Burgos

May 23, 2022

As usual, we were the last folk to leave the albergue. It was surprisingly cool this morning and we had our jackets on for the first time in a while. The first part of the ride took us along the Canal de Castilla for about eight kilometers before we emerged onto a quiet road at the village of Santoyo. From here it was pretty easy riding away from the pilgrim route until Castrojeriz.

Crossing the canal at a lock outside Frómista.

At Castrojeriz we took a meal break, some local bread and cheese found at a supermarket, before starting a long and gentle climb just after the Convento de San Antón. Leigh started to take a bit of strain at this point because her sinuses were totally blocked and she was struggling to breathe easily.

All that seems to remain of the Convento de San Antón is this arch across the road.

At the top of the climb we were joined by a Dutch couple, Gerrit and Letitia Schepers with whom we road and chatted to for a few kilometers. They were on their way from Santiago to Pau in France and were traveling a bit faster than us. What made meeting them so different to normal meetings on the road with other cycle tourists was that they had spent much of the working lives in the agricultural industry in South Africa. This meant, apart from having a good command of Afrikaans, Gerrit spoke English with a South African accent.

The only issue with riding with them is that we blindly followed them as we chatted and all of us ended up missing an important junction in the road. This was the first of two routing mishaps for the day, the total combined extra distance being about eight kilometers. They left us behind as we started the toughest of the two big climbs for the day, with Leigh resorting to walking much of the way.

We eventually caught up with Gerrit and Letitia while they were having lunch at a truck stop in Estépar. Here we made the second routing error of the day before eventually finding the right road to Burgos where the Hollanders caught up with us again before disappearing over the first big hill.

We are spending the next three nights in Burgos in a lovely apartment. It seems to be a good place to take a break and hopefully Leigh will have fully recovered before we hit the road again on Thursday.

Today's ride: 83 km (52 miles)
Total: 2,063 km (1,281 miles)

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Rich FrasierIt sucks to be sick on tour. I hope Leigh makes a full recovery. Rest and fluids!!
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2 years ago

Jean-Marc StrydomThanks Rich. A couple of days of rest have allowed her to recover enough for us to get cycling again. Looking back at previous journals it seems that somewhere between eight and ten weeks on the road, one or both of us often come down with a cold. We have become accustomed to factoring in a week or so of extra time because inevitably something happens that forces us to take a break in the middle of a tour.
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2 years ago