Day 8 San Juan de Ortega to Burgos

Day 8 San Juan de Ortega to Burgos 29.9km

The stay in the monastery was memorable and will remain in my thoughts forever.

I set off at 06.00 am, having had a comfortable and peaceful night’s sleep.

I periodically listen to music Annie downloaded for my journey. Today’s choice was The Proclaimers - tracks from Sunshine On Leith.
The song ‘500 miles’, definitely gave me a ‘spring’ in my step.

I arrived in Burgos around 13.00 with a huge blister on my small toe and another beginning to show on my big toe.
It was time to relax in my lodgings for 2 nights.
I filled a bowl with water and, for the first 30 minutes, soaked my feet with Himalayan salt and the second half hour in Epsom salts - tips picked up along the Pilgrim Path.

A well-known Buddhist parable of two monks and a woman.

Two monks were travelling together, one young and one old. They came to a river with a strong current, where a young woman was standing alone, unable to cross unassisted. She asked the monks if they would help her cross the river. Without a word, and in spite of the sacred vow he’d taken not to touch women, the older monk picked her up, crossed the river and safely delivered her to the other side. The younger monk joins them, aghast that the older monk has broken his vow, but he remains silent. An hour passes as they travel on, then two hours, then three hours. Eventually, the now agitated younger monk could no longer stand it and asked, “Why did you carry that woman when we took a vow as monks not to touch any women?” The older monk replied, “I set her down hours ago by the side of the river. Why are you still carrying her”?

Almost everyone has held onto something during their life, something that would have been better left by ‘the side of the river’.
One Pilgrim divulged that he had ‘let go’ of something that day, something he had carried with him for years.

During the Pilgrim Walk, ask yourself, What am I hanging onto? What should I have left at the side of the river?Read more