Ages

Hello, everyone.

The day after we stayed in Villambistia, we climbed over the Montes de Oca. This was at one time a fearsome badlands, with robbers and no clear way for the pilgrims. Santo Domingo and San Juan, I think, were the ones who changed that. They put in roads and even a bridge or two.

At the end of the day's walk, we stopped in Ages. Ages is another little village. It has a municipal albergue with a washer and dryer and a large room full of bunks. This room was U-shaped. The center of the U was the shower and bath area--boys on one side, girls on the other. What you couldn't see from outside the "duchas" (showers) was that in the bathroom itself, the wall only went most of the way to the ceiling. When the boisterous teenaged boys were jabbering away in the shower on the other side of the wall, it sounded like they were right outside the toilet cubicle on the girls' side. Quite unexpected!

This was also the only albergue where I really noticed snoring. The man in the next bunk over from me did a good imitation of a landing 747 all night.

Bell tower of San Juan de Orbigo

The next day, 31 May I think it was, we walked over the range of hills that includes Atapuerca and on to the city of Burgos.

Breakfast at the albergue in Ages. Coffee was extra, the cello wrapped things are sweet rolls.

Stone crop circle in a sheep pasture.

Ages is very near the village of Atapuerca, where there is a cave of Stone Age bones and possibly also cave painting. The Camino path didn't go straight to the visitor center of the cave and we were focused on getting to Burgos, so while we may have seen the visitor center in the distance, we didn't actually see the sight.
We did see more pretty little, ankle-sized flowers blooming along the path, and we did step around a great lot of sheep pellets as we climbed the rocky hill.
We reached Burgos by circling around the runway of the airport and then walking the long way through the entire city. Lots of available commercial property along the route through the city. There is a Camino/hiking supply store, but by the time we got a place to stay we were probably a mile beyond it and we weren't sure exactly where it was any more. The lesson of this is, if you are thinking you should stop in at a supply store on the way, even if you're toting your mochila and have been walking, if you see the store open you should stop. Who knows if you will find your way back to it?

Burgos had a lot of sights, too much to add on to the end of this post, so I will talk about it in the next one.