Today was one climb of 150m in height but otherwise a long downhill to the city of Burgos. We are at an altitude of 1000m and it is common to get mist in the morning. This is exactly what we got as we headed off after our gourmet picnic breakfast. Cool and crisp in pine trees and scrubland before coming out on to open pasture.

Lots of wild flowers again, orchids, daffodils, buttercups and many we didn’t recognise. Also for the first time saw a flock of sheep out in a paddock. They were skinny with black and white faces, sort of elongated panda faces. And they wore tinkley bells.

We stopped for a coffee and chocolate croissant before tackling the final steep part of the climb. The coolness had evaporated, we were above the mist and the sun was beating down as we passed a large wooden cross on the top of the Atapuerca Massif.

In one of the caves that riddle the massif archaeologists found the oldest human remains in Europe. The fossils, discovered in 1994, are of early humans dating from 127,000 to 1,000,000 years ago. Some of the bones seem to come from a previously unknown subspecies of hominid, Homo antecessor, who may be the common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans.

From the summit we could see the city of Burgos, far off and blurry in a brown smog. The traditional route skirts around the right hand side of the airport and goes through about 10km of noisy and dirty light industrial and commercial suburbs. A new alternative route has been developed on the left hand side of the airport and then following the River Arlanzon through parkland right into the heart of the city.

We decided on the latter but fuelled up with bananas, strawberries and muffins before heading off. It was now about midday and we expected a very hot three hours. However St James was looking after us and a nice cooling summer breeze followed us all the way. For two hours we walked along the security fence of the airport. So tedious! We saw the control tower, terminal, hangers, planes on the ground, but in two hours not one single plane landed or took off. What’s with that? Maybe the airport has an early siesta.

The walk along the River was great. Under the trees all the way, at first on clay but then on a wide, sealed walking /cycleway.

I should have mentioned in yesterday’s post that Barbara saw a snake on the path. We see lots of skinks and geckos but this was the first snake. It was mottled green, about 500mm long, as thick as two fingers and had a lump about halfway along it as if it had swallowed a mouse. It was too fast and I was too slow to get a photo. It was probably a grass snake. The snake story was repeated several times at dinner last night over a couple of glasses of wine. By lunch time today the snake was now 2metres long, as thick as your arm, had eaten a rat and was one of Spain’s deadly venomous vipers.

Such is the way that legends are born on the Camino.

Ipod theme tune for today: Summer Breeze by Crosby Stills and Nash

Summer breeze makes me feel fine,
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind.

Two updates to yesterday’s post.

First. We learnt from our friends Carolyn and John that the singing Spaniards were a walking group. Each Sunday they go out by bus and get dropped off to do a section of the Camino. At the end of the day they get picked up and go home. No wonder they had so much energy.

Second. The military re-enactment might have related to the Spanish Civil War. Although the Pact of Silence or Forgetting, el pacto de olvido, attempts to suppress the painful memories of the war and the Franco dictatorship when bloody atrocities were carried out by both sides.

Today, deep in a forest of oaks, we came to Monumento de Los Caidos, a concrete obelisk that marks the spot of the shallow grave of some of those who had been summarily executed in the war. The grave was only found in 2011 when some upgrading work was being done on the Camino track. Prior to that the victims were just “missing”.

This morning as we left Belorado over yet another multi-arched bridge it was crisp and cool. The conditions we love the most. The track was was wide, flat, smooth, in the open countryside and followed the same main road as yesterday. Today the road was busy and there seemed to be a large truck about every twenty seconds. At the small village of Villafranca Montes de Orca (pop 200) we had to walk on the narrow shoulder. When you have been walking for many days the speed of the traffic is terrifying. Atypically the road goes through the village – there is a truck stop at the entry. I don’t know how the speeding trucks get through the narrow street without hitting something, or each other.

From the village we left the road, thank goodness, and had a steep, hot 400m vertical climb through an oak forest. This was lovely as we hadn’t walked in forest for ages. At the summit it changed to a pine forest with an edge of heather and broom . We could have had a pleasant walk through more forest, but we didn’t. For three hours we trudged across a plateau on a wide clay forestry road out in the open. A broad swathe of trees had been felled on both sides of the trail, so no shade. On the plateau we again came across a line of wind turbines. Spain has the third highest number of wind turbines in the world, after the USA and China. Not bad for a country with a much smaller population.

