June 15 Leon!

The circle is complete and we are back were we started from, 750-ish
to 800 kms later depending on which book you read. The Rolling Stones
song 'this could be the last time' played in my head the whole 18 kms
into town but honestly I don't think it will be. We absolutely loved
the walk, except for some of the fartnsnore barns, and in my albeit
limited experience I would stack Leon against any city in the world
for beauty and interest. It is a stunning place, something that we
were only aware of in a limited way on our lightning first visit at
the start of the walk. The medieval part of town is an amazing mix of
millenium old structure and modern Spanish culture that absolutely
smacks the senses of a Saskatchewan farm boy and beggars belief! Even
after a month and a half I'm still just gob-smacked by the beauty of
the cathedrals, works of art wrought in stone, but also, even the
ordinary buildings aren't ordinary. They are magnificent pieces of
architecture built by people who were thinking of hundreds of years
instead of the 50 years Australian and Canadians think of. The
sidewalks are made of granite or marble! Kind of 'what the hell, we
live here and so will our children's children, so lets just make it
really nice and make it last forever'. You can't help but admire an
attitude like that! I used to get angry when I heard that Australian
councils sent councilors on junkets to Europe to see how things are
done here. Now I see the wisdom, I just hope they come here sober and
with their eyes wide open.

Now that the walking is over I'd like to record some general
impressions and highlights for you and to jog my memory later for my
arm chair travel years. Stepping way back and letting it wash over me,
the impression is obviously of constant movement. Camino life is
pretty simple - walk, eat, sleep. Do it again. Of course the next
level of consciousness is 'where do we walk, how do I find food and
water, is there any beds left in this town, how interesting is the
village'. There is a whole stratigraphy of these intertwined needs and
pleasures and you work through them from the bottom up, necessarily
looking after essentials first, which always seems to include coffee
but ultimately arriving at enjoying the walk and the destination.

The major impression after constant motion is the Spanish people. I
love the Spanish people! No one could not love them. As a whole, they
are genuinely friendly, a kind of innocent friendliness as though they
haven't quite worked out that you can't talk to people who aren't
dressed like you or come from elsewhere so you get 'hello, good
morning' almost everywhere except in the bigger cities. And in the
stores and bars, if you have a go at communicating in Spanish they are
delighted, no matter how bad you butcher it (and I really do!) and
happily work through it with you until you end up with what you were
after. Just amazing people.

Thirdly, a lasting memory will be the ancient medieval cores you find
in all the cities, towns and villages. The narrow winding streets, the
buildings leaning in to grab back some of the space they've
reluctantly given up, the amazing beauty of the old stone buildings
which contrasts with the rustic practicalness of the mud and straw
adobe of the poorer towns or at least towns poor in stone! When you
are walking into the bigger towns there is always a satisfying
'Aahhh!' moment when you pass through the old stone walls into the
ancient core. Suddenly everything feels right. In balance. Maybe
that's the secret to Spanish people's niceness - when life gets to be
too much, they can always go to the old town and go 'Aahhh'!

Another lasting memory will be the beauty of the Spanish countryside.
Crossing the Pyrenees was made special because it was the only
sub-alpine area we went through and because we walked up through the
fog to be above the clouds in bright sunlight. We walked through arid
but irrigated lands through to temperate rain forest carved into farm
land, usually in sight of snow capped mountains. Even in the dreaded
Meseta we found beauty and enough variety to keep us interested. The
ancient Roman roads just blew me away as did towns built by Julius
Caesar!

The farming practices interested us. The farmers live in the villages
and farm houses outside of the villages are rare. We saw plows pulled
by oxen and horses, plows that had a mirror image on top so that the
farmer flipped it over at the end of his field and came back on his
same furrow. The villages are really just collective farm yards with
tractors in the sheds and the BMW cars out on the street! Animals are
kept in yards or sheds beside the houses. In one village we saw a new
born foal just seconds old!

The food, ample, basic and good, just what a hungry perigrino needs
and especially the red wines will be hard to forget.

Finally, the Camino. It is such an amazing organism fed by the wallets
of about 200 pilgrims a day, which provides an incredible support
system for the walker, food, beds and shelter, marked trails, guide
books, spirituality, comradery, rest spots and water fountains, all at
an unbelievably affordable price. it's a tradition that has been
followed for centuries and it's something the Spanish are justifiably
proud of.

