A Birthday and a Goodbye (Day 14)

On our last night in Burgos we celebrated the birthday of Martijn. He is the police officer from Netherlands who lost his wife 9 months ago and is walking the Camino to honor her. He puts a sticker with her name “Stella” at every KM marker on the road. He is the funniest and happiest Dutch who is one of the most liked pilgrims on the Camino. Unfortunately, it was our last night with him as he wants to arrive to Santiago on may 16th on his wife’s birthday which means he will have to really slow down for the remaining 32 days. We all said our bye’s and I grabbed my last photo with him below.

Last night I took the photo of the beautiful cathedral one last time with the crescent moon in the background. I was eager to get back to the Camino, so this morning left Burgos at 6am while it was still dark for our 33km stage. I took the below two photos as I left the gates of Burgos which I will always remember due to this cathedral.

Today we started the Meseta which is the second stage of the Camino. Many pilgrims skip it as it is about 180kms with many long distances between towns and not a lot of shade on the road. Some take the bus and some ride it with bicycles. I looked up and it turns out buses were invented in 1830 and bicycles in 1817. It made sense to me to walk it as many pilgrims before me did that for at least the entire first 700+ years of the Camino. Also many in my cohort decided to walk it as well. The decision was easy for those two reasons.

For my bride I took the below sunrise photos.

Today I met a family from Minesotta who is walking the Camino with 3 kids that are aged 5, 8, 11. The father is writing his PHD thesis on the topic of “Protestants impact on the Camino” and his wife and children are accompanying him. They so far walked 360km from Saint Jean in 16 days. The little 5 year old boy makes cross signs with sticks and leaves them on the road for other pilgrims to see. I asked how they managed this experience and the dad told me “kids are easily managed by ice-cream and quarters”. I am pretty sure not my kids!!!! I took a photo of them once they passed me on the trail.

I also met a New Zeelender rugby player who looks like what you expect a rugby player would look like. He was having a lot of foot issues and had a chance to help him order shoes from the Spanish website I used to order my 3 pairs so far. While I don’t know any Spanish by this time I am familiar with all the words related to foot, blisters and footwear. I felt very accomplished for the day that I helped a fellow pilgrim on a Spanish website!

After I left I had a huge debate in my head if he or Royce (the covert operative) will win a fight till the end. While the NZ’der will have weight and power, my money is still on Royce who is trained in the deep arts of deception and espionage and killing only using fingers.

I arrived to Hontanas around 3pm after a 33 km hike. Checked into a beautiful albuerge and sharing a room with Dutchman Nick and Jeff the amazing human. My albuerge is connected to the towns church. Photos below of the town and the albuerge.

Other photos from the day.

Kms today: 33 kms

Kms total: 350 kms

Steps total: 158.4k Amy, 457.5k Ahmet