Burgos to Tardajos to Castrojeriz

When I left you, I was headed to the Cathedral of Burgos. It was as majestic inside as I expected it to be. Surprises included the tomb of El Cid, whose statue I found after getting directions from two people on the street. I headed in that direction, then lost the trail, and asked two little old ladies in a traffic roundabout. I pulled out a postcard showing the monument and asked, ¿Donde esta este? Wonderingly, this 90-something little old lady pointed right behind me. There it was. I friggin´ missed it and was standing right under it. I blame my hat. lol

After that, the Cathedral. The best part was the cloister walk. It was a square enclosing a garden, one floor up, and was playing haunting monk-like ethereal music throughout, with soft gongs and little bell sounds, and you could almost feel the monks sweeping by you in their long, brown, whispering roads. It was roped off at one point, to keep people moving in a procession through the cathedral, but I cheated and ducked under and walked the hallways four or five times. Had to force myself to leave. Very meditative, very addictive...I could´ve paced through those hallways all day. There was a postcard in the gift shop that showed them, so I kind of get to take them with me, but I wish there was a place like that near home where I could go to think. It was beautiful.

From my journal yesterday, written in the cloister: ¨Cathedrals like this make me miss my mother. I want her to be here so she can tell me how to look at the art and the architecture, to read the codes they use, to show me what the untrained eye will miss, help me look between the places I´m looking and see wonders hidden in plain sight.¨ Mom...we need to start planning a trip to Italy.

Also from my journal: Ï wish Catholics would focus more on Jesus´ life work, rather than just his infancy and his crucifixion. I really get tired of bloody miserable martyrs writhing in agony and repeated images of the mortification of Christ. There was so much more to his life than an immaculate conception and a grisly death.¨

After the cathedral, I had lunch, hit a touristy-Camino shop where I bought yet another amulet-type necklace (a triskela this time, intuition and constant change), and saw Kevin from Boston (from several days ago in Los Arcos) sitting where we had drinks the day before. I headed over to say hi, and told him I was heading out, despite the fact that it was 4pm, hot as Jeezus, and probably pretty stupid. He agreed. But Burgos was so expensive, I couldn´t handle another day there, and there were apparently two towns within 10k, so off I went. The cathedral bells struck 4 as I left the old city behind me and headed out. Alone.

From my journal: ¨Well, I found solitude, and the first thing I found in solitude was stupidity. The dangerous kind. The kind borne of stubbornness, and ignorance of common sense (as in, ignoring it, not lacking it). The kind that dashes your spirits and makes loneliness almost impossible to bear.

If you spend all day in Burgos on a computer, then hunting El Cid, then wandering the halls of a cathedral, and it´s 4pm, and upwards of 90 degrees, STAY PUT. Especially if you´re alone, whether or not you have water and an extra bocadillo (sandwich) in your pack. At least use the bathroom before you go, so you don´t get desperate on the way as the Camino swings wide of the first town....CENSORED. ;)

The heat was intense. It was bearable in the shade of the trees leading out of the old town of Burgos, but even the lady I asked for directions on the side of the street said it was too hot to walk. The locals know. But I was full of headstrong recklessness and felt like pushing the boundaries, so I went on.

Once out of the old city, more construction and a very unfriendly gravel road that curved away from Villabilla and the promise of a bathroom. More dumptrucks. More dust. More wheat. Every time I saw a Camino sign, I missed my friends, especially happy-go-lucky Felix and his incessant chatter and references to stupid American comedy films. Felix. What a good name for him. Only a few hours on my own, and I was lonely.

So, like usual, I tried to fill the emptiness with activity. Maybe that´s why I headed out at such an inopportune hour. Walk. It won´t be that bad. You have water, you´ve eaten plenty and have an extra sandwich. Just go. Besides, where are you going to stay if you don´t? You have to get to another albergue. Two, maybe three towns ahead. It´ll be fine.

It wasn´t. The towns didn´t come. I passed one, and the road threatened to rise over a hill and God only knew what lay beyond. I didn´t have it in me. When I stopped, and then started again, my muscles went to water. My mouth was gummy, though I was drinking every time I thought about water. The sun was relentless. My head said I could go on, but my body was rebelling and I knew it.

Through an underpass tunnel ahead, I could hear men shouting, angry. I drew my knife...actually drew my knife...and tried to hold it concealed, blade point pricking my forearm, reassuring in its sharpness. The men, three of them, fell silent as I passed, and then shouted again, but a quick glance revealed they were only addressing each other. It was my first moment of fear on the Camino...probably having more to do with being suddenly alone than any real menace. They were just workmen, agitated over something that had nothing to do with me. As I left the tunnel, one of the men got into a van. As he passed me, he seemed to slow, and he looked at me, but drove on. I put my knife back in my pocket.

