August 6, 2014 -- The Catholic Monarchs, Granada, Spain

I visited the old part of Granada today including the resting place of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabel. I also made it to the Alhambra and saw almost nothing of it, because it is soooo difficult to get a ticket to get in.

First, I took a city bus to one of the historic parts of town where the streets are so narrow that today many of them are only open to pedestrian traffic. In the days when the streets were laid out, the widest vehicle likely to pass down one of them was the occasional horse-drawn cart.

Of the remaining buildings in and around Granada, most of the very old ones were originally built by the Moors and later modified by the Catholics after the Moors were conquered in 1492. Granada was one of the last Moorish strongholds in Spain. Both of these cultures put a heavy emphasis on religious buildings, and it is amazing to observe the results of the work that was put into the old churches. Can you imagine carving with hammer and chisel all of the intricate stonework in the picture below and making every piece in a series look exactly the same when viewed from the ground?

I not only photographed the outside of the church, I also went inside and (briefly) attended mass. There was a bad echo inside the church, and with my old man's hearing loss, it is difficult for me to understand speech when sounds are coming at me from different directions. I could not understand the priest, so I didn't stay long. Nevertheless, it was the first time I had attended mass in years, and like the last time I attended mass in Phoenix, this mass was in Spanish.

The next stop was the nearby cathedral, which has been turned into a museum, because it's the final resting place of los Reyes Católicos or the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabel, two people who had a tremendous influence on the Western World. It was they who finally drove the Moors out of Spain and united it under their rule and imposed the Castilian language on the whole country. They sent Columbus to find a way to reach the East by sailing west, and his voyage led to the Spanish colonization of much of the New World. The regional language of Castile became the Spanish language and came to be spoken by hundreds of millions of people from the US-Canadian border all the way to Tierra de Fuego.

It was strictly forbidden to take photographs inside the cathedral, and there were guards watching everyone like a hawk to make sure that no one made unobtrusive use of a cell phone camera. I stole the following two pictures from another Website, but they show what my two pictures might have looked like.

The first picture shows the crypt as it appears from above. Ferdinand and Isabel are depicted much larger than life in marble reposing in eternal sleep.

At the front of the crypt is a narrow staircase that leads one floor below. At the bottom of the staircase, the visitor looks through a glass window into the crypt's interior. Ferdinand and Isabel lie in the two lead caskets in the foreground. To the sides lie the caskets of other family members.

After I left the cathedral, I took a bus out to the Alhambra. There was nothing to see from oitside, as the Alhambra is on a hilltop and surrounded by trees and high walls. The advance tickets are sold out through next week, and there were hundreds of people standing in line hoping to snag one of the tickets reserved for daily sale. There was even a long lime in front of the Ticketmaster machines for future purchases. I tried yesterday to snag a ticket on the Ticketmaster Website, but it was so overloaded with users that I made no progress. The following picture shows the only glimpse I managed to get of the Alhambra.

August 5, 2014 -- Granada, Spain

I haven't been in Granada long enough to look around, so don't expect a detailed description yet. I did notice as the train approached the city that the air was quite smoggy. Perhaps I was spoiled by hiking the Camino, but I got used to clean air.

One of the fellows with whom I shared a dormitory the last two nights in Madrid is quite the character. He is from Argentina, and I wish I had a picture of him. He is quite skinny and has a scruffy, short black beard. If I were going to put on a play about don Quixote, I would typecast him for the lead role.

When I first met him and we exchanged personal information, he said (in Spanish), "Ah, the United States!" and put the fingers and thumb of his right hand together and kissed them, a gesture that he was to repeat about every five words. "Los Angeles! (kiss fingers) Chicago!  (kiss fingers) New York! (kiss fingers) I took a train across your beautiful country. (kiss fingers) From New York to San Francisco in three days. (kiss fingers) It was beautiful!  (kiss fingers)" He enjoyed it so much that he went back to Chicago and took another train to Los Angeles.

