The Importance of Situational Awareness

I had to tighten my belt one notch tighter than usual today. I am taking that as a sign that I am losing weight, though most of the loss seems to be in my arms and legs, rather than my stomach, which is where I would prefer. Oh well.

Our hostess left us a breakfast of croissants, butter, jam and coffee this morning, so we took our time eating and left about 6:30. Do you remember reading the story of "The Poky Little Puppy" when you were growing up? That was us today on the hike. The weather started out clear, but clouds quickly set in, which was great because it kept the temperatures down and the mist and fog lent a rather mystical quality to the countryside. We are now on the Meseta, the high plain that makes up most of the Spanish countryside. The hills are gentle and rolling, and mostly farmland. It is neat to see an ancient church poking up out of the mist as you come around a bend in the road and see a town off in the distance. This happened with surprising regularity today.

Most of our walk sent me to Wikipedia to review my medieval Spanish history once we arrived at the hotel. On the walk in to town, we passed a ruin (picture attached) marked as being the ruins of an OLD (6th century) monastery that was supposedly also a pilgrim hospital/waypoint before it was abandoned in the 9th century. I had to scratch my head at that one, because the Romans left Spain in the mid-5th century. Any monastery founded in the 6th was Visigothic, and If it were a pilgrim hospital, this presents other difficulties.

The supposed tomb of Santiago was discovered in 813, so the monastery could not have been a pilgrim hospital for very long before being abandoned. There is an additional complication in that much of this part of Spain was a "demilitarized zone" between the nascent Christian kingdoms that formed the Spanish March of Charlemagne and the Moslem kingdom to the south. The area was considered too dangerous with armies moving back and forth and constantly shifting borders to support permanent inhabitants. The histories I've been able to find are sketchy on when this area of Spain was re-populated, with colonization encouraged through grants of land to freedmen by the kings of the various states, but again, it is possible. The founder of the City of Burgos, a major Provincial capital, and once capital of the kingdom of Castile is buried in the ruins. He died in 882 or so, this would also lend veracity to the signpost.

The town itself is nice, but there is a major highway running through the middle of it, with a lot of truck traffic. Supposedly a bypass is being constructed, but based on the discussion we heard between the hotel concierge and a hotel guest when we entered, this bypass is a point of much contention in the town of 136 inhabitants.

The hotel is also a medieval pilgrim hospital, and was built and funded by the Queen of Castile (this sent me running back to Wikipedia: the Queen in question was Eleanor of England, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitane) in 1183. The Queen, of course, had her own private chambers, entrance and chapel. We, as proletariat paying guests, do not. We do have a nice corner room with a view of the town church. The hospital apparently housed as many as 2,800 sick pilgrims at one time. This seems like a lot to me given the size of the place, but since medieval medical technology was pretty much limited to leeches, amputation, cauterizing, and prayer, maybe sick pilgrims did not require much acreage.

I learned much of this (though I subsequently verified it on Wikipedia...consider the source) from the hotel concierge. I would probably have appreciated it more if he had not told us this as he was walking us to our room. He thought that giving us the tour and history of the hotel was apparently more urgent than letting us get rid of 30lb. Packs, hiking boots, and 12 miles of accumulated walking filth. Had we realized we were getting the tour and lecture and not directions to our room, we might have told him how we felt about it. Imagine Ben Stein giving the lecture in Spanish as we walk all over the place, and you've got the mental picture just about right. This is after we've listened to him lecture on the highway bypass for 15 minutes in the hotel reception while we waited patiently, still wearing packs, just to get our room. Situationally aware much?

I am really enjoying the new plan and schedule. It's nice to be done with the day's walking by lunchtime, and being able to rest and relax the rest of the time. Mom is hanging in there pretty well, Dad is just hanging. He seems to have developed tendinitis in his left leg, and is still battling blisters. We will see now he holds up.

We are two days out of Burgos, and I was happy to see that there is a bullfighting festival going on there right now. I am hopeful that we can catch a bullfight when we arrive on Thursday. They have some good fighters lined up.

The singing continues. I challenged my folks today to see if they could get through once church hymn, any church hymn, singing all the verses and all the right words. They finally got it right on "Just As I Am". I think Mom and Dad must be in a nostalgic mood, as they spend a lot of time talking about relatives who have passed on, and what it was like growing up. For my part, I'm trying to focus forward. I read somewhere that if a pilgrimage is about becoming someone different, in order to embrace the new, you have to give up the old. I don't have the slightest idea what that means practically speaking; it sounds nice and all. Nonetheless, that's what I'm trying to do.

Quote of the day, heard on the Camino (the source will remain nameless, to protect the guilty): "You know you're getting old when a night's sleep uninterrupted and a bowel movement make for a good day."