Burgos to Rabe de las Calzadas

May 19 - Burgos to Rabe de las Calzadas
We got an early start out of our albergue since the lights had been left on all night. I wanted to walk out of the old town gates since this was the old way out of town and the gates are beautiful. But since there were no yellow arrows anyone nearby doubted me. This time, however, I knew what I was talking about having walked this walk a couple of times in the past. The old albergue was out this way - almost a kilometer from the downtown centre and I have to admit I had a few moments of regret that it no longer exists as we passed by.

The last time I was here  we were in a middle of a field on the way to the university grounds and the area was always full of peregrinos sitting in chairs chatting, kids playing, couples walking and just general friendly conversations going on everywhere. This time, with the albergue in the middle of town everyone was busy coming and going and doing city things, with no particular time to relax or chat. Nothing wrong with it - just different.

As always, it was a long bit of pavement pounding to get out of the city. It is evident that the city is growing and there is no sign of the depression that everyone refers to in connection with Spain. Eventually we turned off onto a dirt road and walking got a bit easier. We had not slept well and were worried about accommodation that day. The crowds are a bit overwhelming, especially out of the city and even though we knew that a lot of the people who came into Burgos the day we did were going to spend an extra day, we were still concerned. We had planned to walk about 20 kilometers but we do walk slower than a lot of people, especially the younger crowd and in this case if the beds were full (no reservations allowed in the next place) we would have had to walk an extra 10 kilometers at the end of the day. So we went with the safe choice and decided to stop after only 10 or 12 kilometers to ensure we got a bed. It was strange stopping before lunch and we hardly knew what to do with ourselves for the rest of the afternoon. I had a little sleep, walked back and forth to the bar for tea, food and wifi connection and then ended up back in the albergue playing dominoes with others who were there. One was an Italian/Australian guy who as well as playing dominos helped to pass the time by talking about how they processed the olive oil on his farm in Australia. It was really quite interesting. We had a simple but good dinner and an early night with just two women from Australia in our room.