an ordinary menu). I had a salad with salmon and my favourite vegetable on planet earth – hearts of palm and we washed down our fresh feasts with some wonderful gin and tonics.

To be honest I didn’t feel like a pilgrim at all. It was all so normal and touristy and luxurious.

It was a perfect evening and I said farewell to Kian knowing that I would be leaving him behind tomorrow as he recovered from his injury in the city for a few days.

Goodbyes on the Camino de Santiago were always a bit tough but I had come to accept it was an important part of the journey.

I fell asleep with a smile on my face, excited about the 310km of adventures left between me and Santiago…