Latest / WCBH / Day 27 - Camino Francés: El Burgo Ranero to Mansilla de las Mulas

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Day 27 - Camino Francés: El Burgo Ranero to Mansilla de las Mulas · WCBH

• 0:26
  Just walking past a house with chickens running around the yard.
• 0:30
  So nice to see. It is day 27. We're heading from El Bergo to Mancilla, 20 kilometres today.
• 0:39
  First stretch was 12 kilometres to a town called Religios.
• 0:44
  And then the second stretch is a 7 or 8 kilometre run.
• 0:48
  We expect you to get in there probably around 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
• 0:52
  We got up this morning and we thought that our accommodation would be at least serving a breakfast.
• 1:00
  They weren't. So we had to leave town with no coffee.
• 1:03
  So that was a long 12-kilometer stretch to Religios with no coffee.
• 1:09
  We did have a warm lunch, I wouldn't call it a hot lunch, a warm lunch of tortilla
• 1:14
  in some sort of tomato soupy base, some capsicum, some other vegetables, all thrown in there.
• 1:22
  And we tried their sweetbread, like a French toast, I suppose you'd call it
• 1:27
  a Spanish toast, but something that's been soaked in milk and pan fried with
• 1:31
  some sugar and cinnamon on top and lemon.
• 1:34
  Not too bad. The coffee, it was a long stretch to get that coffee and the coffee was, it was okay.
• 1:41
  I've had some great cups of coffee. This wasn't one of them,
• 1:43
  but this one was okay. Did the job.
• 1:46
  I want to talk a little bit about water, how we have been managing the water
• 1:50
  out here, because we are covering a lot of distances and you need to keep drinking
• 1:55
  despite the cold conditions.
• 1:59
  We've been fine pretty much. You try and drink as much water as you can in the
• 2:03
  morning. were all carrying just the one water bottle.
• 2:07
  There was one day that I think I carried an extra water bottle.
• 2:11
  Actually, a couple of days where I've carried an extra water bottle.
• 2:14
  I think the first few days I carried an extra water bottle because I was unsure how we would go.
• 2:19
  And then there was one day that had a 17-kilometer stretch between services
• 2:24
  and I carried an extra water bottle.
• 2:26
  Well, what we're finding is when you go through towns,
• 2:30
  most towns not all but most towns will have a tap located in the center square
• 2:37
  where you can fill up your water
• 2:39
  bottle and the water's been really good i pretty much drink tap water,
• 2:44
  when i travel but this water's been really it's been really good um it was cold this morning.
• 2:55
  It didn't compute in my brain that it would be cold because it was a clear blue skies.
• 3:01
  The sun was out and there was no wind, but it was cold.
• 3:06
  It was cold last night as well. It almost sort of feels that it should be starting
• 3:11
  to get warmer because the days are ticking on. We're getting further into spring.
• 3:15
  But this long plain that we're on, we're surrounded by snow-covered mountains, but we're on the plain.
• 3:23
  It really was cold this morning anyway we've
• 3:27
  just finished lunch we've got about another seven or
• 3:30
  eight kilometers to go and then we will be in
• 3:33
  mansilla sitting on the couch in
• 3:36
  our apartment in mansilla de las
• 3:39
  mulas got a nice surprise today i was shocked but it was a nice surprise that
• 3:45
  i had in my mind that we had so many more kilometers to walk and then all of
• 3:51
  a sudden And the town just appeared and I was saying to you,
• 3:57
  we've got kilometres to go, that's not it.
• 4:01
  But it turned out to be the town. Did you get surprised about how close it was? No. No.
• 4:09
  I, you had in your head that it was about seven kilometres and I'd looked and
• 4:13
  seen that it was only about five from where we were.
• 4:16
  So you were sneaking and cheating by looking at the GPS? Yes, I was.
• 4:21
  What about the temperature? What is going on with this temperature?
