Mile 143 Belorado
September 24, 2017
Today I was “gel’n.”
Yesterday I bought at a store that sells sporting goods for pilgrims a set of gel insoles. They have more padding to the front of the foot and toes. I think it helped but it was a long and strange day today and my feet still hurt at the end of it. Though I don’t blame them.
The road wasn’t so bad, mostly level with a little incline but it was hot, dry, and sunny (as it is said in Spanish: “¡Qué pega el sol!”) and we walked most of the way along a freeway. We did pass thru several small towns where we could get water and a rest. The bar that we eat at, though, got my husband sick. The sandwich was too oily and he ended up feeling clammy and now has a fever. Of course I don’t have any Alka-Seltzer in my first-aid kit! We stopped at a nice bar/restaurant along the way to have some Kas de Limón. This is a drink that I first had in Pamplona when we took a stop before walking into the city. It’s a soft drink that is low in sugar and is sour like lemon. The texture of it is like a fine fizzy mineral water. We like it for a change with ice and lemon wedge. It really helps with the thirst. So we were looking for a place to buy some, hoping it would settle his stomach. We stopped at this nice bar/restaurant, the only one around and were told that we could not bring our poles and packs in with us.
This is the first time anyone has told us this (even the nice bars that we have been in before allowed us to bring in our poles and packs). The guy was rather rude too. So we left and there was a vending machine but it didn’t work. So we sat on a stone bench where a stone lion spouted out water into a shell shaped basin and rested. A woman from a group that is using a tour bus to pick them up fainted. I don’t think she had any water with her. It’s amazing how many people don’t carry water or enough with them on the walk. We carry 2 liters each…always. She was taken away in an ambulance.
When we got to Belorado we stopped at a bar and had Kas with ice and a lemon wedge and also mineral water. It helped but he has a fever now. Tomorrow we will stay at the hotel longer and take a cab either all the way or part. We are thinking with our heads.
El Camino can be harsh…
…but it gives you surprises:
When we arrived to Belorado El Camino the road took us to a plaza. There on the wall of one of the buildings was a mural. It’s beautiful and has so much to discover as you look at it. Sitting on a bench in the center park of the plaza was a young man and woman with paint all over their clothes. I approached them and it turns out that the young woman is the artist—Alegria del Prado. Later when I was exploring the town I came upon the back of the plaza where she was working on a mural on that side. (She has a Facebook page)
Mile 151.8 San Juan de Ortega
September 25, 2017
El Camino has a way of revealing that which some don’t want revealed:
Since my husband still feels sick, this morning we decided to take a cab to Villafranca Montes de Oca and started El Camino from there. As we drove on the freeway I could see pilgrims walking. I felt uneasy. I didn’t belong in a cab; I belonged out there walking. By doing this we knocked off 7.5 miles from our trip, about half of what we had to walk. When we got out of the cab we were face to face with a high incline of dirt and rock. Up, up, up we went…good way to warm up the calf muscles…ya.
Monumento de los Caídos (The Monument of the Fallen)
A few weeks ago a pilgrim who was starting his second time on El Camino was telling me that in the 1970’s the pilgrims had a difficult time walking to Santiago because there was no set infrastructure for the road for the pilgrims. They ended up having to walk on the roadways and freeways. So Franco decided to have a special path made for the pilgrims that led them more into the countryside. That is how El Camino as we know it today was formed (or so this pilgrim told me). He told me that Franco was very Catholic. I told him that I knew that…I’ve been to his tomb. It was built into a mountain and is the coldest (not meaning temperature) church that I have ever been in.
Today we passed a monument that also has to do with Franco. In 2011 when there was construction being done on El Camino the workers found an unmarked common grave of 30 people. These 30 individuals had been taken to the area during the civil war and executed, buried and forgotten. Eventually around 300 bodies in other common graves have been found in the area. Franco may have had something to do with making the journey for the pilgrim easier, but El Camino doesn’t forget the atrocities that happened in this country. Today the pilgrims remember and pay tribute to these fallen individuals. We will not forget.
We ended the day in mass at the church in San Juan de Ortega. This was a mass specifically for pilgrims and only pilgrims were in attendance. The priest was a wonderful man and his sermon was inspiring about exactly what El Camino is about and what being a pilgrim is. It moved me deeply…I cried.
I am not on a vacation…I am on a pilgrimage.
Mile 165.5 Burgos
September 26, 2017
Today began new and fresh…
It was a crisp beautiful day as we left San Juan de Ortega. We walked thru pine and oak forests. We walked thru a chain of small, quiet villages. We walked along a crest were sheep grazed and a labyrinth beaconed us to walk it. We did and felt calmer and ready for whatever the day had for us. We walked passed an archeological site were people are learning more about the first humans that settled in this area 800,000 years ago. We walked up a path made of rocks and I wished I knew more about geology so that I could read the earth’s bones. At the top was a cross and a quote:
“Desde que el peregrino dominó en Burguete los montes de Navarra y vio los campos dilatados de España, no ha gozado de vista más hermosa como esta.” (“Since the pilgrim dominated in Burguete the mountains of Navarra and saw the vast fields of Spain, he/she has never enjoyed a most beautiful view such as this.”)
Below us were a mine, more villages to walk thru…and Burgos.
It is recommended to go to Villafria and take a bus into Burgos because of the traffic. So we walked around the airport on a road with cars and found an old church where the bus stop was. We took the #8 to the Teatro and found that we were quite the spectacle among the people enjoying their day. Photos were taken of us, two women found us funny and two others asked if we were going to Santiago. I told them yes and they said that we were “Valiente” (Brave). I thanked them.
We will be staying in Burgos for two days so we can discover as much as possible what this city has to offer.
El Camino is inspiring.
¡Buen Camino!
Pilgrim’s Passport September 27, 2017