Here's a picture I took in front of the hostel in Madrid yesterday afternoon. It illustrates how not to lock a bike. The front wheel has a quick release and could have been easily removed, so the the owner ran the chain through it. I assume the rear wheel was bolted on, because there was a wrench lying on the sidewalk next to the bike. From the picture, it looks as if the chain doesn't run through the bike's frame, either, so I wonder why the thief didn't just undo the front wheel's quick release, leave the front wheel chained to the post, and carry off the rest of the bike.

 

 Now I have to tell you about my room in the youth hostel i Granada. That's right! A room! It's a two-person room, but I have it to myself. I am not sharing it with dozens of other people. It includes its own shower and toilet, closets, clean towels, a remote-controlled air conditioner, etc. In other words, except for having no TV, it's almost like a Motel 6 room in the USA. The price? I am paying 85 euros or about $114 total for a seven-day stay. That works out to just over $16 a night, and breakfast is included in the price.

August 4, 2014 -- Madrid, Spain

Today is my last day in Madrid for now. I fly from Madrid by way of Munich to Phoenix late next month, so I'll be back.

I spent my last full day in Madrid sight seeing on foot, and mt left leg is complaining about it. I still walk with a limp.

First, I'm sure my cycling buddies will be glad to know that there are decent bike stores in Madrid. This one is located at the San Fermin - Orcasur subway stop, which is where I get off the subway each afternoon on the way back to the youth hostel

I find that the African street vendors are pretty artful at avoiding the police. Selling in the streets is illegal, and since most of the street vendors are likely in the country illegally, getting arrested could lead to deportation. If you click on the following photo to enlarge it, you will notice a rope going to all four corners of the blanket upon which the handbags are displayed and that the ropes run through the handles of some of the bags. Should the vendor spot a police officer approaching, he would grab the ropes where they cross, causing the whole display to fold into a bundle. The seller would then run off with the bundle on his back. The more nervous vendors stand next to the display with the ropes in one hand in order to be able to make a quicker departure.

The following picture is off the tower of the Palacio Santa Cruz, one of the churches that does not charge admission, so I went in.

Here's what it looks like inside. In front is the main alter, but along both sides there are alcoves with smaller altars dedicated to various saints.

When I was young and still a practicing catholic, one was able to drop a few coins in a box as a donation and light a candle to ask one's favorite saint to intercede on one's behalf or on the behalf of a loved one. However, the saints in Heaven have now gone high-tech! As the following blurry picture attempts to show, the candles have been replaced by yellow LEDs. When somebody drops a coin into the slot, one of the LEDs lights to assist the person's prayers on reaching the intended saint.

This has given me an idea of how I could be of assistance to the religious community. When I return to Phoenix, I am considering setting up Website that will enable the user to email a request directly to any saint in Heaven and receive an automated reply. Naturally, there will be a small fee for this service, and for an extra fee, the user will ne able to directly email the Big Guy himself.

August 3, 2014 -- Madrid, Spain

This will be another short entry with no pictures. The major news today is that I made arrangements to travel to Granada on Tuesday and stay there a week. Granada is, of course, the location of the fortress and palace Alhambra, whose original construction dates back to the year 889. It's one of the places I was going to visit after finishing the Camino, but as it appears that my left leg isn't going to permit me to resume the Camino in the near future, I'll visit it now.

August 2, 2014 -- Madrid

Yesterday it seemed to me that my leg was improving enough that I would take the train back to Sahagún on August 5 to resume the Camino on August 6. This afternoon I am not so sure. I walked around the central part of town a few miles today, and my left leg did not like it at all and let me know it with jolts of pain that became more frequent as I pushed on.

I first walked from a subway station to Madrid's Atocha train station with the intention of buying a railway ticket in advance. I had forgotten that today is Saturday and there would be long lines of people at the ticket counters seeking to escape the city for the weekend. I had no desire to stand in one of those lines.

When I left the train station, I walked north along Alfonso XII Street with the Royal Botanical Gardens to my right on the other side of the street. Here's a picture of the main entrance to the Gardens.

My goal was the Puerta de Alcalá, which I had seen the day before from the tour bus. The gate is so named, because it once stood on the road to Alcalá and reportedly replaced an older, shabbier-looking gate in the city wall. I have also read that at one time flocks of sheep were driven through the gate into the city, although with the heavy traffic circling the gate these days, I wouldn't give a sheep much of a chance of survival out in the middle of the traffic circle where the gate is presently located. I had to wait for a break in traffic to take this shot.

