latte

Well sadly all good things must come to an end … and our time in beautiful Burgos did just that yesterday afternoon.

We had a 15:25 train from Burgos to our next sight seeing / break from walking day in Leon this time. We were primed to make the best of our amazing treat hotel and city though for the morning before departing.

To kick things off, we enjoyed quite thoroughly a breakfast for kings! The breaky buffet at the hotel was 7euros and check out our feast below. Crazy to think this is what we can get for 7euros in one place, but only get a piece of toast with jam and coffee or juice in another place for 5euros. We will be keeping our eyes open for deals like this from here on! Big breaky means skip lunch means save money!

After we stuffed ourselves quite completely. We put our packs in the left luggage room and ventured the old city again.

We headed in the direction of the massive chapel and came upon some stone stairs heading up to a hill above the city with a sign marked Castillo (castle) – ok! Slowly, being mindful this was a tourist day not a hump it up hills day, we made it up and up to a birds eye view of the city streets we had walked the night before. Here are a few of the pics up to and from the castle heights:

From up here for the first time we heard the Sunday bells from the massive chapel – wow is about all I can say to describe them. They are rung for 15mins every hour on Sundays and are just amazing. Like give you goose bumps amazing. From up high they sounded so smooth and combined but then from close to the cathedral you could pick out each individual bell. Depending where you stood in the plaza they sounded different again. The echo of the bells off the high buildings and stone was making a few dogs in town a little crazy. One poor pouch was going in circles barking trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. Hilarious. I posted a video recording of the bells on my Instagram @brandedavison if you want to hear them.

We could not resist a few more pics of the cathedral and plaza in the morning light as we walked around the area enjoying the bells:

Finally we enjoyed our last Burgos cafe con leche (coffee with milk) outside of our amazing hotel:

We made our way by bus #25 from Plaza de Espana over to the train station and then by train for 2 hours over to Leon. We had a bit of a wait so got some sunshine naps in first!

Before departing we had our final Burgos entertainment … a guy who was a bit sketch and carrying 2 backpacks was told by security to exit the train station as he did not have a ticket. Well wouldn’t you know it as soon as our train pulled in, the sketch guy dropped one bag and went barreling for the nearest open train door – knocking the poor ole security guard down and almost between the train and the platform in the process. Sketch guy hid somewhere in the train and they could not find him. So he did end up getting the free ride to Leon he was looking for in the first place. Gong show!

Any who, the train trip itself was a really nice way to see the landscape change from green Burgos to dry Leon. We left the chilly wind, humidity, high of 21C in Burgos and stepped of the train into the dry heat of 34C of Leon. We were happy to leave that oppressive, soggy humidity behind.

We are super excited to explore Leon today. Will it stand up to Burgos? The bar is set pretty high!! Stay tuned to find out …

Brande

Happy, dirty boots and socks post Grind!

There are many different schools of thought about training for Mount Kilimanjaro.

Some say you should build up the core and legs, hike a lot of stairs and steep hills, and learn how to drink a lot of water. Some say there is no use in training when the middle aged and out of shape have a great success rate of getting to the summit. I say lets go for more training than less, it is good for the body anyway and hope for the best out of this body when it comes down to step by step up the mountain.

So here is what I loosely consider my training regime:

jog 3 mornings a week
stair / hill walk 3 times a week
long hike weekly
hard or crazy work out hike weekly
play some of my usual sports
eat way more veggies than usual, losing a few pounds is always a nice treat
work on core, legs and all around harden up the muscle-y bits

For this weeks hard or crazy work out hike I tackled the Grouse Grind in North Vancouver.

PLEASE NOTE to some this is not hard or crazy, they do it near daily and can get up the mountain side in under an hour or less and enjoy themselves … I am not that person, sadly but also proudly lol. For me the slog up the 2,830 stairs is grinding (pun intended) but the reward amazing.

So up I went this morning – I started at 8:00am and finished at 10:40am, took lots of 20-30 second breaks on the way up (yes, these were usually to let someone pass my turtle self) and generally enjoyed my pace and my time. I didn’t love the fog that socked me in at 1/2 way up or the rain that soaked my from about the same point – but I live on the lush, green coast of Canada what do you expect. I started my Keen Targhee boot training this morning to get them warmed up for Kilimanjaro and they were awesome! I also had my day pack stuffed with 25lbs which I swore at a few times on the way up 🙂

I enjoyed me a lovely yummy extra hot latte at the top – did a little reading for school while sipping away. Usually I would enjoy the amazing view but that fog I mentioned prevented seeing more than 10ft.

If interested in more Grouse Grind details: https://www.grousemountain.com/grousegrind (you may secretly hate the path and everyone on the way up, but wow you feel like a rock star when you get there)

76 sleeps till we leave for Kili!

(PS one of the things hikers on Kili hear over and over from their guides is Pole, Pole. This is Swahili for Slowly, Slowly so you don’t burn yourself out and get more time to acclimatize as your climb. Perhaps my turtle self was made for Pole, Pole! Yah!)

Brande