Climbing towards the Meseta

Today Robin and I are holding up in Villafranca Montes De Oca. We are trying to allow a large group of scouts to move on up the camino ahead of us. We will leave tomorrow for Ages and then on to Burgos after that. Our plan now is to spend a couple of days in Burgos before continuing on. We have struggled with photo uploading and internet service these last few days but hopefully the photo upload will get sorted out soon. These days since Najera have been great walking days with cold temps, occasional snow showers and gusty winds. We walked into Santo Domingo De Calzada on December 24th after a very cold  walk only to find the albergue closed (just for that day). This was not a good scene. Fortunately we were able to convince someone to make a phone call and the doors were opened to our shivering group. We were eight pilgrims from Mexico, Germany, Canada, Korea, and the USA. We spent Christmas eve around a communal dinner table and had a truly marvelous evening. On Christmas day we made our way to Belorado where we also found the albergue that was supposed to be opened, closed. Luckily we discovered a pension nearby and booked three rooms there for what was now a group of five moving along the camino together. The days have passed filled with great walking weather (cold but nice) and warm beds at the end of each day (much luck there). Today with our decision to hold up at Villafranca we have separated from our group. They were all great companions on the Way, but now we have to adjust our schedule a bit to match our own timetable. We are not in a rush to complete the camino. We just want to move at a reasonable pace and enjoy our time together on this remarkable journey. I will add some photos as soon as I can find a computer that will allow me to do that (always blame the computer). Robin and I remain healthy with sound feet and legs (thank God) ready to continue our journey westward. Weather reports indicate a warming trend in the Burgos area over the next few days. We will see what that does to the walking conditions (mud?). Hopefully another post tomorrow from Ages. Bye for now.