• 4:24
  We're getting further into March, but it seems to be getting colder.
• 4:29
  We seem to have moved more towards the mountains.
• 4:33
  So that first stretch of the Meseta and the middle, it was. quite warm.
• 4:39
  It'd warm up and it was very comfortable during the day. I wouldn't say it was hot. It was really nice.
• 4:44
  And then we seem to have moved closer to the mountains because during that stage,
• 4:50
  we couldn't see the mountains at all.
• 4:52
  So we're back in sort of mountain area where the temperature is dropping back
• 4:57
  down to two degrees and it's meant to be spring.
• 4:59
  So I don't understand. Like from about midday through to about 3pm is probably the warmest time.
• 5:06
  And then not long after that, the temperature starts to rapidly drop.
• 5:11
  Like this morning when we were walking, I don't think I felt my nose that cold ever before.
• 5:17
  It was very, very cold. In the apartments, they've all got these radiators.
• 5:24
  I cannot work out how to use them. Well, we're not used to all that type of
• 5:28
  equipment being from the tropics.
• 5:30
  We're used to a fan and an air con and that's it.
• 5:33
  So the idea of having to heat an area is quite foreign to us,
• 5:37
  but... They seem to be turning on, like they're automatic or something.
• 5:40
  They turn on at night at a certain time and then they turn off.
• 5:44
  But that was bitterly cold this morning.
• 5:46
  I couldn't feel my fingers or the bottom half of my legs.
• 5:50
  It was very cold. The radiators need to be on longer.
• 5:56
  Dinner tonight, nachos. I don't know how traditional Spanish that is,
• 6:01
  but we got to the Lupa supermarket and bought the ingredients for nachos.
• 6:05
  We were both craving a little bit of chili and we found a nice,
• 6:09
  nice bottle of chili sauce.
• 6:11
  We were craving a lot of chili and we happened to find sriracha,
• 6:15
  which was an amazing find.
• 6:16
  And I thought, is this going to be real sriracha or not?
• 6:19
  But it actually was. And we also found rocket and spinach, which has been a rarity here.
• 6:26
  Some greens, that was good. Yes. And now we've got this bottle.
• 6:29
  So when we go to bars and cafes and we end up with tortilla for the millionth time.
• 6:38
  I'm not knocking it. I do like the tortilla. But we can now pull out our bottle
• 6:42
  of sriracha sauce and say, here's one I prepared earlier and give it a little
• 6:48
  bit of chili and spice. Well, I haven't noticed in this area...
• 6:53
  Bottles of chili sauce are starting to come out. And the last place we were
• 6:58
  in, they gave us this bottle and it had a skull on it and said extra hot.
• 7:02
  It wasn't hot at all, but it was very tasty and it was nice to see some chili.
• 7:07
  I read the back of that bottle. It allegedly claims to have the Carolina Reaper
• 7:12
  in it, but it certainly didn't taste like it. No, it didn't.
• 7:15
  And the sriracha was a lot hotter than we had tonight.
• 7:18
  So I live and hope that as we go, we might actually encounter a little bit of real spice.
• 7:24
  That the food might get spicier.
• 7:26
  You know, one of the good things that I have enjoyed has been the oranges,
• 7:32
  the freshly squeezed orange juice.
• 7:34
  And I don't know, in my mind, I think that Spain is known for oranges.
• 7:39
  They have been exceptionally good.
• 7:41
  Yes, that juice has been good. I think it's Valencia.
• 7:46
  That's in Spain, isn't it? Yes, it is. In the south?
• 7:50
  Yes. Probably the sun, you know, this is the opposite end of the country.
• 7:56
  Tell me about this town. There's a couple of things that this town's known for.
• 8:01
  Something about an old bridge?
• 8:02
  I think it has Roman and medieval heritage. It's still there.
• 8:08
  There's a fortified wall as well. Yes, the old walls around the city are still,
• 8:13
  not all of them, but apparently it has a large number of the walls still intact.
