20th of August we wanted to start from our hostel not too late as always, but the pumped up tire from last evening was flat again in the morning. Luckily the bike shop was close by and they promised us to get it repaired within one hour, which left me some time to work on my laptop.
Everything was fixed and we could start an hour later. We used our museum tickets which were valuable even for today to see the convent of San Franciso before we biked on westwards.
Leaving Santo Domingo de la Calzada we were trapped in a construction site of a highway.
They had blocked the road, but didn’t make it clear for bikers where to go and we didn’t want to end as ghost bikers on a highway. But the signs were so misleading that we had to take a ramp of a highway exit to join the camino again. Everywhere were signs that explained that the European Union was involved in the development of the infrastructure of the “Way of Saint James”, it being a UNESCO cultural world heritage. But it now forced the pilgrims to walk along the new highway.
Yesterday I already had a talk with a lawyer from Croatia who couldn’t stop laughing at this whole “Camino-thing” and wondered what he was doing there. He said he comes from such a nice country like Croatia and me coming from Bavaria where the nature is beautiful, and then what he is walking through here is just ugliness. Everyone is pretending to be on the search for their inner self and supposed to find the answer walking beside the construction site of a highway. What is this all about?
Maybe without knowing it the Camino had already given him an answer, and he still didn’t realize he is better off at home. But we couldn’t stop laughing about the absurdity of him being like the revolutionary pilgrim who discovers that this whole thing was just a clever marketing strategy of the Spanish tourism board.
We reached the border of Castilia y León where a group of Civil Protection volunteers from the province of Burgos welcomed the pilgrims and asked if they needed help or something to drink. They were really caring that everyone was fine. Even at the construction sites workers made sure that pilgrims could safely pass between all the construction machines and trucks pulling huge clouds of dust, leaving the pilgrims behind with sand between their teeth.
In the village of Redecilla del Camino a highlight was the Templar church of Nuestra Señora de la Calle which had an unusal baptisterium from the 12th century in Moorish style.
Following the brand new trail again I realized it had been actually used for laying a gas pipeline as you could repeatedly see yellow signs. In the village of Viloria de Rioja we took our sandwiches beside the birthplace of Santo Domingo de la Calzada and the church where he was baptised.
Later on I met Sim from the sunflower field from yesterday walking with Joe from
Ireland and I continued the discussion on what they think about walking along the highway construction. Joe said “The camino was there first”. Yes he was right, but what did political decisions and business make out of it?
For my continuation Joe told me to greet his cousin John who was walking ahead. So a few minutes later I biked by the next pilgrim and said “Hi John” while passing. His whole body just seemed to be struck by lightning. It must have been like God’s voice talking to him in his own reflection during his pilgrimage. He said “Oh my god” as a first reaction and I had to excuse myself for disappointing him as it was just me – Nicolai. He said he was so in his thoughts and since the last two days something had changed walking along the Camino. It had given him time and space to calm his mind. It must have been the open landscape and the silence in between which gives one the chance to clear the mind from any distractions. I was sorry to have been a reason to interrupt his mind-flow, but we kept on chatting until his cousin “Radio-Joe” as he called him for his endless talking caught up together with Sim.
These are the unforgettable moments which happen among pilgrims, when you join in laughter and share a good moment on your common way. We needed to head on as the next pass ahead of us after Villafranca Montes de Oca, was described as very rough, but the alternative of following the national road would have meant to be hunted by huge trucks, which seemed to us to be even more dangerous.
Once we had left the huge monocultures of the fields we were in wild forests of oaks and pine trees. The only disadvantage being back in such healthy nature was being followed by hundreds of insects flying around our heads, not all being only friendly flies. The path was so rough that it was hard to gain speed to escape them and we were even forced to push the bikes. But once we reached the highest point it was great to accelerate and leave them behind.
After the monastery of San Juan de Ortega the landscape opened into wide fields with huge ancient oak trees and it was mostly downhill until Atapuerca, where we had to take the last climb up to the Sierra de Atapuerca. A biker with a very light bike came against our direction and we were convinced, if he can do it so can we. But we hadn’t calculated with the weight of our bikes to be pushed over rocks uphill, which in the end we had to do together on the most difficult passages.
But we finally made it all the way up to the top where a cross was standing with its silhouette against the sunset in the clouds. Burgos could be seen at a far distance in the valley. Entering the city on the old traditional way was not very romantic as we passed the airport, endless commercial zones and then huge apartment buildings on which the Camino logo was just painted as a façade decoration. Further downtown we were on a safe bike lane entering the heart of the city, passing the Paseo del Espolón where loads of people were out for their evening walk, arriving in front of the city gate. The gate was so huge with its façade that you had no idea of the architecture it was hiding. The surprise came after the passage where a huge plaza opened to show the marvel of the cathedral of Burgos.
