Spain 2018, part 10 (Way of St James: Belorado – Burgos – Rabé de las Calzadas)
While I was sitting in the Main Square (Plaza Mayor) in Belorado town, I realised there were a few pilgrims’ hostels and on the form for the sending of my big backpack I had put just a “pilgrims’ hostel” so I had no idea where my luggage would eventually end up. Therefore, after the break at the bar, somehow puzzled, I made a couple of circles around the centre, going from one hostel to the next, without any clear idea about to what to do.
The girl at the tourist office was of no real help, so in the end I went back to the bar where I had already had my coffee and asked them if they had a phone (my mobile was roaming, so I actually avoided using it for local calls). The bartender offered to make the phone call from her mobile and so we rang the company for the transportation of luggage and they told me where my backpack would be delivered. And so it was and a little later I was successfully reunited with my backpack and got a bed in a very nice dormitory where I wasn’t alone for long. A couple of girls came after a while.
As I was registering at the hostel, I also signed up for the dinner which I had to wait for while I was already a little hungry, so I walked to a nearby supermarket in order to see if something would inspire me to improvise in the hostel’s kitchen. However, it was Sunday and everything was closed, so I stopped at a popular, but completely local restaurant (no pilgrim in sight) and there I had a few tapas and a clara.
Afterwards I retired to the albergue, washed my hair and rested making sure my leg and one of its tendons did not move. It did seem things were getting better, but after the experience I had had, I was no longer in an experimenting mood.
By the way, on this day I also moved into the fourth Spanish province on my Way. After Aragon, Navarre and La Rioja, I was now in Castilla y León.
My plan was to continue to rest the following day and to take a coach to the next destination, which in my case was the large city of Burgos. Still, I had plenty of free time in the morning and thus I went for a short stroll around the place I had already gotten to know rather well. While I was sitting in a bar, I started to talk with a French gentleman and he advised me to apply ice to my leg, i.e., to my tendon. I told him I was on the move (at least that was my intention) and did not know where to get the ice, but then he said I should ask for it in the bars and restaurants I was stopping at on my way and that they were willing to do it. I owe a huge thanks to the man! As it turned out I would have to use this advice very often during the rest of my pilgrimage.
Later in the morning I boarded a coach and covered two stages by it, because it had become clear to me that I had already lost a lot of time on my Way. Another reason for such a decision was that I had already heard from several people that in the section before Burgos the Way was rather uninteresting since it passes through some kind of an industrial zone. I could indeed see that for myself from the coach. Still, not everybody was like me, using shortcuts. I could see a lot of pilgrims who persistently and with dedication walked along the path that ran parallel to the main road.
Through an incredible set of circumstances, since Burgos is a large city and there are a lot of places where one may stay, as I was waiting to register at the Municipal Albergue I heard somebody calling my name and as it turned out there were Francesco and Gabriel standing in the line behind me. We were all extremely happy to see each other again and so I waited for their turn in order to register together with them and thus get beds that were close to one another. For me it was all too clear that I would continue to walk with them and I think they had no doubts about this either. After settling at the hostel, all three of us went for a short walk around the city centre.
This day, there was some celebration in the city and through a crowd we could occasionally see some parts of the performances that were taking place in the open. Originally, I had planned to spend at least two days in Burgos, being a large and important tourist city, thus getting some rest and visiting the city at leisure. Like a good deal of my original plans, this one failed, too. More and more, the only thing that mattered to me was to move in the direction of Santiago de Compostela and to use all of my (remaining) energy just for that. Therefore, any sightseeing was brought down to a minimum, as well as asking around or researching, for instance, which feast this was and why these performances were organised in the first place. I simply had no desire or will or energy to bother about it. But, I cannot say that I did not enjoy those motley scenes I could see.
While we were walking around the centre, we came to a monument to the famous El Cid, whose proper name was Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar. I must admit that before coming to Burgos I don’t recall hearing of El Cid, but Francesco and Gabriel took me to see the monument to this great hero and they also drew my attention to a monument to his wife Jimena. Namely, this warrior from the second half of the 11th century played a very active role in the battles between the Christian and Moorish rulers and it was precisely the Moors who named him El Cid, while the Christians also added Campeador, which could be translated approximately as Bold Lord, since El Cid was derived from Arabic and means the Lord.
In addition to his historical importance, El Cid is also significant for the Spanish literature, since the first Spanish epic poem, The Poem of the Cid, from 1140 was dedicated precisely to him.
After this walk and lunch, Francesco and Gabriel went back to the hostel to rest and I decided to include a tourist sightseeing into my day after all. Namely, I was staying very close to the Cathedral in Burgos and it would have been a great pity if I hadn’t gone to visit it. It is in the UNESCO’s World Heritage List and it is truly impressive. Not only from the outside, but much more so from the inside.
The construction of the Cathedral started in the first half of the 13th century and was completed in the second half of the 16th century. Regardless of some subsequent minor influences, the dominant style is the Gothic one.
Within the Cathedral there are many different and very impressive details. I found the star-like vaults in the crown of the domes particularly interesting. Not only are they amazingly decorative, they also provide additional natural lighting.
One of the most famous chapels is certainly the Chapel of the Constables (Capilla de los Condestables) in which the remains of a military commander who ordered the construction of the chapel and of his wife were laid to rest (condestable meaning a type of a military commander).
