Day Forty One: Burgos to Carrion de Los Condes

May 7, 2017

The street outside our hotel filled up around 8 p.m. as the city came alive. For several hours it was jammed with people, only tapering off around 1 a.m. Tapering off does not mean the street became quiet, There were people hootng and hollering at 4 a.m., and even at 6 a.m. It made it kind of hard to sleep. One advantage though was that by the time we made our exit onto the street, at 8, the place was deserted. So we had the cathedral square to ourselves, save for the garbage collection people. We took advantage of that, plus the morning light to try a few more shots of the cathedral, plus the nearby main gate of the city.

The cathedral has striking carved detail on the exterior

Plane trees in the park. They seem to prune them this way in many places. Elsewhere they grow tall.

The route out of town took us through a park and was a very pleasant goodbye to what struck us as a great city.

At Tardajos, the first town on the route beyond Burgos, we stopped at a "bar" to find some food. we are slightly getting the hang of this place, and now know that a bar is likely to have danish and coffee and will even make you a sandwich. At the bar we met "Ghandi" , another dog that is walking the Camino. Ghandi was from Portugal, and I tried to learn from his owner how to ask him to sit. No luck. The owner said Ghandi was anxious not to be left behind.

Beyonf Tarajos we prepared to jump on the N120, which as we had been promised in the Guestbook, was free of almost all traffic. Just at that point we ran into Klaus, from northern Germany, standing and looking incredulously at his flat front tire. Klaus, like a few Germans we have met, had booked with a German tour company tat was arranging his hotels and trucking his gear on ahead. Yesterday, in the now famous (to us) Oca valley, Klaus had got a flat. He walked his bike three km to the nearest town, but of course no help there (as we had noted yesterday, all those towns are deserted). So he phoned the tour company and they came and collected him. They got a bike shop in Burgos to stay open late, and the flat been repaired with a new tube. Now that tube had a hole in it. Fortunately Klaus had yet another spare tube and tire irons, so we left him to it.

I was glad that Klaus did not need any extensive help, because we had cut out quite a day for ourselves. Looking ahead rather haphazardly last night we had failed to spot any place that we could book. All the ones we checked out were full. So our "plan" had been to just cycle out and when the time seemed right, try our luck at any and all albergues we could find.

However just as yesterday morning a guestbook message had come in from Michael Tordoff, giving us a needed tip about what routing to do that day, one came in from him this morning, noting that he had stayed in Carrilon de Los Condes, though it might be a bit far for us. We fired up Booking and found lots of good possibilities there, so we decided to go for it. I am writing this now from our room at Hostal Santiago, and it is one of the best rooms/places we have found so far. True, the distance was 94 km (very far for us) but it has worked out great. Thanks again, Michael.

The N120 was working well for us, but we saw that all our guidebooks (Bikeline, Cicerone, and Ouest France) showed a sudden turn south somewhere just beyond Villanueva. Afte that they showed routes meandering all over the place, but not returning to N120. should we ignore them, or do they know something we don't?

As we approached the recommended turn we got passed by five lightly loaded cyclists on mountain bikes. They took the deviation and looked like they knew whhat they were doing, so we followed. A few hundred metres further on they all stopped. So I took the opportunity to speed over to them and find out what the problem was with N120. although they had looked like they knew what they were doing, they turned out to also be Germans on some sort of organized trip. They were confidently following a little route card, clearly provided by the tour company. But anyway that card also said to abandon N120.

While were talking, they noticed the sticker on my front bag from Lohr am Main - which is down from Frankfurt. This was near their home and they were pretty excited to see it. So photos all around. When we all set off, I had four big bikes right in front of me. I felt like we really controlled the road. It would have been even better had their been any cars around, which there were not!

The five Germans naturally pulled quickly ahead of us. They had said they do 130 km per day, and of course had no loads. We in turn sailed into and out of the first town and soon, after a pleasant downhill whizz, found that we were no longer on the designated route. No matter, not only did the GPS show us exactly what was going on, but we had lucked into a shortcut that saved 5 km!

The other piece of luck was that we were travelling on completely deserted roads through very attractive, if simple, countryside. The temperature was fine, there was no wind, and the road might rise and fall a bit, but had no killer hills. As others before us have said, it was one of the most pleasant cycling days possible.

This dog has it easy with a sag waon trailer

In the little town of Castrillo de Murcia an old man with a cane was bumbling along the street, with his two little dogs bumbling along too. I carefully avoided the dogs, which were called by the man to no effect. We paused at a street corner and the man came up to us. He wanted to advise us about the best way forward. There was a lot of Spanish tha twe could not understand, but we did gather two things - we should take the next left, and one of the dogs was blind. The dog only navigated by listening for the sound of the man walking. In all this consultation in the street and dog walking there was no danger, because there were no cars, at all.

We set off again, dutifully taking the second left, and proceeding on just great cycling road. Soon in the distance there appeared the larger town of Castrojeriz. There was church on one side and a ruin on a high hill on the other. It looked like a scene from El Cid, or at least it could have been hundreds of years ago.

The church, the Iglesia de Nuestra Senora del Manzano, gave no external sign that it had been done up inside as a rather elegant museum - much like a Burgos cathedral in extreme miniature. Despite our planned long day, we had a spin around it, and came away with these photos:

On leaving the church we found a shady bench and were sitting there eating our sandwich from that bar), creme caramel, and suchlike, - highly relaxed, when straggling in from another direction came the five speedy Germans. We had clearly bamboozled them with our shortcut. We greeted them, casual as could be. What fun.

The old man with the two dogs. The fact that he caught up to us shows how fast the Grampies aren't

A selection of colours that we ae looking at.

From that point we bounced from town to town, but were intent on actually making our planned distance. We both began to feel some strains and chafing that came from being on the bikes longer than we were accustomed to. But we have benefitted from the weeks since Paris in terms of training, and we arrived in Carillon de los Condes in fairly good order.

We were really pleasantly surprised by the Hostal, which is elegant inside and where our room is extremely large. Also, the lady at reception spoke good English and was very helpful. It turned out she spoke even better French, since she is from Morocco, and this allowed Dodie and her to have a good natter about French and American politics.

After a bath (yes, there is a bath tub!) we set out to find a restaurant. The first one up offered an 11 euro pilgrim supper. We both chose the same thing - salad and ribs. I am becoming a bit of a collector of interesting salads here, and this was really unique. It had quail legs, quail eggs, oranges, lettuce, raisins, and tomato, with a balsamic glaze. Wow.

For tomorrow we have not been able to find a vacant room at the right distance, that we can book. So we will cycle on out and try to find an ad hoc shelter at the right distance and time of day. We know that if we cycle too far, too late, we may be stuck with no place to stay. And if we cycle too short, too early, we will be too far from Leon to arrive in time for sightseeing there. Well, we'll see how it goes. But at least we have booked a hostel right be the Leon cathedral for the next day. So brace yourselves for more catherdral coverage soon!

his has to do with the legend of Ursula and the 11,000 virgins. We ran into it in Germany two years ago, but are no longer sure of the detais

A very old book. They had a shelf stuffed with them

Angels and demons - title of a Dan Brown book.

Vestments, such as we also saw at Burgos

Males will go to any lengths to impress the ladies

Another unique Camino traveller. That's a genuine BoB trailer, too.

A salad for the books - with quail eggs and meat

Today's ride: 94 km (58 miles)
Total: 1,844 km (1,145 miles)

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