Friday May 17 San Juan de Ortega to Burgos 17+ miles

My Mom would say that today was a character building day!  When we awoke at 6:30 this morning, it was snowing outside and an inch or so of snow had accumulated on the ground.  As we had a long day ahead of us, with about 17 miles through mountains, we decided to leave by 7.   

Today, I looked like some homeless guy from San Francisco, wearing 6 layers!  T-shirt, 2 long sleeve t-shirts, regular shirt, lite jacket and poncho.  Since I don't have gloves, I used a pair of wool socks as mittens.  With one look at me, Glide Memoria Church  in San Francisco would have gladly served me one of their free homeless lunches.

We then began the gradual decent from San Juan de Ortega (3300 feet altitude) to Burgos (2500 feet altitude).  The good news is  the snow gradually disappeared.  The bad news is, it was replaced with a 20 mph wind in our faces, acompanied by sleet, hail, and rain throughout the day!

After an hour or so on the trail, we stopped for coffee and a lite breakfast at a beautiful little cafe in a village called Ages.  When we were there, we saw Linda's friend, Anaja, who she met over a week ago on the trail.  Anaja is a 73 year old Finish woman, who is walking the trail for the 3rd time.  Anaja said she had stayed in the Alburgue the night before and the temperature in the Alburgue was 44 degrees F!  By the way, we have heard stories about some 83 year old woman hiking the trail and pulling a cart with her stuff!  Wow, all of sudden the blisters on my feet don't seem so bad!

My good friend Michael Dubilier has told me that he outsources all socializing to his wife.  This way, when he goes to parties, he can just stand in the corner by himself and not worry about stuff.  When it comes to anything in Spanish, I have sort of done the same thing with Linda.  Linda is very fluent in Spanish, and handles all commericial and social interactions  requiring Spanish.  Every once in a while, somebody will say something to me in Spanish and I will just sort of smile and nod, and then look to Linda to deal with it!  Linda is great at this stuff, and well liked by  the Spanish.  

We then had a vigerous 500 foot climb up a mountain.  The climb wasn't so bad, but the path was very rocky and slippery at times.  It was very hard on our feet.  We passed a big flock of sheep along the way.  At this point, the trail became a weird combination of snow and lamb shit..,,

A short while later, we stopped in another small town for coffee at a place packed with hikers.  We ran across a Dutch couple we have seen several times on the hike and sat with them while we enjoyed the warmth of being inside.  I think we have seen more Dutch people on this walk than any other country.

The next phase of the hike was the toughest, on a very, very muddy trail.  The mud was several inches deep in places.  It's bad enough carrying 20 pounds on your back, but having to carry an additional 5 pounds of mud on each foot gets tiring real fast!  We walked a while with two young guys from Canada who we enjoyed.  They were both fellow Grateful Dead fans, so that made the time enjoyable.  By the way, how do 25 year old guys become fans of band that has not existed for more than 15 years?!

After a long, boring walk through the suburbs of Burgos, we arrived in the inner city.  At that point, it began to snow and sleet  again!  Fortunately, this only lasted for 10 minutes.  Finally, we arrived at our hotel, the Hotel el Cid, a fairly nice 4 star hotel, looking directly at the huge Burgos cathedral.  I will try and include pictures from our room when this damn Internet works well enough to upload pictures.

We are staying an extra day in Burgos, so tomorrow will be a down day for us.  We will spend time mending to our feet (a full time job these days!) and touring the local area.