Sept 9: a (relatively) easy day on the Camino

Today was a relatively easy day for us on the Camino.  Just 21 kilometers (roughly 13 miles).  We arrived at our destination just a little after 1pm, so we are taking the afternoon to do laundry (or more accurately, Linda is doing the laundry while I catch up on my blogging, as evidenced by the 4 blogs I will have posted today).  Otherwise, we are resting, as our legs and backs are starting to feel the cumulative effects of walking more than a half marathon day after day.

The first photo in today's blog is of a statue we saw on our way out of Burgos today.  It is of a peregrino (pilgrim) from Medieval times (notice the scallop shell on his chest and on the brim of his hat).  It's always nice to see some of the cities do something to recognize all of the people who have made this trip in the past.  The second photo is in Rabe de las Calzadas, a small town that we stopped in for lunch today.  We thought it was a nice view of the church with the trees and the window boxes and the garden right in front of where Linda took the picture (the back of the head that is in the bottom right hand corner of the picture is actually the back of a statue, not a live person).  

The third picture is from the top of the Meseta, looking down on Hornillos del Camino, the village which is our final destination for today's hike.  The Meseta is like our mesas out west.  They are hillsides with a flat top, so we will have to climb up, across and then down the other side of a Meseta (you can see some more Mesetas out on the horizon in the photo).  We met a woman from Spain today who is doing the Camino in chunks.  She started her most recent leg from Burgos and is hoping to make it to Leon before heading back home to her town outside of Valencia on the Mediterranean Coast.  She said the Mesetas are supposed to be fairly boring, which must be why they say that the second third of the Camino is for the mind.  We also met a couple from California yesterday, and they are staying in Burgos a second day and then taking a bus to Leon to stay for another couple of days before continuing on the Camino, all to avoid the Mesetas.  So it will be interesting to see how we fare on this segment of the trip (at least we have each other to keep things interesting :-).