An hour had passed, maybe more. Three blessings suddenly converged to form a miracle, and thus, my salvation. First, the road ahead suddenly turned under another overpass, this one high...twin roads leading into tunnels into a hillside, and provided shade next to a tree-lined river. Second, a handmade cardboard sign advertised the next albergue only a scant 3km away. Third, the purple sky behind me formed softly rumbling thunderheads that finally overtook the sun and dropped the temperature to a bearable 80 or so. I thought for a moment about stopping beneath the bridges to wait for rain, but since I had only 3km to go and no idea how long the rain would go on if it did come, decided to walk on.

The road started to look more promising. From a gravel road to an asphalt motorway. To my left, in the distance, gray curtains of rain fell from heaven to earth in sweeping sheets. They looked far away.

I was hoping I´d made it three towns away, to Rabé de las Calzadas, but it was only two, to Tardajos.

As I entered the town, the wind picked up something fierce. Huge gusts of wind blew eddies of dust across the road. The bars I could see ahead, earmarked for emergency shelter, were suddenly alive with people scurrying to retract canopies and take down umbrellas in the sudden storm. Old men begrudgingly got to their feet and hurried stiffly from their park benches. The arrows began to conflict as the rain began to fall in scant, fat drops. I was in no mood to sort out Camino arrows from albergue arrows. I found a hustle I didn´t know I had, and as the windstorm intensified and the purple sky got closer and the dust made it harder to see, the need to find the most direct route to shelter became more urgent.

¨Albergue?¨ I cried to passersby, dispensing with my usual painstaking politeness. The usual stream of unintelligible chatter came back to me, and I forgot about picking through for recognizable patterns of sounds and simply followed hand signals. There it was. A line of people on the scant front porch, ducked behind clotheslines and watching the dust blow across the streets. Among them, a boy whose face I recognized, but no one I´d spoken to...I don´t think he spoke English. A child of about 3. A pregnant woman. Two iron-haired hippie-looking folks, with kind faces, beckoning me in urgently.

The man was pure granola...tall, thin, sandals, glasses, long hair falling in eyes that sloped downward to meet his broad smile curving upward. He spoke to me in manageable speed, and as I entered the tiny foyer, I tried to understand if he was telling me they still had beds or were full...and when he said ¨Bienvenidos,¨ I nearly wept with relief.

He was so, so kind. He explained the rules to me, invited me to a meeting at 7:30 where pilgrims could talk about their Caminos, told me they were a donativo and had no kitchen. The shower stalls were even with the floor and you were asked to mop after your shower to soak up the excess. Breakfast at 6:30am. He carried my pack up to my room (a blessing in itself...hospitaleros, take note) and we came back down for the stamp and the credential dance. He spoke so comfortingly, so welcomingly. It had been such a miserable trek...two hours had felt like two weeks...my nerves were raw and I felt destitute and deserted...no familiar faces for the first night since St. Jean. I just wanted to crawl into a corner away from everyone.

But I coped. I know, I have the tendency to be a bit dramatic...but this is tough stuff. There´s a lot of Camino to go, and the meseta is not the easiest part, and to do it alone is tougher.

To add insult to injury, my towel is full of burrs. Certainly no washing machine here...this is bare as bare bones gets. But it´s warm and comfortable and these are good, good people.¨

I went to the bar and wrote for some two hours or so. In the middle of it, the bartender gave me a funny grin, took the half beer I had in front of me and tapped his chest. He poured it out, washed the glass, and refilled it to the top. I smiled gratefully at him and tried to say ¨I guess I need to drink faster.¨ He just smiled again and stamped my passport.

Back to the albergue, ate my bocadillo, and went up to my room. Two older men in there with me. We didn´t speak at all. I crawled into bed at 9:45. It was still light out. Some time later, the men went to bed and it was dark. I slept like a stone.


This morning, I woke up several times, and each time, it seems that one of the men had just come back from the shower, and may not have been totally naked, but it seemed that way to me in my half-sleep. I tried to get up early and ended up hopping down from my bunk just before the hospitalero came to make sure we were all up. Quick shower, pack up, head outside for tea and some beautiful crispy little donuts, and attempts at conversation through a girl who spoke fluent Spanish and very good English. The hospitaleros were from Madrid and I tried to tell them my mother has a friend there, and that she was very worried about me until her friend reassured her I´d be fine. They thought that was amusing. I wrote a note in the albergue book thanking Fernando for his kindness, and headed out at 7:15.

