What an adventure - this morning I would not have believed what we would experience today - from getting lost and getting into survival mode to checking in at a mansion in Burgos. But lets take it from the start.
I woke up normal time around 6 at the hostel. Most of the group had stayed in the same hostel in beds next to each other. Chira and Louis were up earliest and had already left when me, Colin and Rachel got up. The hostel had coffee, so we started the morning with a double expresso and hit the road at 7.
The sun was just getting up and me and Colin started with a good pace that left all others behind. After about two hours we got to a coffee shop where we met lots of others including Merel and Tarik, and we got a good coffee, crossaint and freshly pressed orange juice.
After eating it was time for days first - and last - camino crossfit.
We left right after and started to walk. We took a left turn - which showed to be wrong, and suddently we were in the middle of a field, and could see that all others were walking on a distant road. Instead of turning around, we decided to live in the moment and improvise and try to find our way back. This was the start of “The unexpected journey”. While walking into the unknown, we discussed that this experience is like real life. Sometimes life takes an unplanned turn, and you just need to stay in the flow and improvise and follow your gut, and find a way back to the planned path. In life, the new path might be the right one, but at the camino, we want to get back to the Camino route. And being in the unknown, not knowing how to get there is really exciting. And it should show to get even more exciting…
We soon realized that we were at the wrong side of a highway - and a railway - and an airport, and that the highway started to turn the wrong way. So somehow we needed to pass all three. At this point in time we did not know that there was an airfield and just thought it was the railway and the highway, and several fences. Just ahead of us there was a big sewer pipe going under the highway. There was not much water in it, so we got the spledid idea of going through it to pass the highway and railway. That took some effort - see the video below - only to find out that we ended up between the highway and railway, and in addition there was an airfield behind the railway. So it would not be possible to get through the fences, and it would probably also be a very bad idea. So we were finding ourselves in nomans land surrounded by fences and a highway. We finally found a way to force the fence and get back to the Camino trail. This was indeed an adventure, completely unexpected and so much fun.
Rest of the walk, about 2 hours, was in urban areas on the way to Burgos, and not so interesting. We stopped for lunch before walking the last hour.
We got to our mansion - or that is what we call it - and it is a great AirB&B apartment just next to the Cathedral. You can see some of the pictures below. Burgos is a really big city and really beautiful as well.
I am sitting in it now and enjoying a bit of luxury. Colin is out and photographing locations his mom went to when she did her Camino. She passed away in October, and Colin is walking the Camino to honor her, and is even carrying the backpack she used when she walked it a few years ago. I got Colin a proper hat before we arrived so he does not get burned in the sun.
Later we will cook dinner in our mansion and have invited our friends for dinner and Eurovision song contest.
We had a great dinner with the hole group and had cheese, serano, chorizo and other things.
After dinner we went out for a bar that had eurovision song content, but did not find it and ended up in a random bar. Shots started to come - I stopped after 3, and others stopped after 12😱 This included both tequila and sambuka with fire.
It was an evening with so much love and appreciation for the group we have, lots of hugging and crying and we talked a lot about how to internalize the learnings and joy we have here at the Camino when we get home. Night ended back at the mansion at 02:30
