No walking today – to hospital with Mac after his wrist and knee became swollen overnight – Taxi rides and mountains.

Yesterday afternoon,only a few hundred metres from La Pola, Mac had a fall on the path. At first he thought it was just superficial bruising to his knee and shoulder,with some pain in his left wrist. However, over night the wrist had swollen and the knee was a little more painful.

Therefore, I made enquiries at our hotel about a Doctor.

We were directed to the local medical centre, fortunately only a 100 metres away!

After having ID and European medical card checked he was seen quite quickly by a doctor. I went in with him to help a little with translation.

Mac was examined and then referred to the nearest hospital at Cangas de Narcea. He was given a referral note, with a brief description of the problems and told to go to the” Urgencias” department.

I settled our hotel bill and the barmaid directed us to the nearby taxi rank which was situated by a striking monument to Emigrantes.

No driver, but a passing,elderly lady rang the taxi number and within a minute the driver extricated himself from the cafe and drove us to hospital – another Camino angel.

A winding journey of about 25 km brought us to Cangas, maybe it was the dull overhead weather conditions, it seemed a drab if busy place.

The relatively new hospital is situated on the due of the town.

After handing in the referral letter, we had barely sat down when Mac was summoned by a nurse.

An hour and a half later,after several X-Rays on his knee and wrist,MAC emerged with a knee bandaged and the wrist strapped with an external steel plate. The former to be discarded when we can obtain an elastic bandage and the latter to be kept on for ten days.

The halo is permanent apparently.

The whole process- two consultations in two different locations,including a taxi ride took two and a half hours – impressive Spanish health service.

Hospital receptionist saved me the bother of telephoning a taxi and within five minutes we were off to La Mesa and Albergue Miguelin- after another day off Mac is still determined to press on. Ultreia!

The taxi took us a great speed over the mountain pass – decent photos even as we were on the move.

This is a private Albergue mostly restored with the help of an EU grant. The bar/restaurant is popular for lunch with local workers.

The overall Trip Advisor rating is 9.4!

Not hard to see why.

 From the film ‘”The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”

“Everything will be all right in the end… if it’s not all right then it’s not yet the end”