It’s 17:32 local time and we’ve arrived hot and tired from what we thought would only be a short stroll from Burgos. It was, as it turned out, hard going, with the sun in its full glory and the temperature at 30+.

We’d got up early, in time for breakfast at 7 in order to catch the 8 a.m. coach to Burgos only to be told that the coach was fully booked, the next available was at 10:30. We hoped that there was at least a chance that someone would fail to turn up for the 8 o’clock but nope, it looks like they’re eager little beavers in this part of Spain.

We grabbed a coffee and herbal tea and waited. The bus arrived, we got on, it left and then we noticed that that we weren’t scheduled to arrive until 13:45. We’d inadvertently chosen the pick a daisy bus from Bilbao to Burgos via countless unnamed little villages (sigh). To add insult to injury, sitting immediately across from us was a North African chap who spoke loudly and gutturally for the entire journey to his wife and child, switching repeatedly from facetime to videoing the landscape. I adopted my most Zen like composure and suffered in silence whist Dorothy slept.

I had hoped to cover at least 20km today to give us a fighting chance of a relatively short bus journey from our end point to Santiago de Compostela but we arrived so late that it was impossible. I’m sure that we’ll make it up over the coming days.

We’re staying in the hostel, La Casa de Beli. I’ve taken a vow of silence and will avoid all conversation at the dinner table tonight. Dorothy chose to go for a double room rather than share bunks which looks like a good choice. It’s a bright airy room with a separate bathroom and it’s private which is nice.

This part of the Camino is on what the Spanish call the meseta. It’s very flat apparently with little or no shade and only very small villages dotted at some distance from one another on the landscape. We have five days on the meseta before we arrive in Leon, some 170+ km away. It looks like the temperature throughout will hover around the early to mid 30s. We’ll aim for very early starts and we’ll try to finish before mid afternoon when the air seems to be at its hottest.

Dinner shortly, then early to bed.

Buen Camino