I tend to walk a lot on rest days. But it’s still a form of relaxing since I don’t have 20 pounds on my back and my feet are happy to be in flip flops all day.

I’m currently taking refuge from a major storm in a bar across the plaza from the cathedral. A severe storm warning was in effect for 3pm. Well it’s finally here at 4:15pm. Lightning, thunder and heavy rain and strong wind gusts. Even saw some umbrellas from a nearby cafe blow over completely and crash into the tables.

I figured staying at this bar where I could watch the storm through the windows would be more fun than heading back to my hotel room with windows that look across to the apartments in the attached building.

I started the day off wandering around geocaching on my way to find breakfast at the grocery store. Geocaching is one of my favorite ways to explore a new place since it takes you off the beaten path.

After wandering around a bit I did some planning back at the hotel with my Camino guidebook. I may be trying to make a bold goal over the next few days and turning about 7 days of walking into 5 or 6. Since it’s the Meseta, it’ll be pretty flat between here and León. While the Meseta has its charms, it also has some fairly boring sections of walking. So doing some longer days to get through that section a bit quicker could be more enjoyable. This will all depend on my body and also clearly the weather. I expected hot and dry conditions for a lot of this Camino and the storms do make things more challenging.

Even though lots of pilgrims meals come with spaghetti bolognese as the starter option, it’s usually not that great. I decided to go to an Italian restaurant in Burgos today to get some good spaghetti. It definitely hit the spot. Good carbo loading for tomorrow’s 30km+ walk.

Back to the grind super early tomorrow!