Month: September 2024

Depart Time: 7:55 Temp: 49F RH: 90%

Walked: 5.9 mi. Camino 2024: 133 mi.

It was a cool morning… great for walking.

The Canal de Castilla was built from 1753-1859, covering 207km. The canal was used for ships that were pulled by mules on tow paths. Today the canals are used to irrigate agricultural fields.

We first stopped at Casa Rural Amanecer in 2014. We were carrying our large backpacks, we had just finished walking from Itero de la Vega (12 miles) and were dead tired.

Our host welcomed us, pointed to an inviting leather couch, helped us with removing our packs and as we sat down, handed us a glass of wine. To this day, we can still remember the relief we felt at that moment and the minutes that followed as we waited comfortably for our room to be ready,

Today, our third visit to this gem on the Camino, was a little different. We had only walked 6 miles and our daypacks were much lighter, but we were still a bit tired. It’s been 10 years! We were again met by our host and welcomed. After a brief moment for eyes to recognize familiar faces, we were embraced like a long lost friend and handed a glass of cool sangria as we were offered a seat on that same leather couch as we waited for our room to be ready.

We both slept for a couple of hours after having devoured our lunch and then took it easy until bedtime, having added another day of future memories for Camino 2024.

Depart Time: 8:25. Temp: 51F RH: 90%

Walked: 6.4 mi. Camino 2024: 127 mi.

A taxi picked us up at the albergue door this morning at 8:10.

We skirted a distance of 5 miles along the Camino from Castrojeriz to San Nicolás chapel. We had already walked this section in 2014, ’17 and ’19. We began skipping it in 2022, because the walking distance for the day became marginal for us (20kms, 12 miles), because our mid-way stopping point in Itero de la Vega closed with the owner’s death during the pandemic.

Today’s ten minute ride allowed us to go around rather than climb Alto de Mostelares and then avoid the 18% slope down the mountain followed by a winding path through the fields to the Rio Pisuerga, which forms the border between the provinces of Palencia and Burgos.

The taxi dropped us at the San Nicolás Chapel (13c) and primitive albergue, run by an Italian Confraternity. We immediately crossed over the Rio Pisuerga on a paved bridge (12c) and on the other side were surprised to see two of the three pilgrim friends we met along the walk into Hontanas, two days ago. They had spent last night at San Nicolás and the previous night at the San Anton ruins… two primative albergue in two nights. They said they totally enjoyed the experience at both locations.

They were trying to decide about taking an alternative route to save 4 miles on their planned walk for the day of over 35kms (21 miles). We were not familiar with the route in question, but described the route we were taking and what to expect. On the alternate route there were potential safety issues and a question of services along the paved road which had no apparent adjacent walking path.

They stuck with the same route we were taking and we played hop scotch, finally parting company at our destination in Boadilla del Camino.

The area we began walking through today is called the Tierra de Campos. The 12c Codex Calixtinus (1138-45) described it as “full of royal treasure, of gold and silver, fabrics and the strongest horses, and flush with bread, wine, fish, milk and honey. It is however lacking in firewood and the people are evil and vicious.”

Thankfully, based on our personal experiences in this area of the Camino, the evil and vicious folks must have moved on a long time ago.

First order of business was breakfast. We had cafe con leche as usual, but with tostados not an option, we opted for Santiago cake instead and were not disappointed. (Time for a change? We’ll see.)

As soon as we finished breakfast, we asked the owner, Eduardo, when our room would be ready and without hesitation, he said “now”. He also recognized us by saying you’ve been here twice before, and handed Jim the room key.

Our packs still hadn’t arrived by 2:15, so we had lunch/dinner. At mid-meal, Eduardo stopped by our table and announced our packs had been delivered.

So, the rest of the afternoon and early evening were spent doing our usual and prepping for tomorrow.

We are managing the physical part of the Camino pretty well, but are noticeably not as strong (legs) as on previous Caminos and seem to be more tired at the 5-6 mile mark. That’s better than before we left Greenville for the Camino, but still not as good as Jim remembers last year at this point.

The Meseta is doing its job to begin to tone our minds and improve our mental state. Hopefully, we will still continue to strengthen our bodies in parallel.

The Camino provides.

Depart Time: 8:00 Temp: 54F RH: 90%

Walked: 6.6 mi. Camino 2024: 121 mi.

Because the mornings are much cooler, we started a little later today.

On our first Camino, Jim’s first set of trekking poles broke on the walk to Hontanas. As we walked into Castrojerez the next day, he searched for replacements, but with no success until walking by a small, jammed shop that seemed to have all kinds of stuff. Hanging on the back side of the front door was a single set of Altus poles for 39€. Jim took them to the store owner and immediately purchased them. Jim and the owner were both delighted by the purchase.

Jim still has the poles which continue to perform well after 5 plus Caminos.

Jim has walked by the store each of the past 4 Camino’s, hoping to make contact with the owner, but the store has always been closed. Today we walked an extra mile from our albergue to look for the owner again and were pleased to find him behind the counter. Jim thanked him and recounted our experience 10 years ago and asked the owner to help him select a rain poncho.

Neither of us were very conversant in each other’s language. We did determine that the owner is 92 and the non-verbals were priceless. The encounter made for a very happy reunion before once again going our separate ways. (We learned later from our albergue owner that the store owner’s wife had recently passed away, only one month ago.)

As soon as we checked in, we got a light lunch to hold us until our 7:00 dinner time.

After lunch, we gathered up dirty clothes and while Linda was getting her shower and then chilling, Camino style, Jim gathered the dirty clothes and headed to the washer/dryer located in the nice jardin between the albergue and restaurant and began working on the blog for today.

We ate dinner in the albergue dining which featured Korean cuisine. We enjoyed it in 2023 and it was tasty tonight as well.

