{"id":943,"date":"2015-05-19T06:42:51","date_gmt":"2015-05-19T06:42:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/robscamino.com\/?p=943"},"modified":"2026-02-25T17:39:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T06:39:00","slug":"19th-of-may-is-my-camino-over-walking-to-el-burgo-ranero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/19th-of-may-is-my-camino-over-walking-to-el-burgo-ranero\/","title":{"rendered":"19th of May &#8211; Is my Camino over? Walking to El Burgo Ranero"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Walking to El Burgo Ranero<\/h1>\n<p>(note about early start at bottom of page)<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Lg0-eUx5qsU?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Is my Camino over?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I was pondering on this this morning. It&#8217;s an overcast day, which always seems to affect my mood. But it wasn&#8217;t just that.<\/p>\n<p>I feel like I&#8217;ve gone through an enormous transformation already on this <i>Camino<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>There was the physical stage, initially just getting used to the walk.<\/p>\n<p>Then I guess you would call it the stage of relaxation as I started to get into the rhythm of the walk. And I started to ponder and question and then into that more emotional and spiritual stage.<\/p>\n<p>But what stages lie ahead?<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s starting to feel like the\u00a0<em>Camino\u00a0<\/em>for me has just become a routine.<\/p>\n<p><em>Get up in the morning, get ready, walk for 7 or 8 hours, do the washing, have a meal, go to bed.<\/em> <em>Get up the next day and do it all again.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Is it starting to lose interest? Have I answered the questions that I came here to ponder? Have I actually found the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">right questions<\/span> to ask?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1752\" src=\"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Rob-OByrne-walking-the-Camino.jpg\" alt=\"Is walking the Camino selfish?\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Rob-OByrne-walking-the-Camino.jpg 800w, https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Rob-OByrne-walking-the-Camino-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s over.<\/p>\n<p>I think I&#8217;m just entering another phase of this amazing journey. It&#8217;s also I think a lot to do with the people around you, the ones that you&#8217;re walking with, the ones that you&#8217;re sharing a meal with.<\/p>\n<p>I seem to be <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">between<\/span> my two <em>Camino<\/em> families at the moment.<\/p>\n<p>One is a day or two ahead now,\u00a0and the other\u00a0a day or two behind. This is what happens as people travel and undertake their journey at their own pace.<\/p>\n<p>Gradually, people drift apart, and they drift back together again at later stages.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/the-spiritual-and-emotional\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Perhaps the <em>Camino<\/em> really does reflect our journey through life?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I look forward to catching up with some of my <em>Camino<\/em> families further along in the journey, but for now I need to make an effort to engage with other pilgrims and share the\u00a0journey with them for a little while.<\/p>\n<h3><\/h3>\n<h3><strong>The Melody of the Walk<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The final couple of kilometers into <em><strong>Sahagun<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0and my first real break, is on a nice earthen track.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WE3NFyQG_aE?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I find this type of track is the easiest on my feet, and so I settle into an easy rhythm.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s almost hypnotic as you fall into the rhythm of the walk and the melody that accompanies it.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s the crunch, crunch of my footsteps. The click, click of my tungsten tipped poles hitting the fine gravel. And a strange creak, creak, almost like that of a well worn leather saddle. Which I suspect maybe my water bladder moving inside the pack.<\/p>\n<p>As I look up I see <em><strong>Sahagun<\/strong><\/em> getting closer and the tall spire of the church just to the left of the track.<\/p>\n<p>It looks like quite a large town. I understand that many pilgrims make this a night stop.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wntDav5gOPU?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But for me it will be a chance to grab a quick meal, ice my heels and move on to my destination for this evening, which is <a href=\"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/day-22-terradilla-to-el-burgo-ranero-gallery\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">El Burgo Ranero<\/a><em><strong> \u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Weariness<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>I&#8217;m leaving\u00a0<em><strong>Sahagun\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>after a nice long break, something to eat, and some ice on my heels.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1753 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Sahagun-Spain.jpg\" alt=\"Sahagun, Spain\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Sahagun-Spain.jpg 800w, https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Sahagun-Spain-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The sun is starting to come out and it&#8217;s a really pleasant day. The track looks good although it does merely follow beside the main road. The surface is nice fine gravel and there are some trees for shade.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/road-to-El-Burgo-Ranero-1.jpg\" alt=\"Road to El Burgo Ranero\" width=\"360\" height=\"640\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But today I&#8217;m weary. Am I weary of the journey? Or is it tiredness?<\/p>\n<p><em>I think it might be a little bit of both.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I have put in some long days recently, and I think I&#8217;m just finding it hard to recuperate as quickly.<\/p>\n<p>Two more days and <a href=\"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/21st-of-may-a-struggle-walking-to-leon\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">I&#8217;ll be in <em>Leon<\/em> for a rest stop<\/a>. I&#8217;ll stay there for a full day of rest. And I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;ll feel rejuvenated after that. But for now, I&#8217;ve been walking for over 5 hours, and I probably have another 4 or 5 hours to go. (I&#8217;m slow) I always find towards the end of each day&#8217;s walk I tend to slow down a bit more.<\/p>\n<p>So for today, it&#8217;s head down and walk. Maybe a bit of music will provide a distraction and help me on my way.