The fountain below is in the middle the Plaza de Cibeles a few blocks to the west of the Puerta de Alcalá. I passed it while walking from the gate to the nearest subway station.

I caught the subway just in front of the Bank of Spain, which is the building to the left in the photo below. It was once Spain's equivalent of the Federal Reserve Bank in the USA, but now all of yhe national central banks of all of the countries that have adopted the euro as their common currency are beholden to the European Central Bank.

On the subway trains in Southern European cities, it is common for people to get on the train and beg for money. The usual practice is to stand at one end of the subway car and give a loud rehearsed speech that includes the assertion that the person is out of work and has two or three hungry children to feed. The person then walks through the car saying to each passenger, "Una ayuda, por favor." (some help, please).

Sometimes someone gets on board and suddenly pulls a musical instrument from a carry-on bag and starts to play and sing before passing the hat. Occasionally it is a person or a group with talent, and the passengers are generous. Today a young, muscle-bound man rolled a small suitcase onto the train that turned out to be an amplifier and speaker covered with a black cloth. I saw him plug a cable on top of the amplifier into his cell phone and tap the phone's screen. Suddenly Chuck Berry style music filled the car, and the guy started singing "Johnny B. Goode" karaoke style. It was awful. When he finished, he passed the hat and didn't collect a cent.

August 1, 2014-- Madrid, Spain

There is not much to write about today and no photos. I took the city tour bus this morning and spotted a few places I'd like to visit. The leg is still botherimg me.

July 31, 2014 -- Madrid, Spain

First, thanks to those of you who have posted comments or emailed me. I don't want to put my email address here in a form that a web crawler can catch and add to a spam list, but if anyone wants to write, convert this into a conventional email address. I think a human can figure out what to replace atter and dotter with: jack atter azroadcyclist dotter com.

I've committed myself to at least five more days of rest before resuming the Camino. My left leg is improving every day, but I don't want to get back to carrying a backpack day after day until it's completely healed. If I go back too soon, I'm afraid I will make it worse.

I did do some walking around the center of the city today, however. I visited the Plaza Mayor and the Plaza de la Villa and did some exploring of the neighboring streets.

I took the Metro to the Plaza del Sol and walked from there along the Calle Mayor or Main Street. I knew that the Plaza Mayor was off to the left, and if I hadn't been paying attention, I would have missed it. It has several entrances, and they all look similar to the one shown in this photo taken from the Calle Mayor.

Below is a shot taken inside the plaza, which is a bit of a disappointment, because behind the arches all around the plaza are shops and restaurants devoted to parting tourists from their money. There is not much of the historic plaza to be seen.

A short distance away, the much smaller Plaza de la Villa is more historic. The building that can be half seen on the right was once Madrid's city hall. Madrid's administration outgrew such a small building long ago, however.

Look down almost any street in that district, and you will see a number of marvelous old buildings. Below ks a shot I took down a side street while walking along the Calle Mayor.

Finally, for those of you who don't want to leave your hometown culinary delights behind, below is a picture of one of Madrid's upscale restaurants. I'm only half joking. In the U.S., people might eat at McDonald's, because it's cheap, even if the food is bad. In Spain McDonald's and other fast-food chains actually charge more than most other restaurants, and some people see the act of cramming down a Big Mac with fries as a high-status thing to do. I went into this McDonald's and paid 20 percent more for a cup of coffee than I would have paid down the street.

July 30, 2014 -- Madrid, Spain

My big toe on the right foot is getting better, but my left leg is far from healed. I suspect that I'll be off the Camino for at least another week.

Three young German women moved into my dorm room yesterday, and I have never seen anyone travel with so much stuff. Normally, a person arrives at a youth hostel with only the possessions that can be easily carried in a backpack. These women are traveling by car, and the car is so crammed full of junk that the three of them hardly have a place to sit, not to mention the large quantity of stuff that they carried into the room: clothes, a guitar, jackets, a stack of magazines, several frying pans of various sizes, a collection of pots and pans, a full set of china including mixing bowls, and boxes of stuff of whose contents I am unaware. Why would someone take a full set of cookware and china plus a refrigerator to a youth hostel?


