Day 12, San Juan de Ortega to Burgos





























Friday June 14

A very hard day, coloured very much by a boozy night with the Irish contingent, during which I had at least one glass of wine too much.


This photo more or less sums it up. It was at about this time that they were giving a very spirited rendition of Whisky in the Jar (or maybe it was Puff the Magic Dragon

The hotel didn't do breakfast, but instead gave us a packed lunch at the end of the night.

I slept the sleep of the slightly drunk and woke up eager to go and walk it off.

I knocked back the orange juice from the lunch pack and went off downstairs, where the Irish were also ready to hit the road.

I slipped off just before them ( i didn't feel up to much conversation), into a misty cold morning. San Juan de Ortega is at 1000m, so I was pretty well walking through the clouds.


At first, it was forest, but it soon opened up into a rocky road through misty farmland.






After 6km, I reached the village of Atapuerca, a Unesco World Heritage site. It's where the world's oldest human remains have been found, dating back in the region of 1.5million years.


There followed a very rugged path to Cruz de Matagrande, at 1080m the high point of today's walk.

We should have been able to look out over the suburbs of Burgos, but the mist was still down.

After clocking up a very respectable 11k by 10am, I stopped at the village of Cardenuela Riopico for a coffee and dipped into the lunch pack (as well as a sinful chocolate croissant).

The day turned into a bit of a mission after that. The route into Burgos is fairly soul destroying, along sealed roads through factory areas and the city outskirts for more than 12k.

It was sometimes hard to tell whether or not you were on the Camino. You wouldn't see a sign for ages, then suddenly there's be a yellow arrow on a tree, a bronze shell in the pavement, or one of the familiar blue signs with a yellow scallop shell and an arrow.


 

I saw a nice church at 26k - I should have been at my hotel, but I couldn't find any street names, so I continued across the bridge in the photo and carried on through the arch. 

 At the next intersection I finally recognised a street name - I'd slightly overshot, but soon found my hotel.

 It's another four star city hotel - not my favourite - but the facilities are good and at this one the wifi works well. I was absolutely buggered ad I now know the meaning of the word footsore, so I was glad to slide into the bath.

 The menu prices for dinner here are scary, but I got an email from my Danish friends Jens and Merethe asking me to join them for dinner at a cantina, which I'll be glad to do. 
They'd got ahead when I had a rest day last weekend, but they rested in Burgos today, so I've caught them up. They go on tomorrow, but I have a rest day and apparently there's lots to look at here.

That'll be the subject of tomorrow's blog.

Here's today's photos (and a couple from last night): https://photos.app.goo.gl/VdMFdsMFRG4tLjTp6

39,000 steps today

Comments

  1. UnknownJune 14, 2019 at 6:54 PM

    Hello old fruit - Boris here. Atapuerca are the oldest human remains in Europe (I know you would like that small display of pedantic blather) - but as you must currently be feeling about that age you can take comfort in the fact that the nightly wine ration is keeping you in best fighting trim

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Peter's CaminoJune 15, 2019 at 12:00 PM

      A couple of enforced low-alcohol nights have me in fighting trim and ready to resume the trek.

      Delete

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