Approaching Burgos

Today is our last day before Burgos, a major city and something of a turning point on the Camino. It marks the start of the meseta, a relatively flat, boring section of the Camino that many people say is when the route can change from being physically demanding to mentally demanding, as your body gets used to the walks and you find yourself without any change of scenery for almost a week. It also marks the point where several of our group will be leaving us, some to return home and others to speed up and bike across the meseta in order to make a deadline.


The day was a slightly unusual (and foggy) one, as it started off with four towns in rapid succession, followed by a long stretch with none. We are breakfast at the first cafe we came across, as we were worried that Spanish National Day might be observed today, and lead to things being closed. Thankfully this turned out not to be the case, but we didn't know that at the time.


After eating breakfast (yogurt and a chocolate croissant), we blew through the next two towns, then stopped in the last for another meal, as we didn't know how many food options there would be in the tiny town where we were spending the night. We caught up with one of the members of our group there who had spent the night at a church one town further ahead than us, and all set off as a group for the last big push to our stop for the night.


It started with a long, steep uphill, so our group quickly spread out again, but we collected ourselves again at the top near a monument to a mass grave from the Spanish civil war. Upon arriving in town, we stopped at the first cafe for lunch, making three meals. I tried the blood sausage that's famous in this region, and it was delicious. After that we went and checked in to our albergue, which was totally booked out — I had booked in advance over WhatsApp, in Spanish, which was a novel and pretty fun experience.


Once we got checked in and unpacked, I found that my sandals had gone missing. One of my companions was sure they'd seen them on my bag at lunch, and I was pretty sure I'd had them as well, so I went and walked back and forth a few times, as well as asking the bar owner, but all to no avail. As of right now, they seem to be gone for good, barring some sort of minor Camino miracle. This isn't a catastrophe, as I can buy new ones in Burgos, but they were a really nice pair of shoes exactly my size that I'd found in the REI garage, and I'm pretty bummed to see them go. None of us are quite sure whether we think they fell off my bag somehow or if they were snagged by someone else, and I almost don't know which would be more frustrating.


The rest of the night was nice, as I met some new people at the albergue and then had dinner. It was a delicious meal, with the first paella we've had on this trip, as well as a delicious pumpkin soup. After that was the usual washing up and going to sleep, getting ready to head in to Burgos tomorrow.

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