Tag: Way of St. James

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Day 19, Hospital de Orbigo to Murias, Spain, Sept 27


12 miles, 600 feet ascent. 7:15 to 1:30 pm

My feet are killing me today. I am battling large blisters, draining them with a needle every night and putting blister pads on them.

Today is my day! In spite of my feet, I am joyous.
At 10 am there are church bells in the distance.
“Good speed is your speed.” is painted on a sign, surely an encouragement to pilgrims.

This morning I dwaddled over my tea in the kitchen, as it was still dark. Wilson quickly ate his breakfast, was ready to go and asked for my email address so we can stay in touch. He was thinking would not see me again. He left.

I took my, but it was pretty dark at 7:30 am, so I took the alternate and more direct trail along the road instead of wending through the woods.

Gorgeous sunrise over the rolling green countryside.
Passed a huge barn guarded by three barking black labradors while at least three German Shepards lazed in the sun. I was not even close to the barn, but the labradors were doing a great job this early.
By 9:30 am I stopped for coffee with milk and sugar at a small village.  Visited with two German women doing parts of the El Camino a second time.  Who should come in but my Brazlian friend, Wilson.  He stared at me and said TYLER, HOW did you get here?  After a few minutes he figured out I did not use the magic carpet as claimed, but took the shorter route along the highway.  We laughed and laughed.  Then I finished my coffee and left, somehow without seeing him or saying goodbye. Must have both been in the restroom.
Two hours later I am perched at top the steps to a cross over looking the valley and city of Astorga.  Airing my barefeet in the sunshine, enjoying the view when here come the two German women from the cafe.  They laugh as Wilson had seen them on the trail and asked where I was.  They told him she is up ahead, sticking out her tongue at you and saying nana-nana-boo-boo.
And who comes down the trail but Wilson, calling out Tyler, WHAT are you doing? WHY are you still ahead of me.  We laugh again. He goes on and I pull on my boots and head down into Astorga. 
This is a beautiful medieval town once surrounded by a wall, which  has a walk way and I stop for a snack, overlooking the country.  Walk down cobblestone streets to a palace and the cathedral. Large bus loads of tourists gather with guides.  In the cafe overlooking the palace, I use the restroom and order meatballs for lunch. What a beautiful town but I am not a tourist and my feet ache and I am not up for looking inside the buildings, so I pick up a chocolate bar with almonds for the road.
Just outside of town there is a tiny chapel where pilgrims have stopped, some to avoid the tourists at the cathedral, for a rest or holy moment.  Who is there but Wilson.  We laugh at meeting each other again and walk and talk for about an hour.
Stopping at a hacienda-type hostel, we go in for a soda, I got a Coke, and visit.  It is run by a Brazilian, they serve a Brazilian dinner and it is super clean and charming with a yard in the back for hanging laundry, a washboard as part of the sink and great big clean showers are restrooms.  The dormitory is also huge.  I stay and Wilson goes on. He refuses to say goodbye as he is sure we will meet again.
A French Pilgrim visits with me about my sore feet. He recommends boots two sizes larger and wiping out the salt sweat from the boots immediately after removing them.  In two days I will pass through a town large enough to have boots. It’s the first I have heard about wiping out boots, but it might be a good idea.
Dinner was lentils, rice and deviled eggs and no dessert. It was very plain with no spices. Wilson later told me this is very authentic Brazilian cooking.  It was good and filling. Dined with a young Spanish married couple bicycling the route.  He had good English and said it is not fun. They cycled 75 kilometers today and did 150 yesterday. Some roads are busy with traffic, off the walker’s route.  Some are cobblestone they share with us walkers and I can see their head bobbing as they tackle the stones.  He says it is crazy. It is cold when they go out in the morning, and they are not allowed into the hostels until 8 pm, giving all those walking first chance to get a bed. Plus bicyclists do not always give walkers warning on the trails and we have to get out of their way quickly as they speed by us. I was smugly satisfied to hear it was as miserable as it looked.
Hostel 7 Euros, dinner 9 Euros.
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Day 16, Sahagun to Mansilla, Sept. 24, Spain

22 miles, flat. 8 am to 3:30 pm.

Fabulous fall day with blue sky and light breeze.
Plains of Spain are covered with yellow fields of grain stubble.
Sunflowers in the fields look at the ground, at the end of their bloom.
Mountain to the north, along the coast, are visible.
Picnic lunch of salami, cheese and bread, peach and chocolate and almond bar.
Storks nest on church steeples.
Walk on a nice dirt road, shaded by long rows of young beeches. They look planted just for giving the pilgrims shade.