When I first entered the room after their arrival, a blue large plastic box was sitting on a chair, plugged into a wall socket, and humming away. Naturally, I had to ask what it was, and I was told it was to keep their food cold. In other words, they had brought a small refrigerator along!

Here they are rearranging a portion of their baggage in the room.

Before they started rearranging the stuff in the room, I saw them outside repacking what was left in the car including sleeping bags and mats, plastic boxes full of small items, a beach umbrella, folding chairs, and who knows what else. It wouldn't surprise me if the kitchen sink weren't buried in there somewhere.

My morning excursion was to the Plaza de España, which is the area where the government buildings are located. Here's what I first saw as I entered the plaza.

I had trouble taking the picture above, because soon after I got there, the fountain in the foreground shut off, and I wanted to wait for it to start up again. A group of squeegee men was working the intersection behind me, and every few minutes they would run into the plaza, drop their squeegees and bottles of soapy water behind a bench, and stand around looking innocent. I suppose that meant they had spotted the police. I couldn't distinguish what language they used among themselves, but each time they started back toward the intersection, one or more of them would ask me for money in a mixture of English and Spanish: "Change! Change! Por favor!"

The Plaza de España is where the famous bronze statue of don Quixote and Sancho Panza is located. Due to the bright sunshine, I couldn't see the screen of my cell phone when I took the following selfie, so I almost cut poor Sancho out of the picture.

The royal palace is located near the plaza. This is the first view I had of it as I approached.

Below is a view of the palace's front gate. I was surprised at the lax security. There was no fence but just some signs in front of the palace stating in Spanish and English that unauthorized persons were not allowed beyond that point. The only guard was a single police officer sitting in the squad car shown in the picture. While I was standing there, the gates opened and a car drove out from an inner courtyard. Then the lone police officer shut the gates by hand without appearing to lock them and went back to sitting in h.is squad car.

July 29, 2014 -- Madrid, Spain

Last night was the low point as far as my physical condition is concerned, but this afternoon things are looking up. Yesterday and this morning, my leg complained every time I walked on it, and during the night, my right big toe started throbbing. An examination by daylight revealed that the toe had turned an ugly shade of purple (when your toe turns purple, there is no pretty shade) and half of it was covered by the mother of all blisters. I have no idea where that came from, but I popped the blister, and now, several hours later, the toe has stopped hurting and seems to be returning to its normal color. My left leg is also starting to feel better, and I can see myself back on the Camino in a few days.

In the meantime, I can't force myself to sit around 24 hours a fay to rest my leg. This morning I visited the Prado museum, and that involved a lot of walking. Like the Louvre in Paris, the Prado museum of art is too immense to take in in one day.

There was a special exhibit of paintings by el Greco and his contemporaries, which took up a few hours of my time. After that, I headed over to the Goya section before taking a bus and the Metro back to the youth hostel.

Traveling on the Metro or subway in Madrid is a bit "intimate" to say the least. Here's a pictire that I snapped on my way back from the Prado.

July 28, 2014 -- Madrid, Spain

I took the train from Sahagún to Madrid this morning and arrived in the city shortly before noon. I took the Metro (subway) to within a few blocks of the San Fermín youth hostel where I had booked a bunk in an 8-person mixed-gender dorm. However, up until now, I have the room to myself. I am astounded that there aren't more people staying here at the height of the European vacation season, but the hostel is almost empty.

I took the subway to the Puerta del Sol, Madrid's most famous public plaza, this afternoon. It is quite a different place than it was when I last visited it in the 1960s. At that time, the dictator Francisco Franco was in power, and Spain was a backward, poor, and relatively isolated country. The Puerta del Sol was then a neighborhood plaza full of gossiping local residents in the evening. Now it is the hub of a trendy tourist neighborhood, and it seems to be a place where the more attractive young hookers hang out. Yes, I was propositioned, but I kept walking and haven't the slightest idea what the price would have been.