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Motivating my feet<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>I haven&#8217;t had a confrontation like this since <em>Mr. Bean<\/em>, my teddy bear, got wet on the way to <em><strong>Zubiri<\/strong><\/em>, he complained all the way, and then didn&#8217;t like to sit on the radiator all night to dry out! \u00a0\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>Today <em>my feet<\/em> are complaining.<\/p>\n<p>For now I have to use all my persuasive powers to try and coax them another 12 kilometers to\u00a0<em><strong>El Burgo Ranero<\/strong>,\u00a0<\/em>our\u00a0stop for this evening.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately it&#8217;s another hour before I can take any more pain killers and anti-inflammatories. So we&#8217;ll have to resort to other measures.<\/p>\n<p>I think what we&#8217;ll try is elevating them\u00a0for 15 minutes, and then putting on some compression socks to try and reduce the swelling in the tendons.<\/p>\n<p>That might get us to the next village, which is\u00a0<em><strong>Bercianos del Real Camino<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0where I can stick some more ice on them. Let&#8217;s see.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Don&#8217;t Rush<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>I&#8217;m lying at the foot of a monument with my feet up on my backpack, and they&#8217;re starting to feel better already.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/walking-to-El-Burgo-Ranero-1.jpg\" alt=\"Walking to El Burgo Ranero\" width=\"360\" height=\"640\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m gazing up through the branches of a tree just watching the clouds moving across the sky and it&#8217;s a lovely warm day.<\/p>\n<p>I think I&#8217;ll quite happily lie here for another 30 minutes before moving on.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe I was just getting a gentle reminder that walking the <em>Camino<\/em> is not a race.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s best experienced by taking your time.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Okay it worked!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My feet have stopped complaining, finally.<\/p>\n<p>So it&#8217;s on with the compression socks and on to the next village.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s 5 1\/2 kilometers to the next village so I&#8217;ll set that as my immediate target and we&#8217;ll set a good pace to get there in maybe an hour and a half and then I can stop and put some ice on my heels.<\/p>\n<p>Then the final stage is 7 1\/2 kms to our stop tonight. It will be interesting to see what time we get there!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>A bit of Camino Philosophy<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>I now have about 10 or 12 kilometers to go altogether \u00a0before we finish for the day.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, the weather is good, not too hot, and the track&#8217;s good underfoot.<\/p>\n<p>You know a few days ago, I was thinking of skipping a couple of these stages.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d read in\u00a0guide books and forums that they were a bit more boring, that the path just paralleled next to main roads, and that there was little shade.<\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">But two things turned me against the idea of skipping any stages.<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">One: I think the stages on the <\/span><em style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">Camino<\/em><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\"> vary quite a lot for good reason. And I don&#8217;t really want to miss\u00a0out on the experiences that each stage can give. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">On each of the stages that some people would have considered less worthwhile, or boring, I&#8217;ve met great people, had a great meal, or managed to capture a great photograph.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>So maybe again the <em>Camino<\/em> reflects life, that sometimes we need to take the\u00a0bad with the good.<\/p>\n<p>And sometimes, we have preconceived ideas that we won&#8217;t enjoy something, but in fact we do.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1756\" src=\"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Alfonso-VI-statue-outside-Sahagun.jpg\" alt=\"Alfonso VI Statue outside Sahagun\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Alfonso-VI-statue-outside-Sahagun.jpg 800w, https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Alfonso-VI-statue-outside-Sahagun-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The second reason that I don&#8217;t want to skip any stages, unless there&#8217;s some physical reason why I have to, is this.<\/p>\n<p>I came to walk the <em>Camino<\/em> from <em><strong>Saint Jean to Santiago de Compostela.<\/strong><\/em> And walk it, I will. The journey to me at least, won&#8217;t seem complete if I&#8217;m reflecting that \u00a0I&#8217;d bailed out of a certain section just because I felt like it.<\/p>\n<p>Who knows, maybe after another 100 kilometers my ideas of bailing out on a section may have changed!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>I made it! &#8211; Just<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fv1pwkaVi3c?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Note: My early start today. The best laid plans!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>I was locked in!<\/p>\n<p>I planned to leave Terradillos at about 6am. This would give me a good start for what for me at least, is a very long day&#8217;s walking.\u00a0 30 kms.<\/p>\n<p>But&#8230;.As I left my room to go out into the main Albergue building to find breakfast, the door from the private room section was locked! No way out&#8230;..<\/p>\n<p>After a while, quietly trying my room keys and other ways of opening the door, I opted for the window in my room&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>But of course I could still not enter the main part of the building from the outside&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>To just leave, or wait for breakfast? I decided to wait a while. So climbed back into my room and about 15 mins later, I heard the corridor door being unlocked&#8230;&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was pondering on this this morning. It&#8217;s an overcast day, which always seems to affect my mood. But it wasn&#8217;t just that. I feel like I&#8217;ve gone through an enormous transformation already on this Camino. There was the physical stage, initially just getting used to the walk. Then I guess you would call it the stage of relaxation as I started to get into the rhythm of the walk. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10,7,12,17,13,5],"tags":[93,22,25,88,92],"class_list":["post-943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-emotional","category-gallery","category-physical","category-places","category-reflections","category-videos","tag-bercianos-del-real-camino","tag-camino-de-santiago","tag-camino-reflections","tag-el-burgo-ranero","tag-sahagun"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=943"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":947,"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943\/revisions\/947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}