Day 15 – Burgos to Hontanas (June 10)

Map: Day 15

Since we were sleeping in the hallway and near the bathrooms, I swear I woke up every time someone went to the bathroom because the bathroom light would go on automatically whenever someoon went into the bathroom. It was definitely not the best night of sleep that I had. On the plus side, we were able to get an early start.

I was very happy to walk out of the albergue and see the cafe across the way open. It’s nice to have breakfast right away without having to walk a few miles first. And they served my tea in a purple mug. Two signs that it would be a very good day. We caught up with Marie from Ireland and Jim and Laura at breakfast. We hadn’t seen Marie in a few days so it was nice to see her again. We saw Jim and Laura and Philip and Granya (I’ve totally butchered the spelling of her Celtic name) the previous night. These are all people we spent our first night in Orisson with. When I was researching Orisson, one of the things I read is the pilgrims you meet in Orisson become your family. That is 100% true.

Our plan for the day was to walk to Arroyo San Bol. They only have 12 beds so we figured worse case scenario was we’d have to walk another 5 km to the next town. It was a quiet day and both Heather and I listened to music for most of the walk. We started walking through the Meseta which was definitely a change of scenery. Other than a couple of small hills, it’s flat and not a lot of trees. We took an extended lunch in Hornillo to rest our weary feet knowing the walk would be a little longer than what we were used to. When we got to the Arroyo San Bol, it was set about 100 m off of the main road and didn’t look very open despite the signs on the road that said it was. We decided to not stay there but needed to rest our feet again before continuing the additional 5 km. After sitting for a few minutes, I decided to take a walk down the road (sans backpack) and check the place out. I bought a couple of sodas and walked back to Heather to report my findings. We debated on whether we should stay for the experience or continue on. While contemplating, we met Paulo from Italy and two other ladies who had reservations for the place. They seemed a little nervous about it and said they hoped it wouldn’t be like Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

We were very indecisive about whether we should stay or go so we flipped a coin. It landed on tails which meant we were moving on to Hontanas. I can’t tell you how happy I was to finally see the town. We ended up walking 20 miles today, which is the most we’ve walked. I’m not sure we’ll be doing that again!

We spent the evening in the bar below the albergue and ordered up a couple of pizzas. It’s been a relatively quiet night. Hopefully there will be no police tonight and it’ll be a better night of sleep.

Buen Camino!