Jolean, from the Netherlands, sat with us and we enjoyed hearing about her Camino experiences and also sharing some of our knowledge about what lays ahead.

We returned to our room at 8:30 to prepare for tomorrow’s walk and reflected on what a nice day is was in so many different ways,

Depart Time: 7:30 Temp: 58F RH: 90% plus 25mph wind & rain

Walked: 7.0 mi. Camino 2024: 114 mi.

Shortly after we left Hornillos and began walking back up toward the Meseta we were met with thunder, lightning and continuous showers.

Some 60 minutes and two miles later we finally reached the Meseta as the rain stopped but the wind continued.

Other than a brief period when we walked down to an off-Camino path toward San Bol, a primitive albergue, and then returned back to the Mesata plateau, we spent the morning continuing on some 4 more miles to Hontanas.

A group of three pilgrims caught up to us and we began walking and talking together for a mile or so. One lady, age 71, was from Charleston, S.C. and was accompanied by her son and her 69 year old sister from North Carolina. The distraction of our interesting conversations made the time go by faster as the wind continued and the dark clouded skies threatened.

The group of three were faster walkers than we, and they finally wished us “buen Camino” and left us in their wake.

After 6 plus miles from our start, we sighted the steeple of Iglesia de la Inmaculada Concepción…

and as we got closer the path began to head down off the Meseta again into Hontonas, which reminds us of one of the towns of the old west seen in classical American cowboy movies.

We stopped at the bar/albergue on the edge of the village and had breakfast and chatted again briefly with our earlier pilgrim friends, before they continued on past Hontanas a few more kms to experience the Hospital de Peregrinos de San Antón, a primative albergue in the ruins of the San Anton Convent (12c).

After breakfast we walked to the El Pundito bar/albergue where we checked in and received the key for our room at La Fontana, a Casa Rural property just a few steps further down the “main street”.

After a brief rest and performing some chores, we walked across the street to have an early-dinner/late-lunch at 2:30.

The rest of the day was dedicated to reading, blogging and chillin’.

Depart Time: 7:55 Temp: 59F RH: 100%

Walked 6.3 mi. Camino 2024: 107 mi.

We arranged for a taxi to take us from our hotel, skipping about 6 miles through the city streets and suburbs of Burgos to the village of Tardajos, where we picked up the Camino.

We followed the arrows along a zig-zag path through the village exiting by the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción…

… onto the path along the road to Rabé de la Calzadas, where we stopped for breakfast.

At breakfast, we began chatting with Steve from Australia and a South Korean, couple currently living in California.

Leaving Rabé ahead of them, we figured they would catch-up and pass us as we began walking up to the Meseta on the path just outside the village.

Just before we reached the Meseta, some 2 miles later, our new pilgrim friends passed by and moved on toward Hornillos Del Camino.

The Meseta is frequently referred to as boring, repetitive and bleak. Many pilgrims choose to skip the Meseta when walking the Camino from SJPDP or Roncesvalles or Pamplona on their way to Santiago.

We began walking it for our 6th time today and consider it a favorite part of the Camino.

We think the view of Hornillos del Camino is beautiful from the top of Matamulos. And the steep walk down into Hornillos is anything but boring.

We walked into Hornillos del Camino and met our friends from breakfast and helped them find a place for the night at our Albergue called Meeting Point.

The Meeting Point owner checked us in at 12:00. Both she and the owner of the small grocery store a few doors away remembered us from our previous visits in 2022 and 2023 and made us feel especially welcomed.

Meeting Point has a nice green grass outdoor area including a small above ground swimming pool. They have both clothes washers and a dryer which will allow us to leave tomorrow with everything clean in spite of some afternoon showers.

They offer an unusual pilgrims dinner featuring homemade paella which tonight fed some 28 pilgrims all in a large dining area.

Our nearby dinner partners were from the UK, Italy (Pisa), Canada (Quebec), and South Korea.

The chatting during and after dinner continued on past 9:00, when we finally retired to our room to prepare for tomorrow’s walk back up onto the Meseta.

We took advantage of our rest day and slept in a bit.

All was quiet at 8:00 on this Sunday morning so it took a while to find a bar open for breakfast. But we soon found one not too far from our hotel.

We returned to the room after breakfast and Linda decided to chill and Jim wanted to revisit his favorite Catedral so we went our separate ways for the morning.

After paying the admission fee (5€) for pilgrims, Jim entered the Catedral and followed a guided tour app that was conveniently upload to his phone and he easily follow the narrators guidance and commentary, confirming photos and written text on the app for the “tour” throughout the entire Catedral.

The tour pace was controlled by Jim listening to and occasionally pausing and speeding up the guide’s commentary based on interest. Total time for Jim to take the tour was 2 hours. The following photos and notes are a sampling of the architecture, art, paintings and sculptures seen along the way:

One of the many stained glass windows throughout the Burgos Cathedral.

Jim returned from his tour of the Catedral in time for lunch. Yesterday, during one of our reconnaissance strolls, Linda spied a restaurant menu offering “Ensalada de queso de cabra” (mixed salad with goat cheese), So we decided to make it lunch.

After lunch, we took a stroll down toward the park by the river looking for a chocolate dessert, without having anything specific in mind. We heard some music and followed it and a gathering to a large gazebo in the park with jazz musicians performing for an appreciative mixture of local citizens of all ages and even a few pilgrims.

We listened to the music until the band took a break, then continued our stroll until settling for a Magnum double chocolate bar on our way back to the room.

We passed the rest of the afternoon organizing our stuff for continuing the walk tomorrow then returned to the park to a pizzeria for supper.

We thoroughly enjoyed our extra day in Burgos and appreciated all the many aspects of the Camino Frances that make it so special to us.