A Long Morning

Hello, everyone.

We left Carreon de los Condes at 6:45 am, trusting to luck that a bar with cafe leche and bocadillos would turn up in an hour or two. No such luck. Our first shot at food--real food, that is--was 18 km down the trail in Cazadilla de las Cuevas. Before that, feeling the empty, we shared a couple of my sweetie's Oreos and an apple that he cut up as we walked. The land was mostly flat--a symphony of greens and golds--and I got some pictures as we went along.

Wheat all around--very peaceful

That tiny red spot in the distance is my sweetie!

First swallow nests I saw in Spain!

We stopped for the night at Terradillos de los Templarios. The albergue is named after Jacques DeMolay, the last head of the Templars. The albergue had a lovely garden patio, with roses, and also a well where I slapped laundry on, not a rock exactly, but a plastic laundry tub. With cold water.

Doing the laundry old-school. I'm in the orange shirt.

 But the weather was good, and the clothes dried on the line. Our Bufferin was starting to run low by now. (We'd been taking 2 at bedtime to bring down foot swelling so the muscles could flush out toxins during the sleep hours.) The bunks were made of wood (solidly made) instead of iron. The hospitaleros had a cena (supper) and I ate rabbit for the first time. It was good.

We had planned to walk the next day to Sahagun, but things worked out differently in the end. (Don't they always?) But that is stuff for another post. This one is long enough.

Carreon de los Condes

Hello, everyone.

We left the Heavy Metal Village (also called Hippie Hollow around our house) earlyin the morning. We walked to Carreon de los Condes and found ourselves a pair of top bunks at the Augustinas' convent. These ladies were into the whole togetherness thing. They had a meeting with self-introductions and singing before dinner, then dinner was a potluck affair (they had made a soup with some meat and potatoes--I know why they were all skinny!) and then after dinner we went to Mass at the nearby church. We had gotten in about 2:30 in the afternoon, so I had some time to figure out how to get up to the top bunk by myself. Ladders really aren't my favorite thing, but I got myself straightened out and coped with it. A few days later I was glad that I had done so, as I got another top bunk.

Another beautiful retablo. The ladies really went all-out on the flowers!

I think this was a dovecote. The little things at the top were all small-bird-sized openings.

My sweetie with Santiago

We had enjoyed another day of warm weather. I do want to mention, in case I haven't already, that when you turn on the sink faucets in Spain--like when you help out with the dishes in the nuns' kitchen--the hot water is really, really hot. They don't seem to have the regulation about maximum water temperature settings there that I was used to in the States.
What was our contribution to the potluck? While I tended to our laundry, my sweetie strolled the groceries and came back with canned sardines and cream cheese and a loaf of baguette: snickeldrip! Yum.

Heavy Metal Zone

Hello, everyone.

We left Hontanas about 7:10 am, which was late for us. The day was clear and pleasant, not too cold nor too warm. We walked through fields and around mesas and past Castrojeriz:

 There is a castle on a nearby mesa that protected the area.

 We also walked over one mesa that was, well, difficult. The trail had signs before both the climb to the top:

Slogging uphill at 12 degrees of slope

 

 

Copy of the slope sign for people going the other way!

And also the 18 degree descent to the bottom (again, the sign pic is to show off that we completed the slope!)

The downhill side was a cement path, about as wide as a small road, and I had to zigzag it to keep my toes from being completely beaten to pieces inside my boots. I kept stopping to look back, too, because I was afraid that a bike pilgrim would be coming down, and be unable to go around me at the high speed the bike would surely hit. All in all, I was very glad to get to the bottom of that path!

We continued on, reaching the border of the province and stopping for the night in Itero de la Vega. This small village, we discovered, is the site of a heavy metal festival every August. The young fellows who ran the albergue we stayed at were metalheads, too. The walls resounded with the THUD THUD of the music being listened to by the one who was doing reception in the afternoon. Some friends of theirs had a bar and we were given samples of their herbal liqueur after dinner. It was strongly fennel-and-apple in the taste.

The next day we left early and headed on down the road. When we stopped for cafe leche, at a little eat place out in the middle of wherever, I heard the sound of home: a lady came in with her family and she asked the bartender for "jugo de naranja." (In Spain, we had discovered, nobody says "jugo." They all say "zumo.") Just the sound of it was refreshing.

Hontanas

Hello, everyone.

We left Burgos early on Monday morning, after putting the room key on the table in the room. (We had asked the night before what they wanted us to do with it, "porque vamos muy temprano.") As usual there wasn't much going on at 6:30 or 7.
We got turned around while following yellow arrows on pavement at one point, and someone saw us and pointed the way. And we saw an old waymarker that was neat looking:

Waymarker on the way out of Burgos. Note the shells on the Cross of Santiago and the top of the pillar.

Shortly we were on the meseta. When I called it the Kansas of Spain a few weeks back, I wasn't joking. We had good weather for all the the meseta walking we did--sunshine, rain that restricted itself to after bedtime, moderate temperatures. (Actually the same temperatures that had been so cold in Pamplona--we had adapted to the 17C and 19C and as long as the sun shone we were fine.)

