Day 16 ~ Atapuerca to Burgos

It was pitch black in the bunk house. My watch has a alarm setting that vibrates at the proper time so I don’t disturb anyone. So, I got up, washed my face, brushes my teeth and came back to the bunk. I laid there waiting to see if anyone else was getting up. I didn’t hear anything, so I started reading. It was pretty chilly, and my challenge was to keep my hands warm while going thru my emails and overnight texts. Finally, about 7:30, I decided to get the rodeo started. I flipped on the light and sure enough, both Bill and Bruce were awake and doing the same thing I was. We quickly got our stuff together, very quietly so as to not wake up our bunkmates, and walked out the door. The second Bill shut the door he realized he left his walking poles inside. None of us remembered the code to get in, so Bill pounded on the door until he woke up one of the guys to open the door. So much for being quite. 🙁

Dang. It is cold and windy. Okay, maybe not cold for some of you, but cold enough we all have several layers on. Me a bit more than both Bruce and Bill. I had leggings on under my pants, a long sleeve shirt, my fleece, and my nano-puff under my rain jacket. I think the wind chill was in the lower 40’s. The wind is strong enough to push me off balance at times. One time I almost got hit by a car. Not a fan of highway walking.

We started out immediately with no breakfast, so we were hoping that there would be something coming up that was open. I saw one dot on the map that indicated a town of some sort.

We walk along the road for a fair piece, before we turn off and start up another bloody hill. Not nearly as high as yesterday, but its that stony path that is difficult to navigate. But, once we got to the top, we had a nice view of our goal for the day: Burgos. A fairly large city of 355k. Which means…..open restaurants! With variety! And possibly a smile or two!

While we were walking up the hill, in the lower 40º F temperature with wind gusts of 25 mph in our parkas, a French guy walks past with a parka, hat, gloves……and little bitty running shorts. You know, the kind we wore in the 90’s that had the undies built in. Shocker for sure. I giggled when he walked past Bruce and Bill. Bill actually stopped walking to take a long gander.

As we came down the hill, we saw the dot on the map. Sure enough, there was an Albergue with an open restaurant. And boy were they busy. We saw at least 20 people come in and go while we were there. All peregrinos. Including the French guy that everyone was gawking at. He ordered a tiny espresso and got very irritated when someone sat right across from him with their food. So, he got up with his dainty espresso cup and left. 🤣😂

While we didn’t exactly get a smile, we did get polite answers to “Como esta?” And a “Gracias”. We also ran into Mike again. He was with one of the big groups of pretty girls and rugged hiker dudes. All spoke English and all very nice. There was also a group of 5 men that walked in. One with a giant cardinal cape. 🙄Turns out that two of the guys were blind. Wow. Impressive. Especially knowing the super rocky trail we just came up.

After a hearty breakfast, we set out to walk on the highway for quite a ways. As we were walking, the blind guys blew past us. We both mentioned to Bill that even the blind guys were faster than we were. 😂🤣 We eventually got off the highway to a more suitable trail/dirt road for pedestrians. We saw more pretty flowering things, and the largest hay bails we’ve ever seen. The individual bails were big, but then they were all stacked on top of each other. Wow. Made a great wind break though.

The lead into any big city is always ugly. Lots of industrial stuff to wander through. Once we got past that, there was a great park with hiking and biking trails that followed the river. The last three miles were thru that. Lots of people out exercising. Lots of older people out walking around. Lots of people who smiled and said “Buen Camino”. Love that.

Let’s just say that we changed hotel rooms. The VRBO filters aren’t working for this particular accommodation and while I looked for 3 rooms for 3 people and at least 2 bathrooms, this one came up and I didn’t look closely enough before I booked it. It was one room with 3 beds. One bathroom in the room, and another one available in the hall. Nopity, nope, nope, nope.

As I was on the phone talking to VRBO, Catie walked up. I quickly explained what was happening, she pointed at the hotel she was at and I went in and booked 3 rooms. Sadly, Catie goes back to Barcelona tomorrow. We invited her to dinner, but she had just eaten a big lunch and knew that she would not be hungry for dinner. “Buen Camino, Catie.”

We checked in, unpacked, showered, and pulled all our laundry out for the hotel to do for us. I spent the afternoon catching up on this, editing photos and videos, then we went for sushi. We got smiles, thank yous, thanks for coming, and have a good evening.

25 Sep 2020 ~ 30,810 steps ~ 31.1 miles ~ 55º F ⛅️