Camino De Santiago: Day 11-Burgos to Hontanas

Sunday night I got back into Burgos, got checked in and then ventured out to find a bit of food before I went to sleep. I saw some crowds and heard some noise so I went to check it out. 

It wasn't the KKK, it was a Semana Santa (Easter week) procession! I won't lie, even though I know these costumes far predate the KKK, the whole thing is a bit eery to me. 

Except this little girl

This was the view from the hostel window

One of the funny things about taking a break was coming back and not knowing a single person that would be walking with me. Except I ran into someone. Someone that I had wanted to get away from. But the good news? He had my icyhot! And I got it back!

Saying goodbye to the Burgos cathedral on my way out of town!

Back on the trail! It was a good, but long day on the Camino. Surprisingly, after 3 days of rest, the day felt harder rather than easier. 

More arrow shots--we joked that almost all of my pictures varied only slightly generally keeping to the pattern of arrow, bridge, Camino marker, arrow, trail, cathedral, etc. 

A little church/monastery in the middle of nowhere

Ah, this was the first day of the Meseta--which is famed for being flat and boring. As someone who has lived in West Texas for years, I found the flatness and the horizon a bit comforting.  

I met a friendly Norwegian guy who just so happened to spend his winters in Houston

I saw a lady sitting on the side of the trail resting her feet and I thought that sounded like a good idea. Here you can also see the sad progression of my Chaco tan. 

Finally the town! It was a long, 30+ km day. I was so glad to see the town. 

Unfortunately there was nothing to Hontanas. I ended up having my worst cooking experience in the hostel there. I got veggies and pasta at the small shop and started cooking them up before realizing there was no salt in the albergue. There was no salt in the shop. In attempt to make things etible I bought a soup mix thinking I could add in some of the broth powder to make things a bit more flavorful. (Unfortunately I underestimated how difficult it would be to separate the powdered broth from the rice mixed in. Result? Uncooked rice in with the veggies.) Then halfway through cooking the electricity went out. I don't mind al-dente pasta, but this was not going to do. Finally it came back on and I finished my meal of bland zucchini and spaghetti. Surprisingly, the Korean guys in the kitchen took up my offer and cleaned up what I couldn't force down. 

These are your afternoon necessities: chocolate, neosporin, bandaids, antibacterial wipes, icyhot and painkillers and a safety pin. All you need for foot surgery/aches and pains. 

Hontanas is also where I began to realize that tiny Korean men can make the most outrageously loud noises in their sleep. The bunk beds were difficult to climb on to, and when I forgot to bring up my earplugs I just decided to do without them for the night rather than to get back down. Until I heard grandpa underneath me. Unbelievable. I think I was actually giggling it was so outrageously loud. Until I climbed back down for my earplugs!

Camino de Santiago: Break time--Cantabria!

After Burgos I took a break from the Camino and caught a bus straight up to Cantabria (where I taught English for a year a while back). The strangest thing was that after walking for 10 days, watching the landscapes change slowly, I experienced some motion sickness on the bus ride up to the coast. Granted there are a lot of mountains on that route, but I took that bus numerous times when I lived there and never had a problem. 

I finally made it off the bus and spent the day with my friend Sara in Torrelavega. She is the daughter of one of the teachers that I taught with and ended up coming to Texas to work on her English the summer after I left Spain. It was great to catch up for a bit and we even squeezed in a trip to Suances to see the coast. 

Suances

Spring on the Cantabrian coast

I had forgotten just how beautiful the coast was there

Sara, myself and one of her friends

Sunday I woke up, said goodbye to the girls and made my way to Santander--the city I used to live in. I was also lucky enough to time my trip on a Sunday meaning I got to go to church and see some of my good friends there. Afterwards we went out for lunch and then decided to head to the beach!

The girls and Carlos

I left my sunglasses at Sara's house and needed another pair quick. One of the guys at the church works in a newspaper stand and pointed me to a magazine that was sold with a free pair of shades. They came highly recommended--as you can see, even though the insides were pink, he had a pair himself. 

Mmm, we also had Regma!

Sardinero!! 

It was a really quick visit, but it was great to see so many old faces and meet some new ones as well. It was good to rest for a bit and sleep in a real bed...but at the same time, I was missing the Camino! Sunday night I bused it back to Burgos and checked back in to the albergue so I could hit the trail on running (or...walking) on Monday morning! 

