May 31st - End of the First Stage

We will bring to a close here in Burgos the first half of our Camino journey. A little sooner than we had planned, we decided not to continue on to Sahagun this year for several reasons. The fourth member of our group, Gina, had to return to Toronto for an earlier commitment and left the Camino two days earlier at Villafranca - Montes de Oca. She wants to complete the Camino and will join us next year. If Frank, Encarnita and I stop now, Gina will have only a short distance to walk next spring before she catches up with us, and we continue on as a group.

Encarnita has also come down with a cold and the enjoyment is taken out of the Camino when one has to proceed under the weather, especially when the days have been as cool and damp as they have been for the last two weeks and promise to continue to be.

We will head south in the morning, stop off in Madrid for a day and visit with friends, one of whom was about to join us for the next week. Pepe, in Madrid, is likely breathing a sigh of relief, but we will encourage him and his training for next year.

We took full advantage of Burgos to explore some of the city´s many monumental landmarks. I had forgotten how rich the gothic cathedral is. Frank and I also paid our respects to the Monastery of Las Huelgas, whose abbess was so powerful that she could negotiate directly with the Pope, and the Cistercian church of Miraflores, with its highly detailed marble sarcophagus for the King and Queen who produced Isabel the Catholic, the queen who financed Columbus.

While we are ending the walking, I will take advantage of the time in the south to find some software that will enable me to enter pictures more quickly on the blog, and with a time delay bring you pictorially up to date.

John