August 23, 2013

I wrote the best blog post of my life but the WordPress system crashed and I lost it. Take it from me, it was Pulitzer Prize winning stuff. Since I don’t have the patience (or memory) to recreate it, here are the highlights:

Packed up the bikes and left Burgos at 1015.

Kathryn found the place where they shot the scene in “The Way” where the gypsy father and son carry Martin Sheen’s character’s backpack to the edge of Burgos. I coined the term “Way-dar” to describe the ability to find the locations used on the movie. I may copyright it.

Leaving Burgos, we entered the meseta. The meseta is a series of high plateaus (mesas) that offer almost no shade and very few towns. Perfect place to use a bike.

Bicycling, even at our slow pace, is a lot faster than walking. It compresses the camino experience and changes everything. The towns, churches and landmarks approach at the speed of light compared to walking. For the reason, I feel I am not continuing my Camino after walking to Burgos, I am starting a new one on a bicycle.

We decided to stay in a hostal tonight. Hostals in Spain are like B&B’s without the second B. Very nice room with great view and private bath.

Did you know that parcheesi is a popular game in Spain? Check the photo in my post from the beach in Santander. Those four ladies crowded around something were playing parcheesi. Tonight in the bar downstairs, there was a big group playing.

We had a great dinner tonight. Turns out that the town where we’re staying, Castrojeriz, is the garlic capital of this area. The food was great but the hospitality was even better. The owner of the restaurant Eduardo and his wife Dolores gave a tour of the caves underneath their house. They believe they date back to Roman times due to the size of the stones used to form the walls. It was really nice of them to take the time to show us.

Notes from today:

Left Burgos at 1015
Arrived Castrojeriz at 1515+
Total time 5 hours+
Total distance 41.2 km
Average speed 8.2 km/hr