Camino De Santiago: Playing Hooky in Burgos!

 We were all a little giddy to be taking a day off from the Camino. Somehow it seemed to give us all the thrill of skipping school. We decided the night before to all meet up at 8:00 (we still had to be out of the albergue by then like normal!) and have chocolate con churros for breakfast. Well...I don't know what happened to everyone. In the end it was just the Brazilian guys and me, but we had a blast...

...as you can tell! We were in such great moods!

Just about everything was still closed, but we finally found a bar open for breakfast. We sat at the counter and had coffee and churros with big smiles on our faces. That one-song-that-I-always-think-is-a-Train-song-but-isn't came on, and I don't know who started it, but before I knew it we were all three dancing around on our stools. 

After breakfast, some waiting in the cold while the boys checked into their hotel (they didn't want to repeat at the albergue because the volunteer working there didn't seem to like Brazilians--We decided to chalk it up to him having lost a woman to a Brazilian guy way back in the day...because a bitter ex-lover sounded better than a racist!), then waiting a little bit longer in the cold (it's always cold in Burgos!) for one of the boys to write an email to his lady friend (we forgave him because he was yelling into the streets how happy and in love he was), and some schedule checking in the bus station, we finally made our way into the Burgos cathedral. 

The cathedral is HUGE and, while there are still services, the inside of it is mostly open to visitors as a museum these days.  

It's difficult to tell from this picture, but this is the grave of El Cid

In the cloister

Back in the plaza I was looking around for a nice place to have a coffee--we couldn't check back in to the albergue until 2pm or so and it was so cold outside that I was looking for someplace to warm up. I peaked into one of the cafes, and who was in there? My retired friends from Sevilla! We chatted for a while and talked about the good times we'd had together so far. They were continuing on the next day and I was headed to Cantabria for a couple of days to see friends, so this was our last day on the Camino together. 

A little later it was time for another snack/warm up/toilet stop. There was an old fashioned sweet shop in the plaza that looked like it would do the trick. This is what I call the snack of champions: tea cookie, piece of dark chocolate, and an extra strength ibuprofen! 

This also reminds me of the fact that one of my first stops in Burgos was the pharmacy. We had gone days without access to a pharmacy--they were all either closed for the weekend/evening or the towns were too small to have one. In Spain a pharmacy is where you can buy Tylenol/bandaids/sunscreen/etc. There was a pharmacy just to the right of the cathedral where I told the pharmacist--The inside of the cathedral was nice, but not as beautiful as the inside of the pharmacy. I think I was down to one ibuprofen at that point, so it was nice to stock up on all kinds of pilgrim essentials.

Why do Spaniards love these trees so much?

I got tipped off by the people working at the hostel (I felt extra bad for the Brazilian boys because the couple was so  nice to me!) that the Las Huelgas Monastery was worth a visit. Even though it was 2km away, and I could only visit with a tour that was in all in Spanish, I went for it. It was fantastic. One of my favorite historical sights of the entire Camino. 

Las Huelgas--still an inhabited and completely cloistered monastery. They still had original floors in some of the rooms! Their museum was impressive (800 year old clothes from the kings and queens who were buried there). It was incredibly fascinating--if you are ever in Burgos, go!

Ah, and then I was also tipped off that there was a concert at a church down the road from the albergue to kick of Semana Santa (Easter Week). Even though it started kind of late (8:15 or so!) I decided to go. The acoustics of the church mixed with the fantastic choir made it an unbelievable experience. It was as if every single square inch of the space was filled with music, suspended there, and then saturated with harmonies. It was goose-bump inducing. 

Finally, back at the hostel it was time to say goodbye to some people. Several people were taking buses through the meseta or had carried on walking instead of spending the day in Burgos. I had to say goodbye to everyone just the same because I would be taking 2 more days off to head north (by bus). It was a strange feeling to say bye to all of these people that I had known for 10 days or less. I remember being surprised at how sad I was to say goodbye to my Sevillan friends here--Juanma and Maica. (Aren't they cute?)

Overall, even with the goodbyes, Burgos was one of my very favorite cities of the Camino. 

Camino De Santiago: Day 10-San Juan de Ortega to BURGOS!

