Greetings from Burgos! Internet has been harder to come by the last few days, so this blog entry will be full of a lot of random updates and pieces of information.
First and foremost, the Spirit Meter continues to clock in at 9 and 10! Sometimes there is a one point deduction if I´m feeling particulary hungry or tired, but for the most part, life and the Camino have been fabulous. Í am truly a happy, thankful, and content pilgrim.
I´m currently writing to you from Burgos, which is in the Castilla y Leon region of Spain. We started in Navarra, which is mostly Basque, and then walked through La Rioja, and are now in Castilla y Leon.
Navarra was in the foothills of the Pyrenees, and had many tiny hamlets and villages that were quaint and lovely. La Rioja was probably my favorite so far to walk through — lots of red soil and green vineyards and rolling hills. Just lovely. It´s what I imagine Tuscany looks like, but I´ve never been to Tuscany, so I don´t know for sure. We entered Castilla y Leon two days ago and this is where we will walk most of the journey, until we come to the region of Galicia, where Santiago de Compostela is.
As of today, Ann and I have walked 166 miles in 17 days! Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. The city of Burgos is about one-third of the way through the journey, so Ann and I have decided to stop and rest for one day to allow our bodies and spirits a brief respite before continuing onto the Mesata (long, flat, unshaded portion of the Camino).
Yesterday we checked into the Hotel Cordon here in Burgos and are staying here for TWO nights. I can´t tell you what a LUXURY it is to stay in the same place for two nights in a row. It´s AWESOME. We slept in super late this morning, and I took a very long and very hot shower and didn´t feel the least bit guilty about using up so much hot water. It Was Wonderful.
My body is still holding up very well. I´m definitely stronger than I was three weeks ago when we started. I continue to have problems with my feet though – both of my arches ache a lot and the tendon in my right foot (between the ankle and the arch) is tender to the touch. Nothing is swollen though, so I will press on.
Which brings me to ¨The Most Brilliant Idea I´ve Had All Week¨: I have Advil with me! I totally forgot I had ibuprofen with me and one day I was just really struggling with pain in my feet when all of a sudden I remembered I had it in my pack! Thank God! It was seriously one of the best moments ever. I don´t have to be in so much pain! YAY! Anyway, don´t worry, I´m not becoming a junkie or anything. I only take it when we still have 5 miles left and my feet are really dragging.
Okay, now it´s time for more Random Update from the Road:
Number of Snakes We´ve Seen on the Trail: 3 baby ones
Other Creatures of Note: There have been lots of butterflies lately. I´ll be walking along and one will join me and fly alongside me for a while, and then go off on it´s merry way. It´s pretty cool.
Luci´s Wacky Invention Idea: I really want to invent a Butt-Skate, like a skateboard for your butt. Every time I hike up a tall hill, I wish I had a butt skate with me that I could just sit on and use to skate down the other side of the hill. Wouldn´t that be fabulous?
Number of Steps Walked in One Day, from Viana to Naverrete: 37,000!! A lovely woman named Barbara has a pedometer and told us that it registered over 37,000 steps the day we walked from Viana to Naverette. My jaw literally dropped when she told me. 37,000 steps in one day!
Countries Represented on the Camino (people we have personally met): Canada, Great Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, South Africa, Australia, Korea, Japan, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, Slovenia, Ireland, and one guy from Macadonia. I´m loving the internationalness of it all!
Best Internationally Represented Dinner: Ann and I shared pilgrim´s meal in Villamayor with Andre from France, Renee from Belgium, Enrique from Spain, and Clement from Macedonia & Australia. It was wonderful company and conversation!
Best Shower: Alburgue in Villafranka. Each shower stall had its own little room, with hooks and a stool, so your clean clothes didn´t get wet from the spray of the shower. Also, plenty of hot water. It was lovely.
Funniest Toilet Experience: Alburgue in Santo Domingo. The toilet room had a low wooden beam hanging down, so I was trying to keep from banging my head into that, while holding the door shut (lock was broken and door wouldn´t shut unless you held it there), while trying to get toilet paper out of reach, while also keeping on eye on the light switch because it kept turning off every 25 seconds. Eventually I managed to take care of business, but it was a pretty humorous attempt.
A Snippet of the Scene from the Villafranca Alburgue: I was lounging on my bottom bunk in a room filled with 10 bunks. In one corner there was a long table that a group of about 10 Spainish pilgrims were dining at and laughing and lingering over some red wine. In another corner was a cute younger couple who had met on the Camino and they were playing Battleship. In another corner was a married couple trying to have some quiet cuddle time together before lights were shut out. Overall, it´s a typical scene found at night in the alburgues.
Villafranca Alburgue: Pilgrims gather to help someone with a blister
Battleship! at Villafranca alburgue
Craziest Bunk Beds: In the alburgue in Viana. Triple Bunk Beds! Fortunately, I got a bottom bunk.
Favorite Time of Day: Is now a tie between watching the sun rise every morning, and that moment in the afternoon when the town we are going to stay at finally comes into view. I have some pretty awesome photos of these two things… hopefully some day soon I´ll actually be able to upload them.
Recent Beautiful Moment: Walking to Grañon in the early morning light, we passed a field of sunflowers that were no longer in bloom. They looked a bit sad and deflated, but then a beam of sunlight poked through the clouds, lighting them up. And in that moment, instead of looking like flowers past their prime, they became transformed into beautiful sun flowers bowing their heads to the rising sun. They looked like little angels bowing down, greeting the dawn of a new day. It was breathtaking.
Sunflowers greet the dawn of a new day
Random Funny/Embarrassing Moment: Years ago, my younger sister was teaching some basic sign language to my niece. The sign for ice-cream is to hold your hand up in a fist in front of your face (like you´re holding an ice-cream cone), and stick your tongue out. I always thought this was fabulous, and would often say “ice-cream” to my niece, just to see her make the sign. (Poor girl.) Anyway, a few days ago, I walked into a bar to see if they had any ice-cream. I asked for it in Spanish (el helado) but my accent is bad enough that the barrista didn´t understand, so I said it again and this time made the sign by sticking my tongue out and licking an imaginary ice-cream cone. This time the woman understood, and you could just see that she thought it was hilarious. Which, to be fair, it was. I mean, how often does an American girl walk into a bar in rural Spain and ask for ice-cream by sticking her tongue out and licking her hand? Ahhhh…classy.
Okay, that´s it for the random updates… Looking ahead, tomorrow we will leave Burgos and start walking the Meseta. From what I can gather, this is the “lonely” part of Spain, with villages few and far between. I´ll try to update when I can.
Until then, I hope all is well with each of you!
