A STEEP CLIMB

It took me three days to walk the next 36 kilometres, my respiratory system bucking metaphorical headwinds all the way.  I had some great experiences though.  I briefly thought about staying in the open air belltower in Granon.  It has to be the most romantic albergue ever, but I was already coming over all Camille-like, and thought I might actually expire if I stayed on the cold floor with the wind howling through. 

In Redicilla del Camino, I spent the evening with an older Belgian woman who was pulling a travois, with her camping gear, as she was planning to camp out in Galicia once she had finished her walk.  I bought a shrivelled onion and the last egg in a tiny hut lit by a single unsheathed bulb, which is what passed for a grocery store in that little hamlet.  We shared those two items augmented with some rice we had found in the cupboard of the hostel.  Later our bounty was increased by a handsome young Barcelonan who insisted that we try pan con tomate, which being a Catalan specialty was obviously best.  We did not argue, just greedily scarfed it down. 

Things got really festive when the bar downstairs, the only hang-out for miles, it seemed, started hopping.  We ventured down but were driven back by thick smoke.  The place was not on fire, but the mouth of every person inside was festooned with a foul-smelling cigarette.  So we lay on our bunks instead and felt the thud of the music through the floor, and listened to the rhubarb rhubarb of animated, alcohol -fueled singing and conversation that continued until 3 am, at least.  That's when I finally conked out; replete with good companionship and the effects of four kinds of medication.

In Belorado, the following evening,  I was reunited with Harold and his Spanish friend, and shared a convivial dinner with them and some French singers from Avignon.  They sang medieval chansons in return for our bilingual version of O Canada.  We would start a sentence in English, switch to Spanish and finish in French.  I was back  on a roll again, or so I thought.

The next day, I set out jauntily for Villafranca Montes de Oca.  I had wanted to stay a little further on at San Juan de Ortega, where the albergue was in a monastery where the dinner was a communal garlic soup presided over a priest famous for his hospitality and kindness.  In Belorado, the night before, I'd heard that the monastery was closed because the priest  had died the winter before.  Villafranca was 12 km from Belorado, and I was pretty sure I could make it that far, but it was a further 18 km to the next albergue at Atapuerca, and I was pretty sure that was too far for me in my current state.  So I did what every good pilgrim does, I kept walking, and waited for things to unfold as they would.

As it turned out, the headwinds that day were very real.  I could barely catch my breath as I leaned into the wind.  I walked about seven kilometres to Espinosa del Camino where I stopped for a coffee and a think.  I discovered that there was a bus stop on the main road.  The forecast was for nasty weather.  I knew that the landscape on the top of the mountain to come was wide open, and it scared me.  I still wasn't sure what I'd do, until the bus came.  I skipped all that beautiful blooming heathland and the ancient remains at Atapuerca and went all the way to Burgos.

That gives me 33.5 km to make up.

I haven't been walking much.  Both Nick and I have had a few rudderless days.  Social isolation doesn't look all that different from our regular life, but the element of choice has been removed.  So we've been rebelling a bit, eating junk food, and refusing to walk. But yesterday was too nice to waste.  We took a lovely walk through bush and  rough country, which settlers had once tried  (and failed) to twist into farmland.  When it comes to terraforming places like this, beavers do a better job than humans..  We enjoyed the gurgle of  a waterfall down the steep hill we climbed, watched herons scrabbling over prime real-estate in the tops of dead spruce trees above a beaver swamp, and spotted birds and butterflies. 

  So far, I've made up 6.0 km   Only 27 and a half to go. I must try  not to let this self-appointed virtual pilgrimage feel like penance, more like Remembrance of Things Past.  If I really wanted to do penance, I'd set that as a task.