Several people are buried at the Cathedral and probably the most famous among them is El Cid who together with his wife Jimena lies down under the central dome of the Cathedral. At least this is how the story goes.
After the visit of the Cathedral, I went to the nearby hostel at which I was staying and I would have rested lying in bed, had there been internet connection at the hostel. Namely, despite being an exceptionally modern space provided particularly for pilgrims, there was no wi-fi here, so I went to a bar-restaurant across the street and there I posted the following text on Facebook.
Day 15: “General-tourist”
Carried by the power of hundreds of horses, watching from the back as my troupes were advancing by sprawling in a chair in the back part of a coach, I entered like a general into the royal city of Burgos with an intention to spend some time today doing a little sightseeing and sitting in bars and cafés of the capital of the province of Castilla y León.
It was not only this situation that helped me feel like a general. Since the pain in the leg has started to diminish significantly, I could also think a little about other things, instead of my brain being busy only with the pains, i.e., I could be the classic general after a battle (a Serbian proverb meaning it is easy to be wise after the event). I think the problem here is not the terrain, or the firm ground on which one walks, or the heat, or the footwear, or ascents, or stones… The problem is that you keep moving every day. There is no proper break. And it is precisely this that makes any problem, no matter how minor at first, significantly bigger with time. When I used to go hiking years ago, it was by the rule for two days, but no matter how these two days went, the third day I was already back at home and the recuperation could start.
Be as it may, when I got here I went directly from the bus terminal to the municipal pilgrims’ hostel and while I was standing in line to register, suddenly I heard behind me: “Erica, Erica!” I turned around and there they were – Francesco and Gabriel. Oh, what a joy that was! I asked them where Angela was and they said she went farther, since she had limited time by which she had to reach Santiago.
After we got our beds, we went together to have lunch and afterwards Francesco spoke with Angela on the phone. As it turned out she was in Burgos after all, so we agreed to meet a little later.
Apart from the fact that the hares and the tortoise met at the same place and enjoyed each other’s company, this tortoise has decided to be both a general and a tourist, so she went to visit the Cathedral in Burgos which is indeed an impressive edifice, but I also soon returned to the hostel in order to have some rest and relax my leg. After all, there was a lot of walking this day.
In front of me: 505 km
Behind me: 362 km
Afterwards I did go back to the dormitory and lay down to rest a little, but at some point Francesco, Gabriel and I got visitors – namely, Angela came to see us for a short while! In the meantime, she had caught cold, so I gave her some pills, but it was also interesting that she came together with an Italian whom I had met a couple of days earlier at the bus stop in Grañon and now the two of them were staying at the same albergue. The world was getting smaller and smaller at an accelerated pace!
After the joyous encounter, I did manage to rest a little and later I went again to the nearby bar-restaurant in order to eat something before going to sleep. Gabriel joined me and we both selected our own combination of tapas, with a mandatory beer for Gabrial and a clara (beer with some light soft drink) for me.
I also took the opportunity to inquire at the bar about the procedure for leaving my backpack early in the morning the following day. Namely, there are albergues that do not accept either the delivery of the luggage or that the luggage is sent from them. Still, that certainly is never a problem and there is always some solution. This time, the bar-restaurant played the main role in all of this, by opening already before 6 am so that the pilgrims could leave their things, while continuing on foot.
The next morning, when we went down from our room to the reception and the exit, even before 6 am, it turned out it was locked up and we could not get out. This was yet another specificity of this hostel. Most often, the early departure from the albergues is organised in such a way that the entrance/exit door can be opened from the inside, but not from the outside. Thus, nobody can get in from the outside until the hosts have arrived. On the other hand, it is always important for one to check if they have taken all the belongings, because once out and the door closes, it is impossible to get back in for anything left behind and one must wait either for some other pilgrims to use the door for the exit or until the hosts have come. The house rules at this albergue said that the door is open at 6 am and this was when one of the hosts-volunteers comes and opens the door of the place.
Then we finally got out in the street, I left my big backpack at the bar-restaurant and we started to follow the Way marked by the arrows. It was still dark, but we first walked through the city and the street lights solved the visibility problem. We passed by the Cathedral and continued towards the exit from the city.
I found it interesting that this was in fact the first morning when I left an albergue and started to walk in a company. Before, I did meet people and sometimes I walked with them for a while, but this time I was a part of a “team.” Admittedly, Francesco and Gabriel did not stop as often as I, for I stayed behind frequently in order to take photos, but we practically walked together.
Just as we were leaving the city and starting to be more surrounded by nature, the sun was coming up.
When we reached a small town of Tardajos, we sat at a bar and had breakfast. The breakfast offered at these bars that open so early specifically in order to cater for the pilgrims most often consists of freshly squeezed orange juice, some pastry or toasted bread with butter and jam, and a cup of coffee with or without milk. This is quite a fine breakfast in order for one to replenish some energy and also rest for a little bit.
Having in mind the advice I got from the gentleman I met back in Belorado, I asked in the bar if they had some ice and quite readily not only did they indeed have ice, they also had the hard plastic ice packs used in cool boxes and the owners of the bar already had them ready for the tired pilgrims with painful legs. It was quite clear that I was not an exception and that many people on the Way have problems, mostly with legs. I also took a pain-killer, the short break did its limited-scope magic, and so I could continue rather well.
The next place was Rabé de las Calzadas, but we only passed through it, for we were yet to cover 8 more kilometres to the final destination for the day and that was Hornillos del Camino.