Pilgrims on bicycles zip by me on the road adjacent to the nice trail. I think unpilgrim-like thoughts about them.
About 3 pm a woman on a bicycle, coming from a garden, gave me six big ripe tomatoes! I ate one immediately and shared the others at the hostal. They were delicious. Nothing like this would happen to a bicyclist. They go too fast.
Pass an open warehouse with a front loader filled with old bread loaves.

Walking in town past a bar window, I see the cyclists inside sipping beer. Unpilgrim-like thoughts return, but then I spitefully remember my fresh tomatoes and they don’t have any.

Checked into the old hostal, with charming slanting well-worn wooden floors. Hand-washed my hiking clothes, hung them to dry in the courtyard, which was enclosed. The walls and windows sported baskets of red geraniums. It was lovely. Took a short siesta, visited with a roommate, a young man from Korea who was also resting. Three English women were chatting, but left so others could doze.

Then I went out to explore the little town. Passing through the old stone walls coming in, I decided it needed further investigation. Much of the wall is left, although not intact. The stones are all round brownish-gold river rocks. The town has spread beyond the walls, which is bordered by a walking path and lit at night.

I went in a spectacular Ethnological Museum, at a special pilgrim price of 1 euro. There were no other pilgrims there. Thankfully, each display had an English version. Local traditions, farm implements, peasant clothing for dress and everyday work, musical instruments, pictures of old farm structures, videos of traditional dances and music were treated as though they were jewels, being dispayed in glass cases. My favorite part was the display and photos of the four different ethnological groups of people in northern Spain. In some villages I noticed the people looked distincly alike and it gave an explantion why and where some originated from.

Hostal 4 Euros and dinner was 10 Euros.

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Day 15, Calzadillo to Sahagun, Spain

13 miles, fairly flat terrain. 7:30 to 11:30 am.

Highlights of the day:
*Hovering kestrel hawk over the harvested grain field.
*Blue sky, light breeze, cool. Delightful path through open country.
*Caffe con latte with sugar and crossiant mid-morning. Things I NEVER have at home. Coffee upsets my stomach, sugar is bad and a crossiant is way too bad.
*Medieval leper hospital has picnic tables on the lawn, a good resting place for a picnic lunch. A Roman built bridge takes us to the ancient hospital,  now closed.
Hostal in Sahagun is a 16th century chapel, for 4 Euros. Dinner across the street for 10 Euros, with a Spanish pilgrim.
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Day 14, Formista to Caleadilla, Spain



22 miles, flat. 7:30 to 4 pm.

Lovely walk through the country side.
Birds flocking and chirping.
Fields of maze, sunflowers and harvested grain.
Stop for a snack on the lawn of an old Abbey.
Two motorized wheel chairs whip by me on the stone road. Now that would be a rough ride.
Lunch in the village of Carrion. Potato tortilla, red pepper and anchovies, beer and get a chocolate bar for the road.
Dinner, surprisingly good at the only restaurant in town, who are feeding a large group tonight. The server is from Marrakech, Morocco. Dined with three German men, a young Russian bicyclist on his own, my Brazilian friend Wilson and the Scotsman Robert. I was pretty close to heaven.
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Day 13, Castrojeruz to Formista, Spain, Sept. 21, 2008






15 miles, 400 ft. ascent and descent.

Started out just before it got light. Left the village on a dirt road between two barns, going into the countryside. A Scotsman, Robert, joined me at we headed out of town. He was chatty and good walking company for a few days. Not as fast as Peter was yesterday, but I don’t need to walk that fast every day.
The road headed up a ridge and I could see several pilgrims going up, about 400 feet, through the farm lands of harvested grain. Several fields had big round bales of straw, waiting to be picked up and hauled away to storage. It was getting lighter every step.
Upon reaching the top of the ridge, the sun began coming over the eastern horizon, beyond the hill with the castle ruins.  Several of us pilgrims had reached this spot to watch the spectacle of the sunrise.  Bright red and yellow sun rays spilled out from beyond the distant mountain range to coat the castle ruins, then illuminate the valley.  When it was all light, I finally turned to back to the trail, now downhill.
Stopped for mid-morning coffee and a stroll through a tiny village. There were many round dove lofts, or dove cottages, falling into ruin.  Along the stream was a huge shelter with red Spanish tile roof, open sides with arches and all painted white.  Upon investigation, it contained a several cement wash boards, with a stream running through it. This is where community happened!  Later I saw a plainer wash house version in cement dated 1987 etched across the top. Oh, perhaps that is why the world regarded Spain as backward for so many years.
Strangely enough, there was helicopter over head. When I lived in Billings, Montana, that always meant a rescue, as the helicopter picked up an injured person and flew them to the hospital.  A few days later we learned from a pilgrim, who happened to be a nurse, that as she got to the top of the ridge, took in the view of the castle and country, then turned to go another pilgrim, a middle-age man who stopped to rest, fell down dead.  She tried to revive him, but could not.  That helicopter was for him. It was very sad.
Nearing Formista, the walk is along a canal and poplars line the path. Stopped for a beer at lunch and then walked more. 
Every day has beautiful weather, chilly in the morning, but warming by about 9 am. No rain, yet. I love walking every day an eat everything for dinner, which is usually three courses. Lots of potatoes are on the menu and I get the french fries and flan for dessert. The calorie burn is so great!
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Day 11, Atapuerca to Tardajos, Spain