A quick descent into a tranquil, remote valley far from the road. San Juan de Ortega has a population of 20 and is probably too small to be called a village. There is a church, a large monastery, 1 hotel, 1 hostel and 1 cafe. All owned by 1 person. There is a large tower crane adjacent the monastery which indicates some restoration work is going on.

The path we walked was the Montes de Oca. Montes indicates a hilly, desolate, scrubby wasteland. In medieval times this was a dangerous place for pilgrims with bandits, wild animals and no distinguishing geographical features to show the way. San Juan was a disciple of Santo Domingo (see previous post) and chose the dangerous wastes of Montes de Orca as his mission. He built a road, bridges, a church and monastery. He took the name Ortega from the Latin word for thistle.

114 miracles attributed to San Juan are recorded in the monastery, including:

Irish pilgrims were praying for their dead 7 year old child and laid some apples on the tomb. The child asked for one.

A french pilgrim whose twisted feet could barely drag him along, and whose arms were so deformed he could not feed himself, was cured here.

A deformed pilgrim entered on crutches and vowed not to leave until he was well. His friends could hear the sound his nerves made stretching.

At the cafe we had a very convivial meal tonight. Thirteen of us were in a small room all best friends after walking together for 10 days. 1 from Ireland, 2 from USA, 2 from NZ, 3 from Australia and 5 from northern England. Some were finishing in Burgos tomorrow and much vino flowed and a good time was had by all.

The hotel does not serve breakfast so the hotel owner has an arrangement with himself as the cafe owner to provide a picnic breakfast for the guests. In a shopping bag we each got a bottle of juice, a bottle of water, a croissant, a ham and cheese sandwich, an apple and an orange. There was the temptation to eat this for supper but we resisted and waited until morning and had it wit Nescafe coffee from a machine. Thank you George Clooney.

We thought today may have been a bit of a lacklustre day as it was 24km basically parallel to a 4 lane road. However it turned out to be quite interesting.

Each morning at breakfast we are really keen to get moving. Once on the road we still wonder what on earth are we doing. All these people, spread out for miles along the path, seeking what? It is very bizarre. We are earning and living the experience not just observing it.

Early in the day we walked with Graham and Ann, Australians, although Graham was originally from Auckland. This is their second camino and this time they started walking several weeks ago in France. They are both writers and are writing a novel based on the Camino. They are writing alternate chapters from a male and female perspective.  It has a title: Left and Right, and is due for publication next year. They have a publisher, a contract and an advance, and they are claiming the cost of the Camino as a business expense. Graham is also writing a screen play and hopes to sell the film rites if the novel is successful.

At one stage two cyclists stopped and asked us to take a photo of them. Turns out they were from Patagonia. I spent some time trying to explain to them I had kayaked to the glaciers, it was very beautiful but cold. Not sure whether they understood or not.

This weekend is a holiday weekend in this region (and maybe all of Spain) and there seem to be more Spanish walkers. We, who started in St Jean Pied de Port,  walk slowly and have developed a sort of camino shuffle. A group of about twenty in matching tee shirts, speaking Spanish, motored past us, all enthusiastic and excited and singing as they went. We guessed they might just be walking part of the camino over the long weekend. A number of them had umbrellas strapped to their packs. At any point of interest there were lots of group photos to be taken.

Today we moved from La Rioja, one of the smaller autonomous regions, into the largest, Castilla Y Leon. The latter had the largest possible signboard to announce the fact. We will be in this region for a couple of weeks. The vineyards and olive groves have been left far behind and after some potato fields and peas this morning, it is all wheat, wheat, wheat. There are no animals out grazing but we pass huge barns that stink to high heaven and we hear cows or sheep as we pass. Factory farming!