June 14 Mansilla de las Mulas

For our penultimate day we had a warm one with occasional showers.
Today we were mostly on an ancient Roman road and on this one we
recognized occasional remnants of the original road. It was quite
amazing to walk on a road over 2000 years old. To the north we now
have the snow covered extensions of the Pyrenees that we remember from
our first week out of Leon at the start of the walk.
The crops today looked poor, as the soil is a bit sandier and perhaps
the rainfall has not been as good. Some are getting quite ripe and
will be in the bin soon.
Mansilla seems a nice little town and was very welcome as there was no
coffee until we got here!
After booking in to the albuqerque, showering etc we did our usual
village wander and tried to find muesli for breakfast. We found none
so we bought a flat sugar covered bread about 2 cm thick and round
like a pie. I hope it makes a good breakfast! We found a meenu del dia
that had paella for 1st course and yes, it was the best we've had so
far. This one had small crayfish in it as well as sweet juicy prawns
and chunks of fish. We had trout again for second course and as usual,
it was delicious. They use paper table clothes here and if they are
stiff they can make the table look bigger than it is. I entertained
the restaurant by placing my plate too close to the edge and watching
it smash into hundreds of pieces. Oh dear.
At the bridge that markes the edge of town we saw huge (40 cm) fish
swimming in the river. I suspect they were carp.

June 13 Calzadilla de los Hermanillos

Just 13.8 kms to this little village but the next albuqerque is 21 kms
away and the forecast is for a hot day. We don't do 35 km days if we
can avoid them and we have 6 days spare as it is. We got here about
9:30 and found the place a bit of a pig sty so we started cleaning up.
A couple of old ladies came along and gave us a hand. We swept it out
and I would guess that hadn't been done for a couple of weeks then Lee
mopped the floor. After finishing the cleaning we found a café and had
a coffee.
We were mostly on an old Roman road today through bush and farm land
but it had been rebuilt so the original road was not visible. It was a
nice but un-remarkable walk.

June 12 Sahagun

Rest day! Last night we watched them running the bulls into the bull
ring. A bunch of guys acting tough tormenting the poor bulls. We
lasted about 10 minutes and then left.
Lee found a good pair of walking / running shoes so we ditched her old
boots today.
We did our usual village wander today and mostly just took it easy.

June 11 Sahagun

A short walk today to this interesting town with the unpronounceable
name. We had a rest day scheduled here but thought we'd have to give
it a miss because there is a bull fight festival tomorrow and there
wouldn't be any accommodation. To our surprise we got a private room
for 30 Euro a night so we took it for 2 nights and we will be able to
watch them running the bulls to the arena. I suppose we should go see
the bull fight but it just has no appeal for us being such a blood
thirsty sport and I'd probably get beat up for cheering for the bull!
The weather has turned and our walk began in fog and zero breeze. The
fog slowly lifted to reveal a more rolling terrain than yesterday and
an occasional vineyard is appearing again. It was a pleasant stroll on
paths away from roads for the most part. Now that we are here in
Sahagun, it's a clear sunny day. The forecast is for warm to hot days
ahead but we've only got 3 walking days left to do. Bring it on!

June 10 Ledigos

Another cloudy, windy day with an occasional shower. The track from
Carrion follows a largely unused bitumen road for 4.8 kms and then
follows a Roman road straight as an arrow for 7 km into Caldadilla de
la Cueza. The Roman road has been buried under a newer track however
so there was no sign of the cobbles. It was a bit muddy and rocky so
it made for tiring walking. After Caldadilla we had a choice of a
track beside the highway or the longer old route through the bush and
farm land. We took the quiet way of course and were rewarded with a
very nice sand to fine gravel walking surface and our first wild
lavender for weeks.
Lee's boots are worn out. The heal on her right boot is especially
worn, which is always a trouble spot with her. It is also losing its
strength so her foot is tracking wrong and as a consequence, after 600
kms blister free, she now has about 4 blisters going. There's no place
to buy new boots until Leon where we finish so there's no point in
buying them until we get to Canada. They were a softer soled type
which we needed here to cope with walking on bitumen roads. Our bush
walking boots are great for rocks and tracks but are like walking on
plank on bitumen. I was worried they might not make the distance when
we bought them. Mine have, Lee's didn't.
In Ledigos we got a room with two beds all to ourselves for 8 Euros
each. Yaaaaaay! The albuqerque is attached to the only bar in town.
It's the only place to eat but the menu del dia was good. We didn't
have a choice except for desert. First course was a nice mixed salad,
second pork chops and chips and ice cream for afters. The vino tinto
was a good one too.
There is a little shop attached to the bar so we bought half a
baguette and some cheese for supper and some yogurt and a banana too
have with our breakfast muesli.