The Camino was different today. The meseta is, indeed, softly undulating wheat fields that stretch on to the horizon in all directions, and at times, the sky was beautiful, with its wispy cirrus clouds and impossible blues. The temperature this morning was like summer in Tahoe...crisp and cold, much colder in the shade than in the sun. The mornings are always cold, but a fleece is too much within ten minutes and I´m stopping to stuff it in my bag (though, in fact, I´ve gotten quite adept at taking it off around my backpack without breaking my stride...a feat that amazed Felix the other day when I also was able to put it back on without stopping...ha ha).

But alone...all the winds are headwinds. All the rocks reach up to trip you. Your muscles get tired sooner, and the pain of your feet goes to the forefront of your mind. Your pack is heavier and your hat won´t stay on, forcing you to carry it. You walk constantly in your own shadow, which takes the sunlight away from the rocks of the path and makes it harder for you to judge where to step. It takes longer between towns. The Camino is no longer a game...no longer a quick daily segment from beginning (breakfast with friends, grousing over whoever takes longest to be ready) to end (beers and companionship before bedtime), but an endless plain of nothingness, Santiago impossibly far away. It is a very intimidating place today.

But I charged on. Hornillos del Camino was a nice little hamlet, tucked into a valley. The road dropped suddenly from in front of me, and the valley ahead, and the road apparently climbing up the other side had me feeling like Mr. Potato Head in Toy Story 2, when he sees all the bags in the airport and loses all his stuff out his back trapdoor. But the man in the first store in Hornillos gave me an apple, a diet Coke, a bag of peanuts, and a good sized bocadillo for 5.80...which was beautiful.

Onward. More wheat fields. Life of Pi on the iPod for a while, till I felt guilty, like I should be thinking deep searching thoughts about my life and not escaping or mooning over lost Camino friends. More wheat fields. MORE wheat fields. Gradually they changed into something else...barley, perhaps? Definitely not corn, like the book said. No other walkers. NO other walkers. Only bicyclists today. I think many pilgrims skip the meseta (actually, I know they do, which makes me feel a bit like a badass and lifts my spirits momentarily). Lots of cyclists. They holler ¨Hola!¨ or ¨Buen Camino¨ as they speed by, and inside, I laugh as I think about Skip, who would curse viciously at the cyclists when they blew by us, wishing them flat tires and seats that fall off at inopportune times.

San Bol. San Bol has an interesting story. It is now nothing but a lone albergue in the middle of endless wheat fields. It was a hamlet but was deserted in 1503 by its inhabitants, my book says ¨for unknown reasons,¨ but I believe it was probably plague. It´s worth a quick detour to look around. No electricity, no running water...campground and spring in the grove below. I say hello to the hospitalero and ask for a stamp. When he gives it to me, it is in red, and is the Masonic symbol...the square and compass. I ask him why, but he doesn´t know...he just started there recently. He asks me what the Masons are, and with his limited English (he is German), I am hard put to explain it. I tell him they are vaguely related to the Templars, and he nods. I move on.

Hontanas. I sit on a bench next to yet another German, an older man. After a long silence, I ask him where he has come from today. He looks at me for a minute. ¨I sleep in the bed below you.¨ I am an idiot yet again. I try to explain that I was miserable last night and didn´t want to interact with anyone, even look at anyone.

A chipper looking girl with bleach blonde hair comes out of nowhere, offering us a piece of a baguette she has. We both refuse. She is Kate, from Southampton, and we instantly fall to talking about the Titanic...the first English conversation I´ve had since yesterday morning.

Suddely, Mimi and Jocelyn emerge from a bar!! They´re staying in Hontanas tonight, but it´s only noon, and I want to go far today. I update them on whoever I can, as best I can, and tell them their pictures are on my blog. Mimi laughs like a schoolgirl when Jocelyn translates that I put up her picture with her grass hat.

(Sidenote: the bar I´m in right this moment has a bloodhound and a tabby cat in it. The Rescuers, anyone?)

Kate asks how far I´m going; I tell her Castrojeriz. 10km from here, 22 behind me. She muses over that for a moment, and I invite her to walk with me. She says yes. Off we go.

Kate is British, reminds me of Jen Partridge, is of a completely unreadable age, and prattles away unceasingly as we walk, all in this chirpy, singsong British accent, and it is incessant and it is beautiful. After my miserable evening the day before and my miserable morning missing the crowd and flinging myself into solitude, I feel I´ve earned pleasant company. She is a true free spirit, and I really enjoy walking with her.

