The hostal we stayed at had the best restaurant in town and a lot of people ate there, including Jack et al.
We sat with George, Jack, Martha and company after supper. Both of Jack's feet are really messed up as is one leg. Jack met a doctor from Scotland, who bandaged him up, but we are both concerned he may not be able to go on much longer. He's very determined but people who are much more knowledgable about such things as us say he is doing some permanent damage that could even impact his employment as a fireman.
The hostal was certainly acceptable accomodation, the only problem being that we were above the restaurant and near the refridgeration unit, so even though it was cool outside, we couldn't open the window for the noise. We also have talked to people who stayed ate the monastery de San Zoila which is a national monument and has been restored as a private hotel, similar to the Paradors but not too expensive. I'm disappointed our agency didn't have us stay there, and plan to mention it in the follow-up survey they will undoubtedly want us to fill in.
This morning, we had breakfast with the couple Lee and Linda from Colorado, who had rented bikes in Burgos in an attempt to gain some ground so as to be able to complete the Camino in their alloted time.
We got off to an early enough start, considering we only had 18km to go. It was cool and cloudy, but very threatening rain clouds were leading us.
We walked on paved roads for 5 km as we left the city.
We then continued on the Via Aquitana. This 2000 year old Roman road was laid through an area of bog, thus requiring over 100,000 tons of rock to raise the level of the substrata. There is, however, no rock in the area and it all had to be brought in.
This appears to be in direct contrast to this unfortunate farmer, whose field seems to be 80% rock. We figure if he brought a rock picking machine in, his farm would drop 1 metre.
There really was little to see today. The path did not pass through any towns, and the view was dominated by fields. At one point, Russ pointed out a flock of sheep to the left of the trail. We were so accustomed to not seeing any livestock, that Lynn didn t recognize them until she looked a second time. Funny thing about that, we see farmers gathering bales of hay, but we haven't seen any cattle, dairy or otherwise.
We made it to the hotel just before lunch. Their wifi was down so no update today for the blog, We met Richard and Margie and we shared the lunch table together. Richard was travelling on, but Margie, who is also using a travel service, was staying here. I commented on how it might be better to blast through the mesa quickly rather than this series of short days we are doing, and Margie said this is probably for the best, to let our bodies recover from the shock of doing all this walking, and because it will be a lot of long hard days once we get back into the mountains.
Summary - more of the mesa, flat and the same. We have now reached half way in our trek, whether we have reached half way in the journey is unclear.
Distance today - 18km
Distance total - 400.5km
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