You know you get up too early when...

...you thought 9.30am was the afternoon!!

Sorry I've not posted for a while, we've had some long days since I last wrote and reaching Burgos today our grand total is now 290km!! After two weeks hard work we're treating ourselves tonight to a hotel room - so excited for a nights sleep without the snoring of a group of pilgrims and the creaking of 20 bunk beds! We gt momentarily excited about having a wardrobe, but quickly remebered that we were wearing one set of clothes and needed to wash the other so there wasn't actually anything to hang in it!!

A highlight of the last few days has been Santo Domingo where we stayed at a hostel run by Cistercian nuns and joined them for vespers and Mass. The cathedral there was also amazing, and there was even a coop inside with a live chicken and a live hen!! The story is that the leader of the town hung a young boy who was mistakenly accused of theft,and as proof of his innocence he didn't die. St Dominic saw this and went to the leader to ask him to take him down and let him live,but the leader didn't believe him nd portested that the boy was no more alive than his dinner which he was about to eat, at which point the chicken and he hen came to life!! (We were assured that the animals are well looked after and changed every 15 days). As well as bringing peoples dinner to life St Dominic also improved the road for pilgrims and cured the sick, so while we were there we got a special blessing of St Dominic.

We've been doing and seeing and learning so much already on our camino,and it's hard to get that across on here. After two weeks we've nearly adapted to the slower pace of life which at first was a shock to the system after busy terms and for me the business of graduating and leaving Durham. We're learning one of the biggest lessons of the camino and of life which is to be content with the present. Moving to somehwere new and unknown every day teaches you not to get to attached but to be content with the present and just to live the moment you are given. Ths is very easy to say as I sit on my comfy clean hotel bed, but we are learning that "yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery and today a gift - that's why it's called the present". I'm not sure this does justice to our experience but we are lerning lots about ourselves and about life and about God.

And of course we're having lots of fun as well as contemplation.

With love from our very much appreciated hotel room in Burgos,

Helen and Mary :)