A Happy Place

It was good to be on the bus going in the right direction. It was a nice refresher of the towns I had walked through not long ago: Najera, Santo Domingo, Belorado, Atapuerca and finally Burgos. They tend to blur together after a few days. I had a cup of coffee and a toasted ham and egg sandwich at a familiar coffee shop, then headed towards the Cathedral, turned left at the river and was on the road again!

The path leading out of Burgos was much more pleasant than the road coming in. I followed a patch along a park which was built alongside the river. After a while, I turned away from the river and found myself walking in the mostly treeless meseta, but the road was good and fairly flat. It seemed like a lot fewer pilgrims were on the trail. I have heard some people skip this middle portion, either due to time constraints or because it is too “boring”.

I had sardines for lunch in a local bar in Rabe de la Calzada. Another guy came in, Gary from North Dakota (or was it South?), went up to the bar and just said “Beer”. The lady started pouring and he shook his head. “Bigger!”, said Gary, motioning with his hand. She found the biggest glass in the bar and filled it with beer. Gary plopped down and started to drink. He had been walking from some town 8 miles before Burgos. He looked at me and said, “I’m tired!” He looked it. “I’ve never walked more than 18 holes of golf before in my life!” Which proves they play golf in North Dakota. Or South.

On the way out of Rabe, I saw a bench in a yard next to a small ancient chapel. I decided to go and rest my feet, by lying down and kicking my leg up on the backrest. As I lay there, I saw an inscription above the doorway which read:

Templo de la Verdad es lo que mires; no desoigas la voz con que advierte que todo es ilusión menos el muerte.

Well that sent my mind off on a Camino of its own. I pondered the illusion we live in and how attached we get to it as I watched the leaves in the tree shading me as they slowly danced in the breeze.

Eventually I got on my way to Hornillos, staying at the place run by the brother of the woman who married Emilio Estevez’ son. Hornillos is a little place even in a land of little places. But I was about to discover that it’s got life!

This is a picture of the peregrinos who went to mass at the little church in Hornillos. After mass, the priest invited all the peregrinos, which was most everyone up to the altar and handed out the Pilgrim’s Blessing to everyone in all their native languages. We had people from USA, Spain, Italy, France, Panama, Brazil, and Korea. After reading the prayers, we all sang church songs. We Americans sang Amazing Grace. It was interesting to hear versions of some familiar songs on a different language.

After mass I went up the street to a restaurant called the Origen, run by a guy named Omar from Senegal, and had dinner with John from Florida and Bjarne from Greenland. The singing for the evening was not over, as you can see from this piece from La Tosca. Camino surprises never end!

Sorry, could not get the photo and video to upload. Will work on these technical difficulties later!