 The province has improved the pilgrim pathways. The surface is compressed caliche and there are very few rocks sticking up through the surface. I saw a lot of miffed comments in the guidebooks about this. The authors--I particularly noticed it with the Brierly guide--prefer "natural" paths. By which I guess they mean lumpy things with rocks sticking through every which way and unimproved mud surfaces that go to slop if there is rain. I had walked on their "natural paths" already and greatly preferred these. Not having to stress out about where to put my feet was a relief.Being able to stretch out my legs and go my natural pace also felt better than having to perch unsteadily on various rocks while going downhill.

The walk to Hontanas was about 20 miles.

On another subject, I am setting up a shop at Cafe Press so anyone that wants a copy of some of the pictures we took can get one. The Burgos waymarker above is one of the shots I used. The name of the shop is Texas Wanderer on the Camino, if anyone wants to look it up. (And I hope that it actually shows up on a search. I'm still new to all this stuff!)

More on Burgos

Hello, everyone.

I have dug around in our receipts and maps and other copies of this-n-that and discovered the name of that lovely little apartment-hotel we stayed in: Maria Salome Aparthotel. They gave us a discount because of being pilgrims--the discounted rate was 55 euro a night. If you are there and want to find them, look on San Lorenzo street, the sign for the hotel tells you which bar to ask in. (A surprising number of these small lodging places are run by bar owners' families.) They are included on the list of hotels on the city map from the tourist information office.

The route of the Camino Frances--the route we were following--is also marked on the map with yellow dashes. We still got turned around while leaving the city.

As you can see, the cathedral of Burgos is still a working church.

 The cathedral is both an art museum and a working church. The art is wonderful. The tomb of el Cid and is wife is also there. The remains were moved years after their deaths when a later king wanted to honor him.

The tomb of el Cid, who was from Burgos.

We went to Sunday Mass at the church of San Lesmes Abbad (St. Lesmes the Abbot) and saw a unique retablo. It was elaborately carved, like almost all of them, and it had polychrome statues of saints, like almost all of them, but it wasn't gold-leafed. It was carved from dark wood--either ebony or walnut--and left in its native color. It is, of course, quite tall and the parts out of normal reach are dusty. It made me think of Jean, the lady in the Altar Society who gets up on the thirty foot tall ladder to dust high-up things. I think Jean would have only been able to reach about half of this with that ladder, though. I suspect that once a year they bring in scaffolding to clean it.

The retablo of San Lesmes Abbad.

I hope these little bits about Burgos will inspire you, if you are in that area, to spend a day or three exploring the city. We enjoyed it a lot. We especially loved the yogurt shop that we found just inside the gate to the old city...sorry, no picture and we don't know any more than that about the address...but the yogurt was wonderful, both the frozen and the jars of fresh yogurt we bought to eat before leaving on Monday morning.

Home of El Cid, and a beautiful cathedral

Hello, everyone.

On May 31 we arrived in the large city of Burgos. I mentioned that we walked around the airport runway. I think there was only one runway, but from your own feet it's hard to tell. Certainly we walked along for a long time, clinging to the left side of the road, hoping no cars would get crazy and hit us. One car did stop unexpectedly--in front of a bicycle rider that they apparently knew. It was family reunion time for a while.

There is supposed to be a fresher, greener way into the city that goes along the river, but we missed the turn. It was just as well. I needed to make a pit stop in the worst way, and right at the edge of the suburb (Villafria?) was a coffee shop. Cafe leche for two, and where is the ladies' room please? Another timer controlled light. (I think all of the public toilets in Spain are all on light timers. Sometimes you can't reach the light switch to turn it back on from the pot. This gets awkward.) Then there was miles of sidewalks passing empty warehouses, empty car dealerships, etc. etc. and at one point, when we were in the city, we felt very lost. Surely we'd missed the turn? But we asked directions of a passerby and were corrected. There was a lot more walking yet. We did eventually find our way to the old city. And after two failed attempts we found a space at the ______ Apart-hotel. This was a tiny efficiency style apartment/hotel room with a dorm fridge and a hot plate and a TV and a bathroom and a table with a couple of chairs next to the bed. The shower had one of those uber-fancy spray arrangements with about 7 squirters scattered along the length of the pole. Sheets! Our own bathroom! Luxury.

Now I know why old men were hunting snails! They were selling these--live and lively!--snails for 9 euro a kilo.

The cathedral of Burgos. (Limo with a wedding in progress, I think.)

Center of a pavement sundial

Dome of the cathedral

The Renaissance stairs, and on the left, the silver carriage used for Corpus Christi processions

The Renaissance stairway was built because when they rebuilt the cathedral and needed more space, they ended up cutting away the side of the hill and lowering the ground level by 8 meters. The old street level door was suspended in air, so they brought in a spiffy Italian architect (well, I guess he was Italian) and made a grand staircase like one that Da Vinci or someone similar had made in an Italian city. The doorway is not in use any more, but the staircase remains to be admired.
The silver carriage is stored next to the stairs until it is brought out for big processions like Corpus Christi.

More on Burgos tomorrow, including some more on El Cid!

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.