Kellie without her pants

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Anya was nice enough to let us sleep in the next morning. The idea of walking 30 klms in the sun on a red wine hangover was far from appealing. Luckily the ham and cheese bocadillios we stopped for were the best ones we had on the camino, and a perfect hangover cure. What I wouldn't give for one of those right now...

I had noticed by this stage that the 3 Aussies, the Kiwi and the 2 Danish boys were developing the habit of being the last ones to leave the albergues. We said our goodyes to Anya and were on our way.

Patxi from Barcelona decided to show us a short cut to get to Burgos. We'd seen quite a bit of him over the past few days at the albergues and it was nice to be able to walk with him. Patxi is the kind of person you should meet on a camino like this - a true free spirit. The best way to get walking in the mornings, according to Patxi, is to smoke a joint.

So we were walking along with the sun on our faces, Patxi with a joint in one hand and a big pilgrim's stick in the other, talking about the flowers, about the camino, about love, about happiness and everything and anything else we could think of. The conversation was deep and meaningful but slow - I was teaching him English and he was teaching me Spanish. I think the words I can remember learning from that day are 'luna' which means moon and 'bonito' - later to become a favourite of mine, which means beautiful.

Patxi left us at a town before Burgos and we continued walking along a very long and boring stretch of highway. Lou and I entertained ourselves by listening to her ipod. Listening to music actually makes you walk faster - in no time we were far ahead of the rest of the gang. Walking into Burgos was quite a surreal experience for me, after the isolation and small size of the other towns.

The first thing we did was go to Burger King! I mean bocadillios and vino tinto are great, but after every day for 2 weeks...you start to crave something really, really bad...

We entered the large shopping mall with the Burger King sign out the front. Inside the mall I felt like someone out of 'Back to the Future' or something similar. Everyone was all dressed up, there were these big escalators and so many bright lights, people didn't smell and they were all hurrying around so quickly! It was a definite case of culture shock after being confined to the small villages of Spain and the laid-back lifestyle of the camino for weeks. In Burger King, ordering seemed like such a challenge - and the food was so expensive! A meal would cost us more than a night of accomodation and a 3 course dinner with wine at most places on the camino! I got a happy meal and a hot fudge brownie - it was delicious, so un-bocadillio-like.

When I'd spoken to Alfonso about a week ago, he'd told us about a really nice refuge in the centre of his home town, Burgos. He said you have to get there early because it fills up really quickly! Unfortunately by the time we arrived there it was already full.

We managed to track down the next best thing - an albergue out of town a bit in a park. The boys wanted a night out on the town, but by the time we got there it was getting late, so us girls decided to let the boys go and paint the town red while we opted for a girls night in.

Of course in order to have a real girls' night in you need snacks. And if Kellie's involved you need a crazy dare. So in the end we were walking back from the shops, arms full of junk food, Kellie in her underwear. Yes I have it on film, the video will be posted on the internet but unfortunately there will be a small charge to view it. We showed the boys the video when they returned and they seemed to want to rewind it and watch it again for some reason...

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Photos

Pilgrim Hangover
Clockwise: Lou, August, Frederick, Me and Kellie reluctant to leave Anya's house. From Moira's gallery.