A long flat, straight path today with an excellent walking and cycling surface. Being Sunday the road we paralled was quiet with no trucks. There were four evenly spaced villages which are always interesting in themselves but also mean coffee, food and water – and a loo stop . It is generally no problem getting water as there are plenty of fuente, public drinking fountains. Every village has several and they are out in the countryside as well. Some have a sign “Aqua no potable, prohibido beber” so you have to be careful. The fountain water tastes fresh and pure and is cold. So we often empty the luke warm water from our bottles and refill.

We arrived in Belorado a little early to check into the hotel so went to fill in some time in the main square. It was a bit strange, lots of people and groups of soldiers in WW2 uniforms and period army jeeps and trucks.  While looking at these a procession arrived with a band and about two dozen senoritas in traditional costumes. They formed up and gave a dazzling performance of dancing complete with castanets.

Everyone was then moved to the perimeter of the square and I think Spanish, French, America and English forces attacked the central band rotunda which was defended by the Germans. They started with the whistling of Colonel Bogey’s march (from Bridge over the River Kwai fame),  Scotland the Brave on bagpipes and then battle. The vehicles raced into the square from a side street, there were sort of stun grenades, all the guns fired blanks, lots of smoke and noise. Frightened screaming small children were taken away by their parents. It was amazing and very realistic, just no blood. After about ten minutes all the Germans were dead and a flag raised on the rotunda. Then everyone retired to the bars. I guess to discuss the tactics and admire the senoritas.

Ipod theme tune for today from OMC

Brother Pele’s in the back , sweet Seena’s in the front
Cruising down the highway in the hot, hot sun.. . . . .
How bizarre
How bizarre, how bizarre

After the last two days the 20km today was almost like a rest day. You still have to do the hard yards though. The first section passed more vineyards and slowly climbed up to the village of Azofra. Here we had our obligatory cafe negro and bought our patata omelette bocodillo to eat later for lunch.

Today we achieved a milestone. Somewhere we passed our 200km walked mark, about one quarter of the way to Santiago. We are not sure where as we do a few of the optional extra walks.

From there we were on a wide country track passing through gently undulating farmland. The vineyards had given way to crops. For the first time there were many tractors working in the fields and passing us on the track. The wild flowers have almost all gone and there were very few poppies today. Maybe it’s because the fields were ploughed close to the track and where not there was an irrigation channel along the track. Today we saw hops being grown on there elaborate framework. Near the end of the day we passed an enormous warehouse with hundreds of crates stacked outside. Each crate about a metre cubed and full of patatas.

The second village we came to was interesting for a surprising reason. Ciruena has a population of 100 but accommodation for about 5000. The housing is all brand new, quite up market condominiums. But all empty and with many “sevende”, for sale, signs. There is an exclusive golf course, a large outdoor swimming pool and children’s playgrounds. This place was developed, in the middle of nowhere, as a resort but the “crisis economica” of Spain since 2008 killed it. The golf club now even allows pilgrims into the bar.

The track today was a long, long climb to Ciruena and a long decent to Santo Domingo de la Calzada. The track was very straight with only a few subtle changes in direction. It was all out in the open with very little shade and few drinking fountains. You could count the number of trees on one hand.

Saint Dominic dedicated his life to improving the route for pilgrims in the eleventh century. He built roads and bridges, a pilgrim hospital and a church. The church evolved over seven centuries to become the present cathedral. The tomb of St Dominic is in a chapel in the cathedral. In the cathedral there is a coop containing a live cock and hen.

Legend has it that a pilgrim couple and their son stopped at an inn here. The innkeeper’s daughter fancied the handsome lad but he rejected her advances. Incensed by his refusal she hid a goblet in his rucksack and reported him for stealing. The lad was caught and condemned to hang. The parents continued to Santiago and on their return found their son still on the gibbet and still alive. St Dominic had intervened to keep him alive. The parents rushed to inform the city official that their son was alive. The official who was roasting chicken for dinner scoffed at the news, retorting that their son was as alive as his roasted chickens. Whereupon the chickens stood up, crowed loudly and flew away. The miracle was not lost on the official who pardoned and freed the lad. The chickens in the cathedral today are descendants of the roasted chickens.

So many legends, so many miracles. It all happens on the Camino.

Ipod theme song of the day: Where have all the flowers gone? Peter, Paul and Mary.