Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Stage 11- Villa Franca to Burgos

The original Greek word for enthusiasm meant "to be filled with God."  When we are "filled with God", we tend to lead on purpose.
- Richard Leider

Stage 11 was an extra long day for me as I completed 38.3 km, 23.8 miles, and 51,067 steps walking from Villa Franca to the city of Burgos.  A good portion of the initial 12.8 km involved a fairly steep climb, and then heading back down into a beautiful plateau.  During the middle of the walk, much of the terrain involved navigating around large rocks and and cobblestones that are not very kind to the feet.  I managed to acquire two new blisters which really affected my progress today.  The one on my right foot near my heel was especially troublesome.  I'll put a compeed (medicated bandage) on that one before continuing tomorrow.  We had chilly weather most of the day with occasional breezes as well.  It didn't turn warm until about 2 in the afternoon.  By that time, I was beginning my last stretch, which included about 15 km on pavement through small villages and the city of Burgos.  

We finally arrived into our hostal in Burgos around 7pm.  Today marked the last full day that I'll be hiking with Lauralee from Ottawa.  We met up with a number of her friends in Burgos.  We all had a nice dinner together in a restaurant next to our hostal.  We'll walk as a group for a bit tomorrow.  One person in our group is Lloyd, an 82 year old man from Thunder Bay, Canada.  Lloyd has already done some other stretches of the Camino during his trip, and he is excited to be walking again tomorrow.  I'll walk with this group for about half the day on Wednesday, and then continue on so I can make progress towards Santiago.  Tomorrow, I begin a 3 day stretch on the Meseta, a relatively flat, shadeless, 66km stretch across a seemingly endless stretch of crop fields.  I think I'll be going thru a lot of sunscreen tomorrow!! 

Here are some pics from this stage.










Lights out.

3 comments:

sym said...

Beautiful pictures Eric. Sorry to hear about your physical issues, thinking about you. 🙏🏻

George said...

Endure.

dianek66 said...

Prayers for you and your feet!