We go 6km of rather more pleasant meseta, with random groves of trees and a path that cuts into a hillside...it´s a bit less monotonous. Her chatter keeps my mind off my feet. We make it to San Antón before we know it.

She has done the Camino before, but only to Astorga, and says that San Antón is beautiful. I am intrigued by the story of animal blessings each January, the mystical cure of St. Anthony´s disease (result of wheat parasites nonexistent in Spain, which led to the belief that pilgrims were ¨cured¨ of a disease they simply had no more exposure to at this point) and the fact that it´s a ruined monastery. And it is truly beautiful. Some walls are standing, the ceiling is open to the sky, there are tiny little figures in alcoves in the walls. The albergue is in the ruins...a tarp standing as the only wall between the sleeping area and the outside. The kitchen is still set for breakfast (at noon) and little dishes of yellow pellets here and there hold innumerable dead flies.

The hospitaleros are not welcoming at all. They stamp our passports begrudgingly. We go across the courtyard to sit on a bench away; my German bedfellow shows up a few minutes later. Kate expresses a bad feeling, and suddenly, my eyes fall on something strange.

Above the kitchen, on a high wall, there is a string hanging from the top down to the roof below, stopping a few inches above the roof. There is a pigeon hanging from the string. By its neck. It is dead. It swings back and forth in the breeze.

I call attention to it...everyone is shocked. Kate goes to ask why it´s there. They don´t know. It appeared, they say, some three days ago, both pigeon and string. They believe the pigeon got entangled by mistake. They seem unconcerned.

Kate, who had thought of staying there, and I suddenly agreed that this was an ominous sign and gave us the creeps. Combined with the standoffishness of the staff, we decided to leave right away. We headed out. Thankfully, Castrojeriz was almost immediately in view.

It is a long, long town, wrapping around the side of a hillside topped with the ruins of a small castle. It´s very charming looking. It takes us a long time to find the albergue, and when we check in, about 600 dreadlocked Germans (okay, 7) push their way in front of us, causing a great deal of ado about a small dog that is not allowed inside and has bandaged feet and keeps trying to creep into the foyer. There is no washing machine...damn, I´m out of socks. There is no internet, but we passed a place here and there along the way.

I go back to an albergue we passed up because of a high price...wandered looking for the hospitalero and ran into HANK!! He is there. We spoke briefly. He tells me the German boys are some 15k on from here. =( I was happy to see him, but got the feeling I needed to distance myself from familiarity...this is my next stage of the Camino. I use the computer for only a few minutes before it crashes.

I go find Kate. She is having a bottle of wine...an entire bottle of wine...in the bar across from our albergue. We have a wonderful conversation that lasts for hours...literature, America, England, movies, teaching, the stages of the Camino, signs, our reasons for being here...everything. She is delightful. She was a hospitalera in San Bol for the previous week, has chopped off all her hair to avoid male attention, and is heading to Thailand in December to see what will find her there. We talk a lot about travel vs. family. She is 35. The kid thing comes up and we understand each other.

As she talks, I glance out the window of the bar, and who is passing by....

SKIP!!!!!!

I cannot help myself, I explode out the doors and tackle him, and he tackles back, laughing his head off and giving me the ¨Of all the gin joints¨ line. I demand he join us for a beer...he checks into our albergue...I go back in to Kate and try to explain my dismay over seeing him.

I am THRILLED to see Skip...but I just got primed for this alone thing this morning. Now, here he is. No coordination, just appeared. Doesn´t that mean the Camino threw us back together, and I should follow that? I tell Kate I feel like I need to stay away from him tomorrow, to continue alone. She asks if I´m Catholic. That makes me laugh. I said no, just a Marine´s kid. She says, ¨Ah, that´s why you´re so obsessed with making life tough for yourself....¨

So...we finish drinking, and I head here for this café, where the internet is a bit cheaper than the first place, trying to concentrate while Hank talks at the next table with a woman with very painstaking English and who has NO awareness of her vocal volume. I keep waiting for this cat to get a beer. The smoke is making my eyes hurt. And I think I´m finally caught up.

I did tell Skip I felt torn by his appearance...that I was thrilled to have a friendly face after the last day or two, but that I felt like my crucible had just begun and I needed to let it sink in. He reminded me that we can walk for hours with no speaking at all, and that it´s no big deal. But it does change things. Today was hard, but it was priming. Trial by endless wheatfields.

I dunno. Someone here has perfume that is absolutely cloying and making my head hurt. Off to bed. We´ll see what happens tomorrow....