As written above, we'd been following horses. Finally, we got to see them as they were staying at the same hostal as we were. It seems like quite an involved process to get the horses saddled up with all the people's gear. The people (from France) took about 20 minutes to get everything ready.
It was a misty, overcast and grey morning when we set out.
It was cool enough in the morning when we set out that Compa decided to dig down into her pack and get gloves. We went up to the top of this hill, the Sierra de Atapuerca, where we found that someone had left a sofa (the second one we'd seen on the camino!). We walked past a cross and then we saw the plain ahead of us with Burgos still 18 kms away, 18 very LONG kms away.
As far as shots of our walking, from this point on, it was pretty grim. We went down the hill, with a mining firm and cell towers off to the right. When we got to the bottom, we went through two little villages (where I stopped to tape my arch because it was hurting and tape the blisters that were really bugging me) and then crossed the highway, the A-1. We had the choice of going two ways: we went left, through a construction site (or something like that — there were dump trucks all over). At one point, there was a lagoon and the only way to go forward was to unch ourselves like crabs along a chain link fence, walking on a three-inch wide strip of concrete while hanging onto the fence. I wish we had a photo of that. The fence went around the perimeter of the airport. Then we walked through non-descript burbs for 5kms until we finally hit the main drag, the Calle Victoria, that led us to our hotel, the España, a funky 1930s hotel.
My maps didn't correspond to anything we walked once we came down off the summit ridge. Such is life on the caminio. And my eyes watered like crazy today — from pollution or wheat or both?
Three years ago when we took the bus and train from Estella to Leon to Astorga to Rabanal, we had about an hour in Burgos. Compa's knees had gotten afflicted with tendonitis, so we didn't trek from the railroad station to see the cathedral which, in Guide Michelin terms, is 'worth a detour.' The Camino takes one right past it on the plaza (this shot is taken from a 16th-century gate). One now has to pay to get into the cathedral, but with the pilgrim's credential, it's one euro. It is well worth the cost.
This upward shot is of a side chapel in the cathedral. Truly the cathedral's trademark has to be these perforated towers that let in light between the gothic ribs. Extraordinary!
In the west end of the cathedral, way up high on the south wall, one finds a clock with a jester. It still works. Note to its side another smaller set of bells. Since it was so high up and we didn't spend all afternoon there, I am not sure if the larger clock is for the hours and the smaller one for the minutes.
One characteristic of Spanish cathedrals is the choir which always is in the middle of the cathedral nave. It is hard to see from the west end to the east end because the choir breaks the view. To the right of this photo, looking up into the crossing tower, you can make out the cross from the choir reredos.
This is the crossing of the cathedral. It is absolutely amazing to see the light through the central tower. No wonder they call this cathedral 'diaphonous.'
After visiting the cathedral, we went to the mobile phone store to find out how to get messages off our Spanish cell phone and then I went to a smokey cibercafe to write a post to this blog. Then, before retiring, we said goodbye to the Colombian/Australian couple.
That is part of life on the camino: you meet people, walk with them or bump into them for a while, and eventually lose them because their schedule doesn't correspond to yours. We left a lot of people behind in Burgos because they were taking a day off (which we didn't) and picked up a whole new crowd.