Remember here where I told you I should have paid more attention to the alternative route into Burgos? I thought about it, but, rather than venture off the route and risk getting lost, I figured it was better to just stay with the yellow arrows. The problem was though, that there were several places where the arrows where conflicting. Some small villages try to get pilgrims to pass through and put up their own arrows. Anyway you look at it, I took the very longest and, especially in the latter portion, the most industrial path possible to get into Burgos. All things together it was almost 35 km on the road that day (that's over 21 miles). Long, long day.

This means that you are on the right track--I generally had to consult my guide to make sure that's what the mark meant though. 

A nice flat trail to start the day

Poppies 

By this point in the Camino things had started to get painful. I forgot that previously one of the things that made me hesitant about doing the Camino was the lingering question of whether my ankles would hold up. For a while the icyhot was doing the trick. Then it came time for the ankle brace. I experimented with lots of things, finding that the brace/sandals/sock combo worked. For a little while...until I got a blister and had to jam a piece of folded up map under my toes to cushion it. Did I mention that the Camino was not glamorous?? No shame. 

Some stonehenge-y type things (ha, I remember weighing whether it was worth walking the 10 extra steps to look at them)

In this tiny town things got complicated. Yellow arrow means go. Red and white X means you are going the wrong way. And here you have both. Confusion. I ended up getting lost and walking all around this stupid little town. 

You see this here? This is like a trail full of land mines for people with bad ankles (me) or knees (my Brazilian friend Igor who was walking with me at this point). Steep and rocks everywhere. 

Finally to the top

The vista was quite hermosa

After hiking though a half dozen small towns, hours alongside a busy highway, walking around an entire airport--even having to walk through construction and wet tar at one point, and the excruciatingly long time it took to get from the outskirts of Burgos into the center, we made it to the albergue! (Which was so nice!) Also nice was that some of the people who were ahead of me from my first few days were at the albergue--The one that sticks out the most was Michel from France. 

Hello catedral!

 After showers, laundry and dinner several of us went to the pilgrim's mass at the cathedral. Being at a service in that building--even though mass is held in a small chapel--was an experience in itself. Afterwards I was going to make a trip to the bus station to check times for buses to Cantabria and head back to the hostel to hit the sack (it was almost 9:00 after all!). In the end I got talked into going out for tapas. Almost all of us had decided to take the next day off from walking and spend a whole day in Burgos to take in the sights of the city and to rest a bit, so a little extra fun was in order. An incredibly mixed group we had a great time and, as I recall, barely made it back into the hostel before curfew. 

Vino y tapas! Nationalities going around the table from left to right: Brazilian, Israeli, American, South African, Spanish, Brazilian, Brazilian and Italian. Alejandro (Madrid) and Igor (Brazil) are somewhere...probably one is taking the picture...and the other is gone for refills! (Picture stolen from Roberta's blog)

More on Burgos in the next post, but I might as well go ahead and say that Burgos was a highlight of the Camino for me. It was so draining getting there, but we all had such a good time in the beautiful city. 

Guess Where I Am?!

Anybody got a guess?

I'm in Kosovo! In Prishtina, the captal. And more specifically? I'm in a proper hotel!

Now, Prishtina doesn't have any international hotels, so this one is still...a little quirky. A little like staying in your rich great-aunt's attic. Yet, after months of hostels and sobe (rented rooms from local grandmas), and especially after the last place I stayed in southern Serbia (which might have been nice in, oh, 1958...and probably had it's carpets cleaned for the last time around that date as well) this place feels like a palace!

A palace with wifi, cable, AC and a bathroom all to myself. I think the last time all these elements collided I was in Cyprus (in March).

(And after watching the news in English for the first time in that long...World, have you fallen to bits while I wasn't looking?!)

Anyway, Prishtina has been surprising. I think eclectic is how I would describe it so far. My first thought, walking around the outskirts, was that it reminded me of a nice section of a Mexican border town--lots of concrete, single story buildings and houses with walls around the front yards. A little further into the center things started to look more European and also a little Turkish. I happened upon what apparently was a city-wide, Tuesday evening carnival/music festival (picture headscarf wearing Grandmas sitting on benches 10 feet away from a mosh pit) complete with just about every kind of street food you can sell. The people have all been friendly, and all seem to speak English (and are really excited when I throw out one of my 5 Albanian words!).

