From Burgos

May 14 - Burgos - Day 13

Ventosa - Azofra - Grañon - Belorado - San Juan de Ortega - Burgos

282 km

View map of the Camino

282 km! Eek, that is a chunk of distance for these feet. No wonder they demanded a rest today. So I take the opportunity to update you readers. Don't feel bad for me being in here at this computer. If I wasn't here, I'd probably be out walking around the city--my feet need a rest from that.

Let's start with a poem I found on a wall on the way into Najera the other day.

Dust, mud, sun, and rain
Is the Camino of Santiago.
Thousands of pilgrims
and more for a thousand years.

Pilgrim, who calls you?
What occult force attracts you?
Not the Milky Way
Nor the great cathedrals.

It isn't the Navarra courage
Nor the Riojan wine
Nor the Galatian seafood
Nor the Castillian plains.

Pilgrim, who calls you?
What occult force attracts you?
It isn't the people along the Camino
Nor the rural customs.

It isn't the history or culture,
Nor is it the rooster of Calzada
Nor the palace of Gaudi
Nor the Ponferrada castle.

Everything I see is passing
And a fleeting illusion
But the voice that calls me.
I know much more profoundly.

The force which pulls me
The force that attracts me
I cannot explain.
Only the one above knows it!

I can only add that it is from s/he who is deep within and all around, the source of all that calls so strongly.

All that depth was followed with an evening of light recreation at the refugio of Azofra, attached to the church there. We had little room. Some of us ended up on mats under the church portico. But before that sleeping, we partied with cheese, bread, sausage, wine, salami, and nuts.

An international group of pilgrims enjoys an evening party at the church of Azofra.

We were a Japanese, a Portuguese, a Frenchman, an American, and three Germans. No one knew all of each other's languages. A couple knew two. But we had a great time none the less. At one point the German couple told a story and the other German was in tears. The rest of us understood nothing. The third German translated it into broken English and then I into Spanish for the Brazilian who spoke some Spanish. The Japanese woman took several attempts of my using English and Spanish before she got it. The sum of the story was that the Husband has been on the Camino before but now is quite ill. When his wife asked him what he wanted to do before he dies, he said, go on the Camino once more. So they walk each with their hardships.

It was a feast day in Azofra and in the evening they gave all comers wonderful thick milk chocolate. "Because the women want to do it," a male villager told me.

Looking east from Azofra's church bell tower.

Ready for bed in Azofra. Through the night I watched the moon describe its arch across the sky along the actual arch between the columns in front of my bed--enchanting.

I have little more time left to write here this afternoon, so I leave you with just some pictures and little more text for this time.

They gave us a free dinner of lintel soup and more at the Grañon Refugio.

The fields of grain waved to me as I left Grañon the next morning.

In Belorado storks nest on a church bell tower as they do in so many towns.

Sleeping quarters are many and varied. This is a partial view of the upper quarters in one of the Belorado refugios. I had a rare single bed this night.

Many villages like Belorado here occupy valleys while the camino travels over the plateaus above them. So you trudge down into them and then back up after you have passed through them.

The priest at the far end of the table served us his traditional pilgrim garlic soup at San Juan de Ortega refugio. Then we moved the tables to the side and crowded our cushions and sleeping bags on the cold damp floor and got ready for another night's rest(?) on the camino.

Burgos Cathedral