29-05-2018
Walked 32.7 km, 7 hours 13 minutes
Ascent: 290 meters
Descend: 290 meters
Kilometers to be traveled: 474.1
Yesterday I was unable to access my own site and my 2 dear stay-at-home people told me that they had no internet at home. That meant that I did IT work on my vacation, but also during my vacation. Fortunately I could have quickly restored the wifi for them, because where would we be without internet? In the early days of course.
After the restore it was necessary to make my site accessible again via the internet, because where should all my followers now read their daily update? As if more than 1 follower read my blog daily, hahahihihoho. Due to the failure of my Ziggo modem and the recovery, I had received a new external IP address as a Ziggo customer, which made it necessary to retrieve it and adjust it in the DNS. Have I lost you again? I apologize, I will stop the technical talk and start writing a normal story about the day.
Like every day, everyone gets up early in the morning to continue their way to Santiago, or at least to the next stop at the crack of dawn. Me too, saying goodbye to this beautiful large modern alberge in Burgos. Having breakfast in the large kitchen with the items that are still in my backpack, seeing if we all leave at about the same time and then out the door on the way.
Burgos is quite a big city, so it takes a while before we are on the outskirts to dive back into nature. It is always a reassuring experience to be able to walk through nature, even if you regularly follow a busy road or highway. You have time to let your mind go, you look around and enjoy everything. From today we are also talking about the mesatas, the granaries of Spain. In the summer, be careful in this region, when the corn is golden yellow and the sun shines brightest. But now it is still early, towards the end of spring and the fields are still green and the sun is not so bright.
It won’t be a rainy day, it will remain un-poncho again today. It stays nicely in the backpack. We go towards the 800 meter height and walk on paths between the cornfields. Because the paths are often stretched out in front of you, you can follow the fellow pilgrims who are walking in front of you, so you have a good view of the road that you are going to walk, hoping that no one has missed a turn. It remains rolling for you, so there is nothing else to regularly walk up and down.
You pass through villages where some houses are no longer inhabited and some houses I wonder why they are still inhabited. But the urbanization is also dropping a lot of dust here, many moving away to cities in the hope of having a better life there. The further I walk, the closer my day goal comes. Only that does not come into view. According to my app, it really shouldn’t be that far anymore. And on the other hand I don’t have to worry because I had understood from my Swiss hiking partner that my next stop is out of sight. Only when you are up to a few hundred meters away does it come into view.
So you walk on over the meseta, where I still, although I write it myself, take a very beautiful photo. Even though I know that the goal only becomes visible at the very last moment, you become a bit impatient towards the time that you get a view of your goal. And then comes the point that your mesata will walk down again and you get a view of the hidden village of Hontanas. In a period of 30 minutes our club arrives in Hontanas and together we have lunch in the alberge where we spend the night, the menu del dia for 10 Euro, with the usual wine included.
Of course you also rest by lunch, after which you can shower after the meal and perform the usual care. A tour through the village is also planned, although it does not mean much, but first also a few things to wash and hang up for drying. We must, of course, ensure that we are not left without clean laundry. There is also a pilgrim mass in the church tonight and given the late lunch I don’t have to eat early so attending mass seems like a nice interlude. In the church many languages are represented in the prayer books, even Filipino and Dutch are present. At the end of the Mass, all pilgrims are invited to come forward again to receive a cross.
It was a nice service and a nice conclusion. Now it is time to regain your stomach and our club goes for the previously eaten menu del dia with wine. Now we choose other parts of the menu, after all you don’t want to eat the same thing twice, you have to test the food culture well. Soon you will be home and you will not have tasted everything… .. Almost all alberges are full in Hontanas, this is somehow a popular stop on the camino. There are blankets available because the temperature can go down considerably here in the evening, even if you are in the room with 20 people. In a little while the eyes will close and prepare for a new day.
Accommodation: Albergue Puntido
