El Burgo Ranero Dark Clouds Stopping Us...Yeah Right.

There are only two mistakes that one can make on the road to truth....not going all the way, and not starting....  A graffiti sign on an underpass on the Camino de Santiago

Left our albergue once again before dawn, ambling through the sleeping streets of Sahagun to find a small lit cafe offering the mornings manna. John now drinks his own cafe con leche instead of stealing sips of mine. We enjoyed the previous days bought pastry treats and were on our way once again passing many little churches and structures along the way.

When we made the small town of El Burgo Ranero, we stopped by a pretty lake to have our lunch of cheese,salami,chips,bread,chocolate,same,same,same.  The town was a little crazy with runners competing in some kind of race that seemed to be following the Camino. After lunch we started off down the path with another eight miles in front of us to the next town.  The clouds were looming black on the horizon.  We got a few hundred meters down the road and said the heck with it, let's stay here. I offered that I was willing to go on but secretly I was jumping up and down when John said he thought it would be better judgment not to head off into what looked like a storm on the meseta.  I will admit I felt a twinge of real sadness at the idea that this decision would mean that our friends would be long in front of us and we would never see them again.

We checked into the albergue and were the first ones in. Got our choice of bunks and were happy at the cleanliness and amenities of this place besides the nonexistent wifi.

We found one of the better little groceries we would experience so far on the Camino and thinking of our awesome home cooked meal of the night before decided to buy some eggs to scramble with onions, garlic, tomatos and cheese in the albergue kitchen and some to boil for the next days walk.

We walked down to the local cafe for a drink and ran into Mike our Brit friend who lives in Florida and who happens to be one of the people with his trip planned out with hotels and meals in each town.  We shared conversation, a beer and wine and tapas of fried shrimp and Jamon on bread that came with our drinks. Bid adieu and headed back to our albergue to cook dinner and saw that all the beds had been filled. We wouldn't be the only ones to stop in this place.

Dinner was delish of course, as food always is on this calorie burning trek. The ubiquitous bottle of Spanish wine. There is no bad wine in Spain. John has become an expert at opening wine bottles with no cork screw. They don't seem to be available in the stores here. Amazing what you can do when you are desperate. We did get a cuchillo (knife) in a small store to replace the one British Airways lost on our way here.

We turned in early at about 7:30, it being nice for John who has been a bit under the weather with a head cold that in no way slows him down.