• 8:19
  And the name Mencila de las Mulas.
• 8:23
  Mulas, that sounds a bit like mule. Yes, so it was known as a mule trading town.
• 8:30
  So you came here to buy your mules. It's like the mule with the spinning wheel.
• 8:34
  You don't get the reference, do you? No. Anyway, we are one walking day away from a rest day in Leon.
• 8:44
  This has been a nine-day slog, 180 kilometers.
• 8:51
  We've seen YouTube clips. We've looked at guidebooks.
• 8:55
  And there's been, I suppose, some nightmare stories about the Masetta,
• 9:01
  about how difficult it is. And
• 9:03
  was it someone even said that people sometimes skip the meseta as well?
• 9:10
  Yes, there are a couple of pilgrims and I'd read about it.
• 9:13
  They get a bus from Burgos and they take it to Leon because they find it boring.
• 9:21
  The roads are long, but there's a beauty to it. The big blue sky, the green fields.
• 9:27
  Actually, the fields change colour in time. Some become yellow and red.
• 9:31
  The road is flat and we do have a lot of, you know, long straights,
• 9:35
  you know, that 17 kilometre straight, but it is beautiful and serene.
• 9:39
  I haven't found it too bad.
• 9:40
  Like I was expecting, you know, we were describing
• 9:43
  about it like being stuck in a picture frame
• 9:47
  and just one gravelly road and the scenery never change and greenfields or even
• 9:53
  brownfields either side and just going on and on and on and just unbearable
• 9:59
  lack of change of scenery and unbearable temperature, meaning hot.
• 10:05
  But it hasn't been like that at all. I think there's been a bit of a beauty
• 10:10
  to the wide open plains, the mountains off in the distance, the agricultural
• 10:17
  fields. We saw more corn today.
• 10:19
  Some spilt corn as well on the side of the road.
• 10:23
  A couple more months, that might turn into popcorn, the amount of corn that
• 10:26
  was spilled on the side of the road.
• 10:28
  It was a lot of popcorn. But there has been, I think, a beauty to the Meseta.
• 10:34
  Meseta is beautiful. It is a beautiful place.
• 10:37
  I think it has a bad reputation, which is, I think, just from summer when it can get hot. Yeah.
• 10:45
  One of the pilgrims said she'd walked it in summer and it was 40 degrees.
• 10:49
  And it would be hot because there are no trees, There's no shade along the side.
• 10:54
  However, the time we're walking it is, it's beautiful. And there's lots of animals around.
• 11:00
  We've seen rabbits, boars.
• 11:04
  Snakes. Snakes, deers. Snakes. It was a dead snake.
• 11:09
  Deers. There's still, there's birds everywhere. Those big stalks.
• 11:14
  We had a bit more livestock on the path today as well, where,
• 11:18
  you know, previous couple of days it's just been crops. There's been some livestock as well.
• 11:22
  We saw the cows off through the trees by the side of the road as well.
• 11:27
  So it is quite a beautiful walk. It's just different. And so we get to Leon.
• 11:32
  That's the end of the second section, the mind part.
• 11:37
  And then we move into the third section, which is around the spirit.
• 11:43
  And are we into the Galifia region then?
• 11:47
  Yeah, I'm not sure exactly where that starts. Does that start from Saria?
• 11:52
  I think I'm not sure and that's a
• 11:55
  known wet region yes as well I don't want to jinx it but we have been no I won't
• 12:02
  finish that sentence but we've been really lucky with the weather and you always
• 12:07
  say the next day it happens every single day,
• 12:12
  All right. Well, we're going to enjoy this apartment. We've got some space,
• 12:16
  a couple of bedrooms and a kitchen and all those sorts of things.
• 12:19
  One more walking day, then we've got our rest day in Leon, and then we get ourselves
• 12:25
  geared up for the final stretch.