June 9 Carrion de los Condes

A cloudy but fine day with lighter winds than yesterday but still cool
enough that we wore our fleecies all the way. We stopped for coffee at
the first village about 3 kms out from Fromista. From there we
selected the river option as oposed to the road side track and even
though it was a kilometre longer it was much nicer. After that, for
the last 10 kms we had to take the track beside the road but traffic
was very light. We must be out of the Meseta now because we didn't see
a mesa all day.
In spite of our Fromista disaster we headed for the private albuqerque
again. This place has rooms of 7 beds so that is good, but so far we
have 3 other men and one woman so it's not shaping up too good! One of
the men is German and he is quiet, polite and cosiderate, so he's
everything the bus tourists weren't. It showes you the danger of
stereotyping.
We then found ourselves a 9 Euro menu del dia. It proved to be a
pretty good one. Lee had the mixed salad while I had Castillian soup a
kind of vegetable and beaten egg soup, then we both had trout and
chocolate mousse. Very tasty but todays vino tinto wasn't up to the
standard we've come to expect!

June 8 Fromista

We had scattered showers today, mostly very short, but one lasted for
about 1/2 hour. The wind was cold however, so we did not mind having
our rain gear on. Most of the track was off road through rolling wheat
fields, but we only had one mesa to climb and then the country started
to flatten out a bit. Once we passed Boadilla we were walking beside a
nice canal all the way to Fromista.
We went to the new private albuqerque, which was nice except all the
beds were in one room, what we have come to call a fartnsnoring barn
which we think is German for big room. This albuqerque turned out to
be a big mistake because there was a bus tour of Germans booked in.
Here in Spain we've found the German tourists to be very
inconsiderate, in fact today we had a bit of a run-in with a couple of
them when they chose to have a loud conversation when five walking
perigrinos were trying to have a siesta. We shushed them a few times
and they got stroppy about that so I yelled at them that it was a
quiet zone and Lee yelled at them to show some respect for other
people. That evening when all 25 of them trouped in they were very
quite indeed!

June 7 Casterojeriz

The weather was partly sunny today but we still had our fleecies on
for the whole 21 km. We had a psychologically bad start because when
we went to leave I didn't have my hat and remembered hanging it on my
chair in the bar when we had our supper. We had no idea when the bar
opened again or if it would still be there, so reluctantly I left it
behind. It was a $30ish hat, an Outdoor Research hat that had snaps
for an Arab like sun shield that protected my neck and ears. I still
have that part!
I'm still in love with the Meseta. It is very beautiful up on top
where you can see for kilometres across the ancient rolling plane.
Today we spent about half our time in the valleys and there you have a
different beauty. The valley floor is covered in wheat, barley and
peas (just right for eating right now) while the valley walls are
sometimes bare crumbling soil, sometimes grassy and with planted
trees. I couldn't tell if they were fruit or just trees. As with
yesterday, today we were mostly on paths through the fields far away
from any roads.
Casterojeriz, possibly built by Julius Caesar, is a long narrow
village built along the bottom of a small mesa with the ruins of a
castle on top. I guess that ages the village at something more than
2000 years. We got beds in a huge spacious albuqerque at the camp
ground and then had one of our best ever menu de dias for 11 Euro
each. For 1st course we had a sea food paella which we thought was
possibly even better than the one we had in Santiago. Then a huge
serving of fish followed by freshly made flan (creme brulee) all
washed down by an excellent red from Rioja, Spain's premium wine
district. Yummmmmmm!

June 6 Hornillos Del Camino

We got our first taste of the dreaded Meseta today, and we loved it!
Basically it is a dissected plateau about 950 m high with the valleys
at about 800 m between. From the valleys it seems like you are
surrounded by mesas but up on top it seems like you are on a huge
rolling flat plane and you don't see the valleys until you come onto
them. It is really quite beautiful. Mostly wheat with a little barley
is grown both up top and in the valleys.
We walked all day in our fleecies as there was a cold breeze blowing
and it was overcast. It made for very nice walking.
The way out of Burgos was much shorter and more pleasant than the way
in. Just a bit of old city, then a path through the University, then a
bit of burbs and we were out. We roughly followed the river valley for
quite a while before making a long gradual ascent up onto our mesa for
the day. We weren't long on top before we made a steep descent into
Hornillos.
Hornillos is a small town with mostly old stone houses, a big church,
one shop, a bar and an albuqerque.
For those of you interested in stats, kilometres so far this walk:
Today 20.5
From St Jean Pied de Port 303.5
Total so far 630.5
Left to walk 160.7

June 5 Burgos

A rest day in this beautiful city. We did mostly rest after visiting
the train office to check on our booking back to Barcelona. You can
only stay one night in pilgrim accommodation in Burgos so we found a
hotel in the centre for 50 Euro.