One thing I discovered today is that my left leg causes me to walk with a painful limp, even when I am not carrying a backpack. Tomorrow I plan to visit the Prado art museum, and it will be interesting to see how the leg holds up.

July 27, 2014 -- Sahagún, Spain

The first bit of news is that I'm abandoning the Camino, at least for now. Even a stubborn person like me eventually realizes when he is doing himself harm. My injured left leg is getting no better, and if I keep going, I may be limping on it for three more weeks before I give it a chance to start healing. I'm taking the early morning train to Madrid tomorrow, where I've booked a bed in a youth hostel for four nights. After that, I'll decide what to do next. If my leg gets back to normal in the next month, I can still come back and resume the Camino here. If not, there is a lot of Spain and Portugal that I would like to see.

Today's hike, 22.7 kilometers or 14 miles, was almost all through featureless farmland with little shade and little to see. There were only a handful of guys (no women) in the new hostel in Caldadilla de la Cueza last night. Two of the guys told me that they wanted to be on the trail at 2 am, and when I got up before 5 am, there were only two others still in the hostel. 

I hit the trail in starlight (there was no moonlight) well before six to get as much ground covered as I could before the sun started beating down, because I knew there would be no shade. I arrived here at the hostel just before 2 pm.

Many of the pilgrims' hostels are in former churches or in present monasteries. This one on the upper floor of a  church. Here's what it looks like from the outside.

July 26, 2014 -- Caldadilla de la Cueza, Spain

This will be a short entry, but if you haven't checked yesterday's entry since I added the picture, I suggest that you might like the photo of the two jackasses.

I walked 17.1 kilometers or 10.2 miles today, almost all of it through the countryside with no place to stop to fill my water bottle. I started the day with an extra large bottle of water, and I had finished both bottles of water before I arrived here. It was a tough day for me, although most of the people I have been walking with for the past week went on farther. It was flat and exposed to the sun with no change in scenery to take one's mind off walking.

As well as feeling terrible, I must have looked it, because the woman in the motorized wheelchair and her companion caught me and insisted that I put my backpack in the wheelchair. I had to plead with her companion to stop him from grabbing my backpack, because for some reason I felt that I had to carry it on my own.

PS/ After I made the entry above, a guy arrived who said he had walked all the way from Budapest, Hungary and is walking 50 kilometers or 31 miles a day, and here I am whining about my 10 to 12 miles a day.

July 25, 2014 (updated) -- Carrión de los Condes, Spain

I'm writing this a day late, because I didn't have a decent Internet connection in Carrión de los Condes yesterday. I hiked 12.7 miles to get there. Along the way I met someone who I was hoping would be the love of my life. I've pasted her picture below. I tried to get her to join me on the Camino and carry my pack, but when I told her that there were more than 250 miles left to walk, she said that anyone who would walk that far is a real jackass!

Tomorrow I only plan to do ten miles, which will be shorter than most of the people I've been seeing on the trail each day, so I'll be falling back into a new group.

July 24, 2014 -- Frómista, Spain

I now have 220 miles behind me and 270 left to walk. As my leg is getting better, I think I'm at least halfway through as far as time is concerned, as long as I don't develop another injury.

I walked 15.2 miles or 25.2 kilometers today, which I believe is my longest day yet, even if it was not nearly as difficult as the day I crossed the Pyrenees. When I reached Boadilla, I was sure I was done for the day, but after sitting and chatting with two German women and downing a cup of coffee, I felt my energy returning, and I managed another six kilometers

I started in the dark, and the walk was mainly along dirt farm roads. One of the crops grown in this region is sunflowers, and as it got light, all of the sunflowers turned to face the rising sun behind me. which meant that they were also facing me.

Cyclists get more respect here than in the USA. In Arizona, drivers are required to give cyclists three feet of clearance when passing, although many of them don't. As this sign shows, here the requirement is 1.5 meters, which is just short of five feet.

There are some marvelous people doing this Camino. Two of the people staying in this hostel tonight are confined to wheelchairs. One is an Italian who can wheel himself around. I attempted to talk to him, but he seems only interested in communicating with the people he is traveling with, although I was just kind enough to lift the back of his wheelchair over a step so he could enter his dorm.

