How far?

Spain Day 8 : Tosantos - Burgos 48km (*¿^! - much expletives)

After another communal breakfast which thankfully didn´t include any type of food that Italy was famed for I headed out just after 8am. Passing through many quiet villages arrived at San Juan de Ortego at lunchtime which had a very well thought of monastery and chapel...to be fair they were very pretty. Saw the French couple again as they were diagonally heading across the field behind me and an Italian couple whom i had thought were with them but they walked around and i saw them in a new light. Walked at a fair rate of knots through 12km of oak and pine woodland tracks where for the first time i started ´wolf watch´.....pretty slim chance but a pilgrim can hope.Did see quite a few deer on the hillside in the morning mists so wolves might not be an impossibility. Again i arrived too early to want to stop in a very lovely village on route but decided i´d just ´pop over´to the other side of the big hill and stay somewhere there. Things went from summerry balm to scottish highland bleak in a short space of time and i was soon battling the wind and rain over said blessed hill. I found one of El Boracho´s friends battling with his waterproofs on the horizontal rain engulfed summit and helped him pull his poncho over himself and his backpack which then blew out sideways giving me a feisty slap in the face. He intended to reach Burgos and i wished him well as there was no way i intended to go that far, nope didn´t want to, was no way.

So, as i found myself with no other choice but to be walking on to Burgos i was substantially miffed. The place i had intended to stop didn´t exist so there was nothing for it.....13 more km and boy were they drudgy kilometres at that. Walked around airport boundary for an age then followed long busy roads through industrial outskirts that outskirted for miles. Reaching the long slog into the city centre proper the guiding yellow arrows decided to have a bit of fun directing me down dead end streets and then disappearing completely...a bit like an early version of sat nav. Was suitably in a proper mood with myself by the time i arrived at last at the ultra modern, organised and swish city albergue opposite the cathedral which charged 4euros for the night. A lipsticked cyclist i had seen a few times today patted me on the shoulder and then the equally drained friend of El Boracho crashed through the door, his poncho twisted around his neck. Oh, how we laughed.