Cycling the Camino de Santiago - Day Nine (Resting in Burgos)

Many moons ago, when I was organising this little adventure, I set aside a whole day to see the sights in the city of Burgos. 

Best. Decision. Ever. 

Firstly, because Burgos is a beautiful city with lots to see, and secondly because I think my ankle needed another rest. 

I was on my ankle a lot yesterday dragging my bike up the steepest bits of that mountain, so it has been acting up again.  

In true rest day fashion, I woke late and rolled around in bed for a while. 

Though I slept in an eight-bed dorm, only three other girls were there last night and they all left before 7am. So I had the place to myself. 

When I did deign to rise, I went to visit the famed cathedral of Burgos. 

It was by far the largest and most impressive cathedral I've yet seen on the camino. 

It was €4.50 to get in, which was a discounted rate for pilgrims. The normal rate was around €7. Included in the price is your audio guide, of whatever language you choose. 

I'm going to sound very uncultured here, but I stopped listening to the guide fairly sharpish. 

It was very fact heavy and generally just felt like a history lesson. 

"This was built in 1122, this person is in that tomb, this painting was commissioned by yada yada yada..." 

You get the idea. 

All well and good if you're into facts and figures and history, but sometimes I kind of just prefer walking around and taking in the surroundings without having my ears, and my brain, assaulted with information overload. 

After my visit, I wandered around outside the cathedral for a bit, pausing to take a selfie with Saint James. 

I ate in a restaurant nearby - some sort of egg and potato dish. I wasn't entirely sure what I was ordering, but it turned out ok. 

Then, low and behold, I ran into my friends from the Albergue in Belorado! Rosa and Horhea from Madrid who I shared a room with a few nights back. 

I saw them yesterday aswell, passing them on the mountain trail and yelling Buen Camino at them. 

They're doing well it seems. Their feet are sore but I know they will make it to Santiago. 

By that stage, all the walking was taking its toll on the auld ankle, so ashamedly I hopped on the garishly red locomotive that was the tourist train. 

It was cheap enough at €4.50, but it wasn't amazing. 

We chugged around the city looking at various monuments and taking pictures. 

I supposed it as a pain free way to get a bearing on the place though. Recommended for anyone with mobility issues!

Back at the hostel I hit up the vending machine and threw some Netflix onto the phone. 

A couple of hours later a woman blew into the room all in a tizzy. She was clearly a little frazzled and since we were the only two in the dorm I told her to go ahead and turn on the light, that I wasn't asleep, I was just on my phone. 

Her response was golden. 

"Oh my god you're Irish," she exclaimed. 

She was too. 

Meet Sarah, from Mayo but living in Dublin, working as a contract lawyer. 

She is using her holiday days to walk sections of the Camino over the course of a couple of years. 

She completed the first six walking stages a while back with her friends, and now she is doing the net six stages on her own. 

She was frazzled, it seems, because up until 10pm or so she had no idea where she would be staying that night. 

It was a similar situation to the one I found myself in a couple of days ago, so I knew exactly how she felt. 

We chatted away for a good few hours, talking about the trail so far, our Camino plans, GAA tickets and Mayo matches, and cultural differences we had experienced over here. 

We had a right auld chinwag, until a man entered our female-only dorm and proceeded to set himself up in a bed and go to sleep. 

He snored ALL night, by the way. I had a terrible night's sleep. 

When I woke up, Sarah had already gone for the day. 

I wish her a Buen Camino and hope she gets where she's going. 

X

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