BURGOS – HONTANAS

So as I said yesterday our apartment was great, there was two bedrooms and a foldout couch as well. So Bryce and I had a room each and Ray took the couch he wanted the Big Screen TV. We did some washing in the apartment and then there was a laundromat literally accross the road and so Bryce took it there to get it dry. While I tried to figure out a plan for my feet for the next day. I tried the embla cream and it worked great but it only lasted for about 40mins so I thought I need to rethink my approach for tomorrow. Blue a good mate who has walked the Camino 3 times suggested that I take some Teva sandals as well so that if I needed something different for my feet I could use them. I hadn’t considered using them as there is a buckle almost exactly where the blisters are. But I thought what have I got to lose, I put some socks on and tried them on. And to my surprise and delight they didn’t hurt. So i figured that I would head out with them on in the morning.

We headed out to try and find a Camino or Tramping shop for Bryce to purchase a hook so he could hang his sandals on the outside of his pack. Thus creating a little more room for other things. We found one and then headed to a supermarket to grab a couple of things for the morning as I wanted to have some breakfast so that I could have the Ibuprofen and paracetamol straight away when I woke up. Then the challenge began too find somewhere for dinner did I mention that it was raining, we looked at lots of places and Ray wasn’t happy with them, where Bryce and I are both a little bit more adventurous and were willing to give something a try. So in the end we settled for a Burger place for dinner which was nice but was a bit basic, with Cajun fries. Then we headed back to the apartment I wanted to head to bed relatively early as I wake so early. So I organised my stuff and then climbed into the very comfortable bed with real sheets and no plastic liner, after having had a wonderful shower using a proper towel. I went off to sleep happy and pretty content. When I woke in the morning I organised my stuff had my smoothie that I purchased the night before along with a cereal bar. Then the others woke and we packed up our stuff and got ready to head off. The skies looked a little sinister but it wasn’t forecast for rain. So we headed off through the streets of Burgos as the sun rose. And for the first time in over a week my feet were not in agony as I took every step, and when you are taking over 40,000 steps that isn’t nice. The verse for the day was John 20:21 “Again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father sent me so I am sending you!” So I prayed for peace as I was feeling a little bit anxious about the 30km ahead. But it is a joy to report that I had no pain for about the first 15km of the walk. Then at that stage the track became quite muddy and wet and sock and sandals was no longer really working. So I made the call to put my shoes back on and they were actually ok. We walked another 5kms till we found a bar to stop for lunch. Rhys would have loved it as it was Rock & Roll themed and it was packed with people. We waited a couple of minutes for people to leave and then we had a table and ordered some food and drink. It was pretty good we stopped for about 30mins or so I took the opportunity to change my socks as they were a little damp. Then we had just over 10kms to go for our accomodation. We paced it up a reasonably big hill and then started accross the Meseta which is a section of the Camino that is almost 200kms and it is almost flat with an altitude of 940meters. The other exciting thing that happened today was that we saw a marker in the pictures saying it is only 477kms to Santiago. It is hard to believe that i am using a sentence where I say only 477km’s but that is the Camino. We were also blessed by a lovely Nun who gave each of us a little necklace with Mary on it and she prayed a blessing on each of us as well.

This is the chapel where the Nun prayed a blessing on each of us.

There was nothing around for km’s then suddenly you come over a ridge and there is this small town in the middle of nowhere Hontanas. The place we are staying is called Santa Brigida and while the bunk room is massive, the individual bunks seem solid, the showers were awesome. And there is a pilgrims meal Paella which I am really looking forward to later. I am sure there will be a good chorus of snoring later but I will be part of it so I am not worried.