Sarah's bad day...

I had a terrible night's sleep. The person in the bunk underneath not only snored REALLY loudly but constantly fidgeted all night. If it hadn't been pouring with rain outside i would have got up at 4am and left.

It was still drizzling at first light so i donned my waterproofs. Sarah fished hers out of her rucksack and found that the jar of jam she'd bought a few days previously, from a roadside vendor, had leaked all over her waterproofs. Oh dear, a horrible sticky mess. Oh double dear, there also seemed to be a long split in her rucksack. she duck taped it up.

We had heard all these things about "the Camino will provide", "just chill and everything will be OK". Our cynical side had said "aye, right!"

We never stop for coffee before walking at least 5km but today, as the rain was getting heavier and Sarah had no waterproofs on we stopped after 2km when we spotted an inviting looking cafe. It was warm and cosy inside and were surprised to find that it was also a shop. We sat with our coffee and Sarah suddenly jumped up and said "hey, look! Waterproof ponchos and they're only €7" The camino provided!

It rained on and off all day. We didn't feel under any pressure to rush as we had a hotel booked in Burgos, the city we were heading to. The walk into the city was quite different from our last week or so - very urban and lots of traffic. The cathedral in the old part of town is spectacular and is todays Blip. Tomorrow we will look inside.

After dropping our gear off at the hotel we decided to get a taxi to the local Decathlon store so Sarah could look for a new rucksack, it was located on an out of town retail park. She took the precaution of finding a telephone number of a taxi company for the return journey. After looking around decathlon for ages Sarah found much needed t-shirts but no rucksack so we decided to call it a day and head back to the city. Time to call the taxi. Oh dear, Sarah's credit seems to have run out on her Spanish SIM card. My phone was back at the hotel charging up. What now?! It was getting dark and it was 3 miles back to the city :-(

We asked - ok, I asked (because my Spanish is marginally better than Sarahs), the girl in Decathlon where we could get a taxi from. She told us we could get a bus and pointed in the general direction. We walked over but could find no bus stop. We stopped a security man from a large shop and asked him in rubbish Spanish about the bus. He kindly took us to a queue of people and said "aqui". The bus came, it was a free bus back to the city, dropping us just minutes away from our hotel. The camino provided again!

A quick wash and change and time to hit the town for tapas and our customary daily wine. The first bar we went into Sarah knocked her full glass flying, the contents narrowly missing the light green trousers of the lady next to her. The bar staff were lovely and wouldn't let Sarah help clear up so she knocked back the remaining wine, the bar staff then presented her with a replacement full glass, no charge. The camino provided.