Day 11 Burgos in sight….

The Albergue experience is interesting, 12 to 16 people per room typically some times more. Bunk beds, snoring and the rustling of plastic bags and zippers.

Some folks what to get an early start and set alarms on their phones… apparently believing it’s a race to the next stop. Today a bunk mate set 4, count them, 4! Alarms on his cellphone beginning at 4:30AM. (5 mins or less apart). After the fourth he got up and started rustling…

I try to be prepared by packing up my pack the night before, thus if I can’t sleep or wake up early i just grab and go… so with no chance left for more sleep I set out at 5:15 AM and pushed on towards Burgos. Burgos on the plan was two days journey, but with feet healing up and a cool day I wanted to close the gap so I can perhaps take a day off and explore Burgos.

As added motivation the scheduled stop for today only had one Albergue, with just 60 beds so some folks had to push on. Might as well be me…

Today I met James who is 84
and holding his own walking the Camino. Pretty amazing.

I ran into the Canadian sisters today, they too were attempting to reach Burgos tonight.

I don’t think I’ve posted about Byron and Dave from California yet, these guys are great.. they met while in the Marines 34 years ago and remain friends, often doing adventures
together. Inspiring since they live about 1000 miles apart. I ran into them at the Albergue last night and about 4 times today on the trail at various stops.

Today started off cool and windy, which worked out well as there was a couple of large climbs and descents.
The wheat fields gave way to trees. I spent much of the day with woods on either side but as I progressed towards Burgos the rolling hills of wheat returned.

Not having selected a place to stay for the night and given the snooze alarm ninja from last night I thought I might try to find a Pension or Hotel along the way, but alas none on the route… unless I pushed on to Burgos… so 40 km or 25 + miles later I write this from “The Camino de Santiago hotel”. Only one problem, it’s 5 km off the Camino.
That story will have to wait for the next post…. and it’s a doozy…