June 4 Burgos

We got a good early start, up at 5 and away by 6. The path out of
Atapuerca took us up over the limestone hills that contain the caves
that have the early hominid fossils. It was a beautiful morning,
mostly overcast giving us a stunning sunrise over the mountains we'd
walked in the days before.
Most of the way to Burgos it was the usual paths through wheat fields
and villages, one of which we stopped at for coffee and chocolate
croissants. About 8 km from the centre we were in the suburbs. We
chose a route that was meant to have few main roads but it turned out
to give us an interesting cross section of the only slum we've seen in
Spain. Once through that and into the old city, Burgos starts to
really shine. The main cathedral that towers over the city is a work
of art carved in sandstone. It is covered in statues (statuae?) and
carving while the spires at the top are carved lace work and hollow so
that you can see through them. Truly magnificent! Google might find
you some pictures or come back here in 3 months and I should have
added ours.
We stayed at a new albuqerque that is very nice, 4 beds to a room with
dividers which made it quite private, all for 3 Euro each.

June 3 Atapuerca

Another sunny warm day with a breeze. A lot of the track today was
well away from the road, an improvement on yesterday. We had a bit of
a climb today going from about 850 m to 1150 m before decending to 950
m. Our walk from here to Leon wille all above 800 m. The higher stuff
was out of farming and into forest and pine plantations which made a
good change for us.
Atapuerca is famous for some early hominid finds, precursors to
homo-sapiens. We may go see the display out of town latter but I
suspect our Spanish wouldn't be up to the job! We did visit the museum
in town and sat through an informative film on the discoveries.
We got beds in another nice albuqerque.

June 2 Villambistia

June 2 Villambistia
Sunny and warm with a nice cooling breeze. Leaving Granon we had the
usual village every 4 to 5 kms. A lot of the Camino was on a track
beside a busy highway, not so good. The country here reminded me of
Montana with huge rounded rolling hills. Once we passed through
Beladora, the track swung away from the highway and once again we were
walking through wheat fields. The vines have dropped off. Passing
through Tosantos you can see in the near distance a church built right
into sandstone cliffs called Ermita de la Virgen de la Pena. Amazing
to see but apparently locked.
Walking into Villambistia we decided it was a 1/3 donkey town but in
our post siesta stroll we saw 3 whole donkeys which shows you just how
wrong you can be! The albuqerque here is new and very nice with great
facilities and a bar attached where we have our meals. For lunch we
shared an omelet bocadilla and a huge mixed salad.
The evening meal was a great mixed salad, baked macaroni, cheese, red
annd white wine and rice pudding. It was excellent. Our host Paco
stayed with us for the meal but only joined in the conversation not
the meal. One of the pilgrims was from Galicia near Santiago. They
have Celtic origins there, and to our surprise he got out some bag
pipes and played for us. It sounded very similar to Scottish piping.
This got Paco very excited so he broke out some of his top shelf fire
water and we had to drink shots to celebrate. We slept well!

June 1 Granon

We had a bit less breeze today so it felt a bit warmer but it was not
too hot. We left Asofra at 6:45. We had a gradual 200m climb to the
village of Ciruena where we stopped for coffee. We met an Austrian
there who spoke excellent English. He'd done parts of the Camino that
runs through Germany and said it was very nice but not as well catered
for in accommodation. Our trail then took us through wheat and vines
to Santo Domingo De Calzada, a town of 5,600 people. Here the hills
became more rounded and the fields larger. We arrived at Granon at
about 1 PM. The albuquerque is in the loft of the big church. There
are no beds just mats on the floor but you pay what you feel like, if
anything, in the morning. We had lunch at one of the two pubs in town
and for the first time had trouble making our Spanish understood. We
did have a good lunch through!
A Finnish kid has just sat down at the piano and boy can he play!
Sadly the piano is out of tune but it still sounds magnificent!

May 31 Azofra

We had a much nicer walk to Azofra. We rose at 5 AM and were
breakfasted, packed and on our way by 6. The weather was kept cooler
by a nice breeze and there was much less bitumen walking today.
Scenery wise the hills are now red sandstone and the valleys are wheat
and vines. At the village of Najera., which we passed through, there
were caves in the sandstone cliffs and balustraded walkways to them
but we couldn't find out what they were or how to get to them, if you
could. In the farm lands, every nook and cranny is used, with vines
in all the spots too awkward for grain. There are huge acerages of
grapes and the wines are very, very good.
The albuquerque at Azofra is wonderful. We have a room with two beds
all to ourselves for 6 Euros each! There is a lovely courtyard with a
pool/fountain that I soaked my feet in while we waited for them to
open at noon.
We had menu del dia for 10 Euros at the local pub, very good. Lee had
the mixed salad for starters and I had vegetable stew, a thick
vegetable soup. We both had steamed hake for mains washed down with an
excellent rose wine and flan and ice cream for postres. Muy buen (very
good).