The Pension

Today is my third day in Sahagun. I think that 27Km was too far to walk. Because my right knee was very painful I spent the last two nights in a pension, all alone. and I've had the best sleep since leaving home.
It was an unusual eerie situation at the pension. After walking 6Km and deciding that it was no longer possible to continue, I asked the woman tending the bar to call a taxi that would take me to the next town. How sweet it was, speeding across the meseta, seeing the pilgrims slowly inching their way across the land.
I arrived at #2, no name, and was met by a woman, who quickly showed me up to #16, a sparse tall room with two creaky beds and thin, tall doors. Every room (30 or so) had a large skeleton keys iserted in the lock. It was the kind of key you would see locking a jail cell. All of the rooms were vacant. The dining room downstairs was set up for twenty or so people but no one sat at the tables. While resting, I could hear the nearby church clock, which rang every quarter hour, otherwise there was complete silence in the building. Late evening was the exception, I could hear a man and woman shouting (everyone seems to shout here) and could smell food cooking.

Because I'd seen no one since arriving, I had not registered nor paid any money but this morning a man, knocking loudly at my door, stood rubbing his thumb and finger together, speaking something in Spanish.
Downstairs the woman who'd originally let me in, was sitting wearing a surgical boot. She'd obviously been away at the hospital. After the owner requested three nights pay for the two that I'd slept there, my stay quickly ended.