Day 15: Calzadillas de las Cuevas to El Burgo Ranero, Walking in the Rain

Tina's alarm went off at 4:45 AM this morning, and we were on the road by 5:30.  The Hostal was dark, and we walked through the lobby (again) with headlamps.  We let ourselves out and still managed to be fundamentally challenged finding our way out of a one horse town in the dark!

The forecast called for a high chance of rain for most of the day accompanied by very low temperatures.  Our plan was to walk 40.6 kilometers, taking advantage of the unseasonably cool temperatures and the flat topography.  There were no stars visible and no moon, so it had to be cloudy.

Well, within 15 minutes, it started to rain, so we put on these cheap plastic ponchos that we bought a few decades ago at the Smithsonian Institution and which embarrass our children to no end.  We walked in the dark, headlamps  peeking out from under ugly blue ponchos, 6.1 kilometers to the town of Ledigos, where we found an open bar full of people, largely pilgrims, having coffee, Bar La Morena.

It was like a scene from Star Wars or a Mad Max movie as we walked in, dressed in blue plastic bags, dripping wet, with lights on our foreheads.  People just stared at us.  It was hilarious.

La Meseta in the Rain

Everybody buys Camino Guide books written by a man named John Brierly, and according to him, the next town is supposed to be the culmination of Day 17.  It's called Terradillos de los Templares.  (Yes, that would be the Knights Templar for all of you Dan Brown fans.)  The problem is that it's a dump.  The previous town, Ledigos, or the next town would make great places to spend an evening.

The next town gets no coverage in the book.  It's named Moratinos, but it could be called the Shire.

Could those be Hobbitses?

No, they're 500+ year old Bodegas... but they could be Hobbit Holes

So, this area is today all wheat  and sunflowers, but 2,000 years ago, and in the times of the Romans, it was covered with vineyards.  The thing is, this soil has no native rocks of any kind.  It's just clay.  So, the locals carved these tunnels into the hillsides and did the entire winemaking process underground.  Clay vessels, amphorae, the works.  These subterranean storage spaces are called bodegas.

The bodegas we were looking at are over 500 years old and still contain tools and artifacts from that era.  Some are used today for vegetable storage and others as event spaces.  The thing is: they were carved out of these hills by the children of the town during the winter to give them something to do.  What a story!

We walked another 3 kilometers to the village of San Nicolas del Real Camino.  We sat in an outdoor cafe and had, not a Coca Cola, but another coffee to keep warm.  The longer you sit in a cafe, the more pilgrims you meet as they drop their packs and do the same thing you do.  We met a new college graduate from GWU who's going to be working in Holland in the fall and a girl from Ireland.  Tina got their names, but she's asleep, so you get the abridged version from me.

By this time, we'd noticed something interesting.  Because there is no indigenous stone in this area, everything's made from clay and straw (probably wheat straw.)  When you cover it with paint, it looks like a solid building.  When you stop maintaining it, it starts to melt into nothing.  These towns are a combination of new and well maintained buildings, and deteriorating shells that look like they're held together by horse poop.

The next city we walked through, Sahagun, was the poster child for this.  The guidebook said that it was a very famous and historic city except many of the most important buildings had melted away.  I'm not kidding.  It was also the worst waymarked city on the Camino.  We somehow found our way in one end and out the other, but we're convinced that we left lots of other pilgrims wandering aimlessly through its streets looking for yellow arrows.

Gluten Free Pit Stop

It was still raining, we had a long way to walk, so we continued heading West towards our destination.  Tina remarked that she was getting hungry (it was past noon) and that we should stop somewhere to eat some of the food we've been carrying for days.  (This is going to sound superstitious, but something we always repeated on the Portuguese Route four years ago was "The Camino provides.")  Within minutes, the rain stopped and we found a brand new picnic area next to the new high speed rail tracks.  We took off our shoes (very important) and snacked on chorizo and almonds.

Anyway, it was between 3 and 4 PM when we got to our destination, the tiny town of El Burgo Ranero (which sounds like a Spanish children's song...)  It's a nice little town, but there are entirely new streets and others where all the buildings are melting.  We've showered, done laundry, eaten dinner, and now Tina's asleep by 9 PM. (That's why I'm writing tonight.)

Tomorrow, our plan is to make it to Leon, the provincial capital.  We wanted to stay in the Parador, but it's being renovated.  I booked us a nice hotel instead.  I could sure use a back massage!

I learned something tonight.  Leon's name does not refer to a lion.  It was the garrison for Rome's seventh Legion.  "Leon" somehow refers to legion.  The roads we've traveled were all built by the Romans.  The stone that the roads were made out of was all carted in from elsewhere because there's none here, hundreds of thousands of tons of stone.

Whether we make it tomorrow is an open question.  These old people are getting pretty sore keeping up this pace--but no blisters!  (Ever since I got new, less bulky, socks, my feet have fully healed.)

We'll let you know how it turns out.  The alarm is set for 4:45 AM.