The other person os a young Spanish woman, or at least she is Spanish speaking. I have been running into her and her companion (brother, perhaps?) for several days, but we have never spoken. She is very handicapped and is not able to stand or get onto or out of bed without help. During the day she drives this vehicle along the Camino along gravel paths and up and down hill while her companion walks alongside.

July 23, 2014 -- Casrojeriz, Spain

It was a 12.6-mile (20.2 kilometer) hike to get here this morning. I arrived about noon. The first 10 kilometers went by quickly, and my swollen leg caused few problems. I felt that I could walk forever. However, a few kilometers farther, and my leg started complaining, and my pace slowed.

Before I reached Castrojeriz, I passed through  San Antón.  As I approached, I was hoping it was a real village with a place where I could get a caffeine fix to revive me, but it turned out to be no village at all but only the ruins of an ancient convent with an isolated pilgrim's hostel off to the side. There wasn't even a bench to sit on. I had to rest and sat on the ground until a dog behind a gate started barking at me and finally became annoying enough that I left.

Here are two shots that I took of San Antón as I approached.

Earlier, after the first 11 kilometers of walking, I had passed trough the medieval village pf Hontanas, which did have a place to sit down and buy a cup of coffee. After I left the cafe, I took this picture of the village's main drag.

When I did finally arrive here at Castrojeriz, I collapsed at the first cafe. Who should be sitting there but a Dutchman carrying a ukelele who had been the life of the party a few days earlier in the hostel at Villafranca where he had led a wine-inspired group in a singalong im the kitchen. He left with the intention of making the next town, when Susan and Heather from the USA arrived, whom I had been seeing daily along the Camino. Here's a picture of Susan that I took yesterday evening at the hostel in Hornillos del Camino. I apologize for the fact that it is a bit blurry.

Together, Susan, Heather, and I found this hostel. It took forever to register. The guy running it or hospitalero took about ten minutes to register each person. First, he would talk to the person. Then he would go into an adjacent room to fetch his stamp in order to stamp the new arrival's pilgrim's passport. Then he would take the stamp back into the adjacent room before returning to collect money. That, of course, required another trip to the other room to leave the money. On his return, he would carry the pilgrim's backpack to the dorm while explaining to the pilgrim all of the hostel's facilities. Finally he would return to the reception desk to begin the process anew with the next person in line.

July 22, 2014 -- Hornillos del Camino, Spain

480 kilometers or 298 miles left to hike!

Today's walk was somewhat more than 12 miles or 21 kilometers. I can't be precise, because the Camino was detoured around a big highway construction project on the outskirts of Burgos. About half the walk was through Burgos and its surroundings. Several people passing me on the way asked about my limp, so I suppose it's noticeable, although I was trying to hide it.

After the big, modern city of Burgos with its trendy pedestrian shopping districts, I'm now in a village that dates back to medieval times, and the architecture shows it. Here's a shot looking up the main street.

Every little village in Spain has an elaborately constructed church, and Hornillos is no exception. The church and the king, or later the church and dictator Francisco Franco, once together controlled this country with an iron fist.Today the Spanish are very secular, and the church has lost its influence. As a result, many of these old churches, including this one, are falling into disrepair, because there is no money to maintain them.

July 21, 2014 -- Burgos, Spain

I had been told that Burgos is an unattractive industrial city, but I have found most parts of the city to be very attractive. 

I walked 19.5 kilometers or 12.3 miles to get here today, and by the end my left leg was complaining and starting to swell again. The weather was quite chilly and windy when I started out, and if the path hadn't started uphill almost from the start, I would have needed my jacket. It's amazing the amount of body heat one can generate while lugging a backpack uphill.

The scenic part was near the beginning, when it was still too dark to see much (I was on the trail well before sunup).  The later half was through the suburbs of Burgos and then through Burgos itself. 

The hostel is a huge seven-story building with hundreds of beds arranged on each floor in cubicles. My cubicle has four beds, and I believe most of the others are the same.

The neighboring cathedral is a beautiful ornate building. I have only seen the outside, because during the day you had to buy a ticket to get in. There was a pilgrim's mass inside a while ago, but I missed it and thereby may have also missed my chance to see the inside of the cathedral for free.

