We headed out this morning and it did not take too long for me to realize that it was way to hot for my sweater, which meant it was gonna be a warm day. Those, I think, are the worst mornings. When you already can tell it’s going to be a hot day based on how warm it is in the morning.

We are currently walking through The Meseta. It’s the most terrible part of the Camino that is the entire path between Burgos and Astorga. It’s the flatlands. The hotlands. The time-and-distance-doesn’t-make-sense lands. The meseta takes occupies over 81,000 square miles of Spain’s central area. It’s why it’s been so ugly and hot. This is the part of the Camino many people skip over, take a bus, or rent a bike through. It’s hot. All I could think about is HOW DO PEOPLE DO THIS IN JULY AND AUGUST!?

We will be out of it in a few days time. But for now, we melt.

We crossed over an ancient Roman bridge, saw baby cows, and walked through miles of hot desert heat with no shade! It was swell.

Near the top was the cutest freaking oasis of a place run by the kindest human. Hammocks. Beautiful rocks. So much food! Crackers, drinks, fruit, endless! All for donation. It was the only spot for about 6 miles and it was so needed.

After lots of watermelon and cooling off, we pushed on to Astorga. Down a hill, past another statue, and across the most obnoxious civilian bridge ever! Literally, this bright green bridge has you zig zag up ramps to the top to walk straight across OVER TRAIN TRACKS to zig zag back down. Not a single person on this bridge was thrilled. We get enough incline and decline, haha! I looked at the bridge before we started and looked at Debbie and said “They couldn’t have designed a more efficient bridge? Can’t just walk across or have a plain standard bridge for this?” Which was followed by my favorite part- at the end or the bridge there was sharpie written on a post that said “Peace, love, + happiness to all… Except the designer of this bridge! p.s. my feet hurt”

Hahaha! I felt so validated. This whole bridge was just so extra.

We finally hike up one last cobblestone hill to the albgergue (to find another statue) and check in. The woman checking us in was from Georgia and very sweet. She gave Debbie and I bracelets. I’m not sure why, no one else checking in got them, but it was very sweet.

We rested and showered and were going out for dinner, pharmacy, and supermarket. On our way down who do we run into, no one other than Jens! Earlier in the day, I heard someone singing in the stairwell “I don’t care, I love it!” And it sounded like Jens. I was sitting on my bed, too lazy to climb down and I yelled his name to no reply. Figured I got the voice wrong. NOPE! Turns out it was Jens, he just didn’t hear me call his name. We say hi and bye and go check our the plaza. We hop around restaurants, see what they have to eat, go to the pharmacy so I can buy my own tape for my shin and restock Band-Aids. We swoop around to hit the supermarket because we were near it (still hunting for food) and it turns out to be the biggest supermarket we have seen on the Camino so far! I got so excited, I decided to make dinner! I bought all the stuff for a salad and grabbed some salami. We went back and I was so excited to make my salad. Spinach, tomato, olives, garbanzo beans (thought of you Mom!), cucumber, carrots, bell pepper, and cheese. With some vinaigrette. Sooooooo good! I had that, salami, and some wine I bought for €1.80. The salad was way too big for me to eat it all, so I pawned it off to anyone I could find. Jens had some and sat with me to eat a while. Aaron and two others in his group ended up finishing it off! Aaron’s dinner of spring rolls didn’t turn out too well (we had no oven) so it worked out well. We all sat, ate, chatted with each other and new people and then I headed up to pack my bag and sleep.

It started to rain tonight! The rain is back! Debbie and I were talking asking for cool weather and rain and voila! It came. Looking promising for cooler weather from here on out.

Day mileage: 15.5
Total mileage: 317
Personal mileage: 17.22