When you stay at these pilgrim auberges you end up getting up before the sun rises. It is such a nice time to be on the road. The moon was full and the sky a royal blue this morning as I set on my way. The beginning of the day had views of dry fields and the highway. It was lovely, but not amazing. I rode through some small towns and passed some walking peregrinos along the way. Ricardo decided to leave around the same time as me this morning so I cycled a bit behind my biking buddy. He would say his ¨hola¨to the pelgrinos we passed, and I would yell ¨buen camino¨ or ¨hasta luego¨as I scooted by.
There is a lot of camaraderie on the camino de santiago and everyone wishes each other a ¨buen camino¨. When people respond, you get an idea of where they are from based on the way they say buen camino. There are ¨pilgrims¨ from all over the world. I met people from korea, france, the netherlands, canada, germany: the list goes on.
English was sometimes the best way to communicate from everyone all over the world.
But, thanks to my bike buddy, the majority of the time I was in a spanish immersion camino de santiago as I tried to converse in spanish while guiding my weighted bike over unpaved paths.
It was sometimes challenging to stay on the camino with my non-knobby tires as the bike would ¨patina¨or skate in english.
Anyway, today was a tough day with 2 long climbs and one of them was in the early afternoon fully exposed to the sun. Three or four times, I would have to get off the bike and push, I was so so tired, I felt like I was taking 1 step forward and 2 back.
Many people were very encouraging and the downhill was well worth the work.
I made it to Burgos just in time for a large lunch (spanish style around 3 pm). After showering, I explored the beautiful cathedral, then relaxed.
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