So quite a lot has happened over the past few days...many unique and powerful experiences. We are currently in Burgos, Spain and just finished a dinner with about 7 other pilgrims on the Plaza Mayor. A fabulous evening in Spain with children running around, old people sitting on benches and chatting, and a nice breeze cooling everything off. The road here has been anything but cool. Over the last 3 days we have walked about 50 miles and it has been in blisteringly hot weather...literally. Catie´s feet have so many blisters it is ridiculous! Michael´s ankles are doing better, but still bothering him. One of our favorite places so far has been our albergue in the town of Beldorado, which is run by the Swiss Association of the Camino. The albergue itself is an old theatre, so the kitchen is the stage, the dining room the audience and the bedrooms the balcony. The two women, our hospitaleros, were extremely kind, and basically force-fed us coffee while we all chatted. Last night we stayed in an old monastery in San Juan de Ortega. This town was TINY, no internet access and very little going on. The tradition there is to give the pilgrims garlic soup, so at 730 on the nose we were each given a bowl of garlic broth with chunks of bread in it. Quite tasty actually. We went to our third mass in Spanish...still have no idea what they are saying, but the people here have such conviction that it is worth going. The chaos at communion is still a bit much for us, but other than that it is a great experience. Today we entered back into city life. Burgos is much larger than we expected, and we had to walk through the dirty, busy side to get to where we are staying. Our albergue is one block away from the Cathedral, which we toured this afternoon. It is amazing! Absolutely mindblowing. However, looking out the windows and seeing people drinking cervezas on the sidewalk encouraged us to breeze through parts of it and go get a beer ourselves. Tonight we are very excited, because we have 2 days of non-walking ahead of us. Our bodies and minds need the break. Tomorrow we board a bus for the trip to Leon, where we will spend a day and a half awaiting the third member of our entourage...JULIA!!! We are excited to have a break and get a chance to explore another spanish city. From Leon, we will have 13-14 more days of walking before we reach our final destination. We are trying not to think about that right now. Other than that, everything is just great. We are sad to be leaving this group we have been traveling with for the past 5 or so days, as we have become quite close to them. Each person here has such a great story and adds so much to everyone else´s trip. Last night, for instance, one of a pair of men we have been walking with hobbled into the albergue and his feet were bright red with blood. We are still not sure how they got that bad, but his friend whom he has been walking with spent the evening taking care of him. Quite the sight to look over and see a 50-something man wiping down his friend´s feet with such care. There are two women who remind us of our moms...we told them that and they proceeded to tell us all about their kids. Now when they see us they yell ¨montana!¨ It is quite the crew, half the time we can´t even understand each other, but you don´t really need to. We are going to call it a night, but we miss you all very much and hope things are going well. Much love.

Buen Camino!