May 7, 2023

Atapuerca is in an area where early cave dwelling’s have been discovered.

At the beginning of today’s walk, the climb came right away.

My legs are getting stronger because I was able to make the entire walk up the hill without a stop for a rest. As I got closer to the top, the trail got very rocky and at the very top of the trail was a 20 foot high cross that pilgrims had stacked rocks at the bottom of.  In a couple of weeks, there is a much more famous cross made of iron, Cruz de Ferro, in which there is a pile of stones that is immense. This must be an attempt to copy the other cross. This is one of the most beautiful mornings so far.

This marked the top of the hill, and now there will be a period of walking down the other side.  At the start it was rocky but soon smoothed out. Eventually I came to a small town where I could have a breakfast.

The first small town was Cardenuela Riopico. These little villages rely on the pilgrims for any income that comes in. The bar was packed with pilgrims and they were sitting outside having breakfast. I got a ham and egg sandwich, coffee con leche, and a disappointing, chocolate donut bar.

This morning I would walk through several of the small towns until coming to the larger town of Burgos. After about 2 miles, Tom from last nights dinner came walking up behind me. We walked together the entire rest of the way to Burgos.  Tom is a good walking partner. His speed was a little bit faster than mine so it made me pick it up a little bit, and our conversation was good. Tom is retired and lives in San Diego after the first few miles, Alan from last night at the bar joined us, and the three of us walk together for quite a while. Eventually, Chris from last nights dinner also came up from behind and joined us too and the four of us walk the rest of the way to Burgos before we split up and went to our own hotels. Allan who is from England, will be stopping today and going home. He has to be at work tomorrow morning. burgos is probably the largest city that I’ve walked through while on my Camino. It was a long time of walking through the industrial area before getting to the classic old city center area.

As everyone peeled off in their own direction, I was left alone and trying to figure out how to find my hotel. We got in a little bit off the Camino so first thing I did was find it again because I knew that my hotel was right on it.

After finding my hotel and checking in, I decided to go out and look around the neighborhood. I’m not that far from the cathedral or the river, while I was still in my room I heard a parade of demonstrators walk by in the street outside.

The cathedral in Burgos is massive without a doubt the largest one that I’ve seen on my Camino so far.

As I walk back, it was getting to be about 2 o’clock in the afternoon and I have not had lunch yet, so I found an outside café and had an Italian lunch in Spanish city.

It was just OK. My salad had a lot more truffle on it than I was expecting. My pasta was pretty good and my tiramisu was very good. Ended up drinking a split a wine and a couple bottles of water. While finishing my wine, Chris from yesterday and this morning was walking by, he stopped to say hi and I asked him to sit. We had a nice conversation.

I went back to my room, had my afternoon nap and went back out to look a little bit more in the neighborhood. There’s a large square about four or five blocks away, and I was very surprised that they had a merry-go-round there in the Square and Taco Bell.

On my walk back to the hotel I also saw another curious vending machine that I had seen once before in St. John, it’s a vending machine that you can buy a pizza from that is baked in three minutes.

I am now back in my room ready for sleep as I have a very early morning tomorrow. I will be taking the next four days off from walking, I will return in 4 days to be back on the Camino Friday.