The following photo shows as much of the outside as I could get in the shot using the primitive camera app on my cell phone.

July 20, 2014 -- Atapuerca, Spain

The leg is still swollen but not as sore. I hobbled 18.5 kilometers or 11.5 miles on it today to Atapuerca. Tomorrow I hope to make Burgos, which is a slightly longer distance to walk. I have 331 miles left to walk, and I've done 159 miles so far or just under 1/3 the distance. The hardest place was from Villafranca Montes de Oca to San Juan de Ortega, 12.4 kilometers with, given the cold and wet conditions, no place to sit down for a rest and three hills to go over. It was in San Juan that I finally got my morning cup of coffee.  Here's the welcome view of that village as it finally came into sight.

I was lucky as far as the weather was concerned. It had rained during the night, so the morning was wet, windy, and cold, and the sky was dark until almost noon, but except for one light shower, there was no rain until I was safely indoors here in Atapuerca.

I have been unable to ascertain the origin of the name Atapuerca, which seems to imply tying a sow, but I can tell you that just outside of town there is an important geological site where ancient human remains were found at the bottom of a shaft. The remains are judged to be 800 thousand years old, making them the oldest ever discovered in Europe.

It's raining again this afternoon, but the forecast calls for the rain showers to end during the night and for sunshine the next few days with a warming trend.

July 19, 2014 -- Villafranca de Montes de Orca, Spain

I only walked 11.9 kilometers or 7.4 miles to reach Villafranca today, and I arrived in mid-morning. I would have liked to have gone on, but this is the last place to stop before San Juan de Ortega, which is another 12.4 kilometers farther on over hilly ground. My left leg is gradually improving, but it is still swollen, and I thought it wise to give it another afternoon's rest.

It is cold and windy today. It seems strange that one would want to wear a jacket in Spain in July, but it's that chilly. A possible thunderstorm is forecast for this afternoon with a chance of showers tomorrow. I expect to be hiking through a sea of mud tomorrow.


Before I write about Villafranca, here is a photo I took of Belorado yesterday afternoon from the ruins of an old castle above the town.

For the benefit of those pilgrims reading this blog who know him, Australian Jack entered Villafranca at the same time I did today, and he continued on toward San Juan de Ortega.

The hostel where I am staying is part of the luxury hotel Antón Abad, which is built on the site of an old pilgrims' stopping place dating to the years of the Roman Occupation. The hotel's bartender showed me around and explained the hotel's history.

The original pilgrims' hostel and church on this site were built in 1283. In 2009, the buildings were rebuilt and restored into the present hotel and hostel. I am paying five euros (about US $6.75) for a bunk in a dorm at the same place where ordinary tourists pay a steep price for a hotel room. Here is what it looks like from the outside.

There is a more modern church here now, constructed in the 1700's. Below is a photo.

It is alleged that there are some ancient relics inside the church, but I walked all around the outside and couldn't get in. All of the doors were locked.

July 18, 2014 -- Belorado, Spain

I hobbled the 18.8 kilometers or 7.3 miles to get here this morning before deciding to get off my swollen left knee and give it a chance to rest. It is still as badly swollen as ever, but it doesn't hurt nearly as much when I walk on it. I would like to think that it is getting better and that it isn't just due to the pain-killing effects of the ibuprofen.

Yesterday we had a community meal in the refuge, but only three of us participated. One of the participants, a Frenchman, spoke only French, so that was the language of our dinner conversation, which meant that I understood about half of what was being said. I really need to improve my French.

After checking in here at the municipal hostel, I went to a pharmacy for more ibuprofen and then to a store to buy a few items I wanted. The elderly lady running the store was quite a saleslady.  No matter what I chose to buy, she assured me that I had made the best choice.

Then I took the two cans of beer that she had talked me into buying to the park, where I sat in the shade with the other old men as I drank them.

 

Later, on the Camino route through town, I found the following hand and boot prints. If you click on the photo to zoom in, you will see that they are purportedly from the actor Martin Sheen in 2009. I wonder if that means that he, too, did the Camino.