As far as sights go though, there's not too terribly much to see. This means some time sipping coffee reading in cafes, catching up on the downloads which have been piling up, a little laundry and some planning for the rest of my trip (I've been going through the Balkans slowly, but a little faster than I planned. I'm trying to decide how I will use this extra time and make my way from the Balkans up to Zurich to catch my flight home...I have some fun ideas rolling around!).

And, if you are lucky, I might even try to catch up on some blogs!

Mirë u pafshim!

Week in Review Sabbatical Style: T-6 Weeks

Well the return to the WIR last week apparently went over well, so here's another go at it!

• T-6 weeks until I come home. Can you believe it?! Not me. 
• You know how last week I told you I was kind of excited to take that overnight train? Yeah. It was interesting. 
• OK, it wasn't that bad. There were no sleeper cars so I just got a seat. No problem--the trains are hardly ever full, you can stretch out in the 6 person cars and sleep. Yeah, except the train was full. Also I will admit that I do not know much about riding trains. The conductor made me move seats twice. Everything was in Montenegrin/Serbian, and when I finally found the seat where I was supposed to be sitting...there was someone there. As I wandered back and forth around the compartments a group of 5 men saw me looking confused/pathetic and asked what I was looking for. There was one more seat in their compartment and they tried to get me to join them. I thought better of it and kept looking.  
• Then I came back and sat with them. 
• They were incredibly nice--helped me put my bag up on the rack, insisted on sharing their cookies and snacks with me (someone of course brought homemade rakija...), told me when to get my passport out, etc. 
• My only beef? They all chain smoked. All night. 
• Oh, and the train was also a piece of work. The local guys were all complaining about it, which is how I knew it was extraordinarily bad. Those beautiful views? Couldn't see them through the dirty windows (and...it was dark). OK, enough about the train. 
• I love Serbia!
• I also love the peppermint herbal tea they have here at my hostel. 
• I spent 2 nights in Belgrade before going north up to Novi Sad for two nights. I was going to take a day trip on my way back to Belgrade yesterday...but didn't. I'll be here in Belgrade for another 2 nights, then plan on making my way down to Novi Pazar on my way to Kosovo. 
• You know what I ate this week? Yep, Mcdonalds. (Don't judge!) Best hamburger I have had in a long, long time. 
• Why no day trip to Subotica in the north yesterday? Well I bought my train ticket, waited on the train, confirmed with a local that it was the right train and then boarded a train that was headed south to Belgrade. 
• The conductor's face was priceless when he checked my ticket and saw that it was for Subotica. He felt much worse about it than I did. I could have gotten off after 30 minutes, waited an hour or so for the train and then backtracked and made my way to Subotica. But since I was just going for the day and sleeping in Belgrade anyway...I just forgot about it and settled in for the ride to Belgrade. 
• Trains are complicated. 
• Belgrade is fantastic. There's not a ton of attractions here, but there's a huge fortress you can wander through for hours (for free!), lots of parks, cafes lining every street, artists and musicians everywhere and just a nice vibe running through the city. 

• Unfortunately there is also smoke everywhere. I've been downgraded to glasses because my contacts just can't take it. 
• I've had some great hostels here. The average costs? 11 euro. 
• Last night, for the first time since Nicaragua, I went to the movies! And how much did it cost? 2.50! It was a nice change from the norm. 
• I think I'll hit up the ballet in the next couple days to up my culture level. 
• I've also used some downtime this week to prepare for my eminent return to the states. On one hand, it feels kind of nice to be productive. On the other hand...do I really have to go back?
• This week was my mom's  birthday--Happy birthday mom!
• And tomorrow is father's day--Happy Father's Day, dad!
• My allergies are being ridiculous. Every town I go to has something in it which drives them crazy. 
• One of the girls in my hostel last night just finished walking the Camino de Santiago! Sometimes the backpacker world is a small one. We had a good time talking about blisters, albergues (oh, the snoring!), the views and good ol' Santiago. 

OK, a few random pics from the week!

WELL COME TO SRBIYA

Rivers in Belgrade

Fortress in Belgrade

Fortress in Novi Sad

Fortress/river in Novi Sad

Train pulling in to Belgrade (...instead of Subotica)