There’s always a hill

We arrived in Burgos today where we will spend 2 nights, so tomorrow is a rest day, which we really, really need! The past 2 days have been rough. Yesterday we walked from Belorado to San Juan de Ortega, a town with a population of 11. My sister and I pushed really hard to try to get there before the rain arrived (we did not) and also before the recommended pizza-serving albergue stopped serving food (we did.) We arrived totally soaked and covered in mud after walking for 2 hours in a downpour, but we got our beer and pizza and then collapsed in our hotel. The walk through town from end to end took 2 minutes, I am not exaggerating even a little.

Today we set off for Burgos nice and early because we anticipated a slightly longer walk, about 16 miles. We failed to account for the creepy factor of walking in the pitch dark out of a tiny town with no lights. We missed our turn onto the Camino so had to double back, adding close to a mile to our trip. We discovered that our early morning walk took us into the very dark woods, and at this point I was regretting the pre-dawn departure. We used the flashlights on our phones, but then a kindly foreign man suggested it would be better to turn off our lights and let our eyes adjust to the dark, proving that mansplaining is a universal phenomenon. We kept our lights on, thank you very much. We passed a very large, fresh pile of animal manure and wondered uneasily what type of animal left it and found out later from someone else that it was a very large bull. 😳 We were very glad we did not see that!

Once the sun came up and we emerged from the woods we encountered extremely rocky terrain through a farm, where we walked along side sheep. And there was a large hill. There is always a hill. Each evening we read about the terrain we will face the next day and we are always relieved to see that it looks a little flatter than the previous day and we are always wrong.

Tomorrow we will rest and stock up on supplies since it is Saturday and stores will be open, at least part of the day. The whole "siesta" thing is not a myth and is highly inconvenient to those of us who need to get stuff done. They really should move the Camino de Santiago to another country.