15 miles, 450 ft. ascent. 7:30 am to 4:45 pm.

*Walk into Burgos with Canadian woman, Jan. Chatting with her made the trek through the industrial and ugly apartments on the outskirts just bearable. Looking back, this two and half hour stretch was the worst. Everyone else said it was hard for them too. Perhaps it was because we had come out of the glorious countryside, through a lovely forest on nice dirt roads. The hard, flat sidewalk, four lanes of truck traffic and industry was a mental test, as one pilgrim put it.
*El Cid’s tomb and the cathedral at Burgos are thrilling. It is a World Heritage site. Toured the cathedral, walked around the outside. Truly spectacular.
*Late afternoon I walked on, along the river bottom to a tiny town, Tardjos. The hostel was on a donation basis.
*John Deere tractors in the fields and main street of the small towns.
*Moorish influence in the arched doorways and “Hand of Fatima” door knockers.
*Iron rings in the stone walls, once used to tie up horses.
Dinner with Anne, a Danish woman and several Canadians.
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Day 5, September 13, 2008








Irache to Los Arcos
10 miles, 600 ft. ascent
8:30 a.m. to noon

Cloudy, breezy day, pleasant walking through rolling countryside.

Castle on hill. Moorish fountain.
Huge, round bales of golden hay.
Ripe, black grapes in vineyards along path.
Bamboo in ravines.
Ripe blackberries.
Pines, olive groves.

Chatted with English couple from Yorkshire again.

Stayed at Pension Mali, 35 Euros.
My feet ache and are blistered!

Wine in the main plaza in the afternoon sun.
Visited the Santa Maria Church.
Attended the Pilgrim mass at 8 pm.
Many people there, mostly older, and several other pilgrims.
The church was then illuminated. One of the most beautiful I have ever seen, with a gold altar piece and spectacular paintings. It is nice to see the works or art where they belong, in a church, instead of a museum.

Dinner with pilgrim Anna, a 30ish Spanish woman I met on the trail. 10Euros

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My El Camino Hike in Spain






4,000 ft. ascent, 2,000 ft. descent
20 miles. Walk across the border from France into Spain.

Oops, I misread the first walk from St. Jean Pied Pont, France into Spain. I was thinking the pass is 1,600 feet elevation. Not so. It is 1,600 cm and the ascent for the day is almost 4,000 feet. Then it is about 2,000 descent into Roncesvalles and 16 miles.

The plane trip from London to Biarritz, France, took an hour. Then a bus ride across town to catch the train to St. Jean Pied Pont. I explored Biarritz while waiting 2 hours for the train. Walked up to one castle to see another across the river. This charming old town is on a river near the ocean, and there are people surfing. Definitely a place to come back and stay a few days.

After 2 hour train ride, where I visited with a young French woman, Cecelia, and the pilgrims, at least 50 on the train, walked up to the reception building for Pilgrims. After receiving my Pilgrim passport it was 8 pm, most of the hostels were full and I was standing in the street wondering where I was going to sleep. A French woman took me with her to an old building down the street, motioned for me to stay, went up and got an old woman and they took me up to her sitting room. It had a sofa for me the sleep on. The price was 15 Euros. The older woman took her purse out of the desk drawer to get me change for my 20. Then put her purse back in the drawer.

The first woman took me by the arm down the hall to the bathroom, very nice and new. There was much chattering, none of which I understood, but said Decor and Qui. Then she kissed me on both cheeks and left. I went out for dinner, found Cecelia and two other young women from the train ride and had pizza with them. Cecelia kissed my cheecks goodbye and I have not seen her since.

The advice was to start the hike early, as it is 8 hours to cover the 16 miles to Roncesvalles, Spain, the first hotel or hostel or food.

