C484

Rest day (laundry) in Burgos. It’s a beautiful city. The Camino routes you to the heart of the old cities, and you see extraordinary things. I have officially walked 283 km in 12 days (with 3 additional rest days) averaging 23.5 km a day when walking (just short of 15 miles). My Camino app divides the way into 3 parts, body, mind, and soul. Burgos marks the end of the body. Tomorrow I will start into the Meseta, like the plains of eastern Montana. My plan was to build rest days in for recovery and also try to cover enough ground to allow me to walk less per day going forward. My body has adapted to the walking better than I could have hoped for, no blisters, minimal soreness. Going forward I need to average 18 kilometers per day. I will walk 10 days before my next holiday.

I have met the most extraordinary people. Robert the elder and his wife Cynthia, both 76. They are ahead of me now, and I probably won’t see them again. They used an agency that booked all their hotels with a 42 day schedule and no rest days. Cynthia gave me a stone to leave at the cross on the Meseta in I Ho’s memory.

I passed a man named David 4 different times in one day. This means David passed me 4 different times. David is 86. He did it in 2 days, but he walked over the Pyrenees. Two days ago I walked with a young Irish lad and his mates. We ran into David, and I said to the irish man, “you know how old he is, he’s 86.” The lad said to David, “You didn’t tell me that.” David replied, “You didn’t ask.”

I started the conversation with the young man by telling him I was beginning to be able to spot accents. I said, “if it sounds like the next words out of your mouth should be: ‘get out of my way you f*cking c*nt that means you’re irish.” He laughed and told me that c*nt can be a term of endearment that you call one of your mates. In the next 20 minutes I learned more about Northern Ireland than I have ever gleaned from the news.

I walked for an hour with a 6’4” 230 pound sheriff’s deputy. We were cut from very different bolts of cloth. We share a love of motorcycling. I told him how for me it was a kind of meditation. He explained that UCLA medical school did a study, and after riding more than an hour, cortisol levels drop.

I was invited to dinner last night by two Isrealis. I told them that it was much harder for me alone to walk into a restaurant, without any Spanish, order a meal and enjoy it. It was having I Ho as my partner that gave me the courage to go on adventures.

So, here are some pictures of friends along the way.

Buen Camino