I had spent the night in a quiet and comfortable hotel room for only €40 so I was late to start doing anything. Breakfast was available for €8 which was ideal for me. While I was in the dining area, Vince and Janine walked past. He is riding the Camino and she is walking. We talked about our plans for the day. They were going to visit the Museum of Human Evolution. Then they would walk and ride the first 10km or so of the next stage.

That sounded like a plan I could adopt too. So I went to the museum and found a very modern exhibition showing many fascinating displays, video clips and photographs of various artefacts. There were three floors (maybe four which I skipped as I thought it was delaying my departure too much).

Overall I thought it was the most interesting museum I had ever visited. I want to come back and have a longer time to absorb it. I found Vince and Janine there too. We agreed it was a very good exhibition.

I went back to the hotel and took my backpack out into the street to get ready for walking. Sunglasses, sunblock, hat, water bottle topped up, etc.

The I heard a voice behind me calling my name. It was Johnny, one of a group of four Swedish walkers who I had first chatted with for a few km about 50km earlier. It turned out that they had been quite close to my path for the last four or five days. We had a very nice chat about what we had done since the last time we met.

After farewelling him and his friend, I was asked by an English voice whether the hotel offered discounts for pilgrims. It was an English man who said we met several days earlier. I didn’t remember him but he told me what he thought of the cricket result any way. (Australia had retained the Ashes). We had a few words and laughed about the cricket and the politics around Brexit in the UK then we said farewells and parted.

Then a man who was in the bed next to mine at St Juan de Ortega came up to me and wished me well. I mixed him up with the man on the lower bunk who was Andrew but he corrected me and said his name was Mike.

Finally I walked out of Burgos along the sparsely marked path which eventually led out of the city.

Eventually the city gave way to country roads and paths through farmlands.

The heat was back. Despite being at 900+ metres above sea level, it was hot. Maybe it was only 25-27 C but it sure seemed hot.

I stopped under one of the highway overpasses to be in the shade and have a drink of water. A couple of walkers arrived soon after and asked if I was ok. I assured them I was. A few hundred km later, a police car cruised up to me and stopped next to me. “Is everything ok”, they asked. I assured them all was ok and they moved on to the next walkers.

Later I watched the tv news and saw reports of flooding and how over 150 people had been rescued in the affected area, on the southeast coast of Spain.

I hoped it would not migrate northwards.

The point where I will have walked 300 km should occur in two days from here if I walk 12 km then about 20 the next day.