Since I was on an earlier time from England, was excited and couldn´t sleep too long, I got up when the owl kept hooting. It was pitch black, no one was up and out I went. After finding my way across the river and out of town, where it was really dark, I put on my headlamp and putted up the hill and putted and putted. Two hours and there was lightening in the distance. Three hours and it was light enough to see without my lamp.

By now I am up into the common grazing area of the French Pyrenees. There are flocks of sheep herded down the mountain side to a small corral. They look like white water flowing down the steep green slope. Herds of blonde cattle, bands of 7 to 20 mares with foals roam freely. All animals have bells around their necks, so it is a beautiful sound.

The wind becomes more than stiff and straight into my face near the top, often making me stagger across the road. Even my trekking poles don´t hold me and they are so difficult to control, I attach them to my pack. For quite a ways, the path is tar and quite well marked with the sign of the shell, which is the Pilgrims symbol and the red and white bars which is the corresponding Grande Ronde trail across the country. I picked up first a couple of years ago in Geneva, Switzerland, walking 100 miles south into France on it.

I am the only one out, until 7 pm I pass a hostel and see people eating breakfast, so soon they will join me. By 8 am I see one man pass me, there are several behind him. Suddenly a van beeps me to move over, and it is filled with the people who were walking. They get a ride up to where the path goes from tar to trail near the top of the pass. My thoughts are distinctly unpilgrim-like toward them. I try to tell my self Everyone has their own journey. But, of course, mine is harder.

The mountains are well logged and an open view. It is misty and very windy. Finally over the pass, after passing some springs for water for Pilgrims and a big cross, the path heads straight down hill. The Romans put a road here and where there is solid rock, I can see the ruts from their wagons. And their roads typically go straight up and down, no matter how steep. Charlamagne also moved his troops through this pass.

About noon, in a light misting rain, I arrive in Roncesvalles, have soup and a cheese sandwich. There is a huge abbey built here to house the pilgrims with a great book shop for Pilgrims. I pick up a guide in English with history and strip maps which have a plastic pouch to hang around my neck so I can read the days itinerary, have an elevation chart and map of the towns. It is really helpful.

By now it is only 1 pm and there are many Pilgrims arriving to stay. I can´t face the walk being over, so keep going on down the trail through the woods. About 4 miles later in a small Basque village, I see a woman tending her flowers and it looks like she rents rooms. She does and so I stay with her. The building has beautiful wood stairs, floors, renovated bathroom and comfortable bedroom. What a nice find for the end of my first day on the El Camino. The restaurant down the street serves dinner and I am very happy.

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Walk With Me, Tyler Burgess’s Itinerary 2008


Here is my plan
Take train to Seattle August 19, 2008. Visit children and grandchildren.
Friday, August 22, Fly from Seattle (leave 10:55 pm) to London (arrive 5:30 pm), with Vicki, my companion and client for the England walk on Hadrian’s Wall Path.

Hike Hadrian’s Wall Path, 84 miles
August 24. Train from London to Newcastle Upon Tyne.
August 25. Day in Newcastle to visit the Museum of Antiquities to see artifacts and history of Roman Emperor’s Wall, built to keep out the barbarians to the north.
August 26. Walk Newcastle to Heddon, 15 urban miles through Newcastle
August 27. Walk Heddon to St. Oswald, 12 miles into the rolling countryside.

August 28. From St. Oswald to Once Brewed, 15 miles, plus an hour to walk into Haltwhistle.
August 29. Rest in Haltwhistle, a market town smack in the middle of Britian.
August 30. An hour walk back to Once Brewed, then 11 miles to Gilsland.
August 31. Walk 7 miles to Walton.
September 1. Walk to Carlisle, 11 miles.
September 2. Carlisle to Bowness On Solway, 15 flat miles to the Irish Sea.

September 3. Train to London.
September 4-7 Visit London. High Tea at the Ritz on 9/4.
September 8. Vicki flies back to Eugene. I fly to Barritz, France.

Solo 500-mile hike the Pilgrim’s Path Way of St. James on the French Way
500 miles from the French border to Santiago, Spain. I am taking ultra-light camping gear, and carrying all my stuff in a day pack.
September 8. I fly to Barritz, France. Train ride one hour to St. Jean Pied de Pont.
September 9. Start hiking to Santiago, about 15 mile per day for 35 days.
October 14, Fly from Santiago, Spain to London, England.
October 15. Fly from London to Seattle.
October 19. Train from Seattle to Eugene, arriving at 1:55 pm in Eugene.

I do hope to update you along the trail where there are cafes and libraries with Internet access.