296 kilometers to go

Leon has come and gone after a serious haul from Burgos. After one full marathon day and a few other long days, we made it into the city with more than a little swagger. The city was very beautiful, though the cathedral was certainly not as impressive as the one in Burgos. The doors were open to the public and so we were able to wander the stone mammoth, something the entrance fee in Burgos discouraged us from doing. Its so easy to forget that the cathedrals only get better on the inside with the vaults and stained glass and enough gold leaf for God.

We met some Spanish locals over wine and tapes, but our 9:30 pilgrims curfew kept us from really going out. When we left the city at 8AM this morning,  there were stumbling 20-somethings still finding their way home and into an undoubtedly haggard hang-over.

Some interesting meetings have included:

A man who left the UK in late June and has been walking to santiago since. He started in the north of france and walked 300 KM along the pyrennes before cutting into Spain. Once he gets to Santiago he will have walked something like 1500 KM and then he will walk back! He carries a didgeridoo he made, and is a sound healer amount other things. He had ben take is shoe off and proceeded to 'didge' his foot into eventual recovery.

A group of five korean boys fresh out of the army that I call "the korean boy band". They are traveling across the world after finishing their rotations. They carry so many things including laptops, video and digital cameras, bottles of oil and vinegar, a full korean spice cabinet and two full sized acoustic guitars. The tall universally handsome front man has even been the guest musician at two masses recently. (And that is only counting the masses I have been to). We hear about them from other pilgrims because they have already accured quite a bit if camino fame.

1/3 done

We have arrived in burgos and found a great deal on a hostel. 15 euros each for a really firm mattress, a private shower and even a massage table. Its much more for tourists but the owner treats the pilgrims well and takes us walking folk in for a glorious recovery day in a great city.

Walking into the city was fairly grueling. The last ten kilometers were on a sidewalk running next to a highway through a largely industrial wasteland. The camino is interesting like that, and Spain as country in general; one stretch of camino we see fields of wheat for half a day followed by highway n-120s exposed gravel shoulder. A forested mountain pass in brief, opening itself up to rolling hills hiding hamlets spaced by a kilometer and a half. We have walked through desolate feeling vineyard access roads interrupted only by hay stacks the size of mcmansions with bales the size of a volkswagon beetle. I have often felt I am looking at mirages when a small green square appears in these arid and orange moments - a small fenced off garden ladden with brassicas and artichokes and peppers.

Ben has told me on these walks that it is not the american wilderness ideal - the landscape always shows the touch of human hands and the camino is certainly not yellow stones cousin.  He has done a lot of backpacking in the american wildernesses, and has defined the word backpacking with that experience. The camino for us is much more human, a meeting of an international identity based upon this road so well traveled ; this road that exposes so much of the Spanish human culture. 

We get done everyday and stay in hostels that take in only pilgrims, and in that only the people that have also just lived through our day with their aching feet and smelly selves. They are a mixture of nationality (Africa unfortunately excluded). And we all walk different speeds, and so there is this ever revolving door of faces and story and language. All of the sudden, you are in a city as big in Burgos and you run into friends, only recent strangers, that stop you to ask about your day, that toe that was bothering you three days ago, to say goodbye.

Life here is great. The weather is not as great as one might ask god for, but that's okay. After the heat wave and newsworthy forest fires that were ravaging this part of Spain so I think it's a good thing.

Ben has just prepared us dinner on our camp stove perched on the window sill which we will eat up before exploring the Spanish night life. One which, until now, we have only heard of through walls as we feigned sleep at times in a snoring room of our walking friends.

We are alive

Going to Burgos tomorrow, which is the capital of leon-castilla, I think. We are taking the weekend off , resting our sore feet and tired legs.

We stayed last night at an awesome albergue or pilgrims Hostel. It was a donation based hostel as some are and the two volunteers were awesome Swiss men. They made us breakfast and told us camino lore. It comes in three stages, the french way, the younger one said. We ha e finished the first third, life and are moving on to death which is the flat desert middle, and at the end we will climb a second mountain range and go through rebirth.

Estrella Estrella Estrella

Sitting in a cafe with an onion the size of my head.

We are now on day six or seven, I can't really remember anymore. The heel cup in Ben's boot is helping, but he still walks with a little gimp in his gait.

Yesterday we climbed up and over the pampalona basin leaving the Pyrenees for good. Now and for twelve days or more we are walking through the plains of Spain where it does not rain. In fact, its warm as hell and the crunching sound your shoes make on red gravel and the expanse of tilled up barren farm fields reminds you this is gods country, or maybe a Cohen brother movie.

We can only imagine how hellish it could be in the summer, when you should traditionally do this walk.

But, also we found amidst all this farm land we realized it's hard to camp. Bens foot, as I mentioned still hurts him, and so he decided that the four euro a night pilgrim Hostel s with showers are really a deal. And so this morning we sent our tent and cold weather gear and ben his books away to santiago. Can you guess what it cost? I bet you can't so I will tell you: 12 euros with the box. And the woman in the Puenta la Reina is holding it there fir a few weeks to ensure it meets up with us. Humans can be wonderful creatures.

Speaking of wonderful creatures, my cat Cole passed away in Saturday and if you were lucky enough to know him, you can understand how saddening that is. 

Ben chimes in

Spain is beautiful, german insoles have radically altered my level of foot pain, the weather has taken a turn for fantastic, here are some photos of spains (and morgans) beauty, now back to my cafe con leche

A walled city, a warm day and a little luck.

We have arrived in Pampolona yesterday. The walk was long, there was a detour through a park that serpentined with the river. The camino typically crosses a hill, which I am sure would have also afforded us a sweet view of the walled city. The river path was pretty, but covered in concrete, which is sore sore on the feet. We have found a lot of the road has been paved and stamped to look like stone. But this was a bike path, turned suburban sidewalk, turned bike path again. It was worth it, though, to walk up a hill and alongside thirty foot walls and over a draw bridge into the old city. We liked it so much, we stayed an extra day.

Turns out that was a great idea. The sky opened up and its 80 ans sunny.

Ben hurt his foot in Germany and TSA stole our camping gas in Baltimore, so we have been a hobbling camp stove-less duo. In a cafe this morning, a fellow pilgrim mentioned he had noticed Bens limp and cane (nothing new there,  everyone notices). But turned out this pilgrim is an orthopedic doctor and so Ben got a free consultation and the pilgrim even went insole shopping with us. We found an orthopedic shoe store, sized up Ben's foot, and now he can walk!

This is obviously less awesome, but we also found camping gas, which is very hard to do in europe as they have a different gas-stove attachment system. So this ended a multi week saga/headache.

Most photos from yesterday are on Bens phone and he's lazy. Send your greivences to him.

So yeah, hitting the road again tomorrow.

I am tired!

First day over! We hiked a lot and the downhill sucked. So very steep and we were switchbacking the path by the end. I guess that like 30000 or more walk down that path every year so there is no reason to complain. And truthfully, I am just trying to stop the jealousy. Booya!

The hike was actually beautiful and we were in the clouds most of the way.  It was pretty epic to see sheep and horses and cows and sometimes whole towns emerge out of the haze. I took more pictures of animals today than is really fathomable.

And then we arrived to Ronscevalles, which is this amazing small village made up of maybe five collosal stone buildings, an old church and a silo from the time of charlemange, which looks not like a silo but a jail and is also mostly a burial ground. And we ate a pilgrims dinner, which for nine euro each included a plate of pasta and sauce, a full fish and fries, bread, wine and a cup of yogurt to help it all go down. 

Additionally, we went to mass, I did some whiddling and walked from France to Spain over the Pyrenees.