San Juan to Burgos and the kindness of strangers

When I woke up this morning and went downstairs to get my boots I came down to a lot of Spanish people saying 'rain' shaking their heads dubiously at my lack of waterproofs and getting all their plastic bags ready for the days walking. Someone started whistling the start of "singing in the rain" and soon everyone was singing the song, in Italian, Spanish, French, English and Hungarian while we got on our boots.

A girl barrelled in the door shouting, 'no no no!' I thought at first that we were singing too loud at 6.30 am, but she turned to me and said, "no singing in the rain! It's a White Christmas!"

It was snowing. And I had 25km to walk on sore muscles and blistered feet. A cup of vending making café con leche and I was out the door. There was no point delaying, I had to get there.

There was a long walk through whitening forests and the snow was much better than the rain. You could brush it off much easier and it didn't drown you to your very soul. I was all bundled up and had my earphones in, my phone was playing Alt-J and I was delighted with myself. Singing away down snowy country paths.

I met up with two Canadian sisters as we started the only climb of the day, and I really started slowing down. We overlapped most of the way but I was starting to slow down. I told them to move on and I would see them in Burgos, they had been walking for 12 days more than me and their muscles were much stronger than mine.

It cleared as we headed into Atapuerca, a UNESCO world heritage site as the oldest European remains have been found here. But then it started to rain heavily as we reached the highest point with a view to Burgos, which we couldn't see because of the mist. It was here that the sisters began moving ahead.

People started taking me over as we were faced with a choice. The mayors of the next three villages recommended us to go down into the valley along the pedestrian path for our own safety. The fact that the path went through their villages was a bonus. But no one was going down that path. It seemed like they all went along the mountain ridges and I didn't want to be alone on that path in case something happened to me.

Something did happen. Ten minutes onto the muddy path a muscle went twang on the inside of my thigh. I stopped. That couldn't have happened, I took a few more steps, twang. God it was painful.

I turned to see a group of Italians I had passed out with a 'buen camino!' The lady forced her walking sticks on me and stayed by my side the whole way down. She spoke no English and I spoke no Italian. Between us we worked out where we both lived and how far we were going, where we came from and how grateful I was in all the languages I could think of.

After getting down off the mud and wet and rain I felt like my muscle had started to behave and handed the sticks back to her as I said I was going to stop for food at a cafe ten km from Burgos.

I hope I see her again, she really did save me.

I walked into the cafe only to see the Canadian sisters! We walked the rest of the way together walking through industrial estates and the city of Burgos. The peregrino hostel has no wifi and no kitchen, but a fabulous showering and sleeping set up.

The showers of rain and the cold are not too endearing, but thank god the people still are.

Xx

Buen camino!


Update! 22.04, 4 minutes after lights out.

Just after writing this I met a woman from Newfoundland, Canada. She was telling me how she did the camino because she was retired and bored. A more lovely woman I have never met. I convinced her to come to dinner with me and we found a gorgeous bar with a peregrino menu for €10, bottle of lovely wine between us, bread, ravioli and seabass with perfectly cooked potato gratin and a banana for desert. We talked and talked and talked and she insisted in coming back and doing reflexology on both my feet. I repaid her by doing a back massage on her while people queued up to get reflexology done too!

It was then that I saw one of the Italians that helped be today and I fair enough press ganged him onto the bench. He had tendinitis, I think more like shinsplints and I copied what had been done to me with a few extra rubs and presses on the insertions of the muscles he pointed at. He chatted away to me in Spanish and Italian, I chatted back in Spanish, French, Italian and English when I couldn't think of any word in any other language.

Mostly I figured out that all people want is a smile. I threw in an extra foot massage as a bonus.

While I was sitting there the Spanish that had heard me singing this morning, came up to me with smiles and praise and told the Italian of my lovely voice. It all just ended up in smiles and laughter.

Which is the way it's supposed to be.

Xx