A good Camino walking partner is someone who is there for the interesting conversations. It’s also someone who understands when silence helps understanding more than words. For example, Juan knows not to speak to me until after 9 am. I am not such a rare specimen of a Morgenmuffel (German expression for a person who is grumpy in the mornings).
Nowadays we have the possibility to speak honestly, privilege to challenge each others’ opinions and ability to look up the facts. This was not always the case, especially in the 20th century Spain. In this Camino stage we were heading towards Burgos, the headquarters of the General Francisco Franco during Spanish civil war. For decades after the civil war, the truth was chosen by the people in power. Sometimes the best survival strategy was to stay quiet.
A few nights ago we met a couple of quiet Japanese pilgrims. It was rare to meet Asians on the Camino. One of them was a girl for sure, the gender of the other one was not very clear. The strange-looking person had a medium long blue hair and very soft facial features. I was hoping to recognize the gender from the voice, but that person did not reply my greetings and the Japanese were always whispering between each other. Eventually I saw him entering the male bathrooms. Walking must have been really challenging for them because they carried enormous backpacks in proportion to their body weight. The girl could not abandon her calligraphy set at home. To our surprise, they managed to pass us every time we took a longer break! We passed them later once they decided to rest. The competitive driving force against these Japanese “enemies” was exactly what we needed to arrive to Burgos.
The last 10 km towards Burgos were certainly not enjoyable. Thanks to my mistake and confusing signs we ended up walking on an asphalt road circling the airport. The wind blew so hard that we had to use the hiking poles just to stay on the road. The path continued through an industrial area full of warehouses. I need to mention that this was the official Camino route and we missed an alternative through a park.
Well, Camino, just like life, is simply not a walk in the park. Giant furniture stores are sometimes part of the journey.
At any point in life you can easily meet people who like talking, but they are not necessarily friendly. They just want to share their stories. A man like this approached Juan while I was on a pee break. We were so happy to find a bench and bushes in the concrete jungle. The need to rest was stronger than the need for silence. In a short time, a random man presented us his CV, the development of immigration in Burgos in the past decade and some stories from the Camino too. Earlier we had noticed a single hiking boot on a nearby railway overpass and, even without the cross, it felt like a memorial. Our new Burgos tour guide explained that an old German pilgrim had a heart attack and felt onto the tracks.
The tale of his death will always be passed to pilgrims too tired to walk away from chatty strangers.
We did not make the same mistake again. An older woman in a supermarket sold us a local chocolate from Burgos. As we later found out, it tasted like we had been scammed. Another customer walked into the supermarket without any greeting, looked around and ignored the woman offering him help. She started complaining to us how rude people were these days and following us around the store. Her words were just as annoying as hail – small pinching all over the body. We bought the food and went outside to breathe. We had to buy something, this was the only open supermarket on Sunday afternoon.
Other locals that we interacted with were helpful, but cold just like the weather. The temperature in the evenings was fresh 3 °C, and we were not even high in the mountains! Burgos lies at elevation 850 m and the climate is very continental. Unlike in Slovakia with the same climate, buildings in Burgos did not seem to be well insulated. We spent two nights in a historical building where people obviously tried to save money on heating. What a camping experience! We were kicked out of the albergue before sunrise.
On our day off we wanted to explore the history of the town. I convinced Juan to visit the Museum of human evolution rather than the cathedral. On the way to Burgos we passed a small village Atapuerca, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. We knew it’s an archaeological site, but we had no idea how important. Atapuerca has a system of caves where they found more than 1600 human fossils including complete skulls. And not only that, thousands of animal fossils too! The caves have several levels where humans and animals often fell down by accident. Moreover, hominids threw dead and handicapped down into the cave pit.
This site became famous when one fossil ended up on the cover of Nature magazine. The archaeologists discovered the oldest European – stunning 1.2 million years old. The oldest fractured skull in the world tells a history of violence. I had a special task how to bring some love to the museum. My friend Natascha was about to defend her PhD thesis and she’s a great hugger, so we recorded congratulation videos while I was hugging metal animals. Cold animals deserve a hug too!
After the trip to the museum we met the taxigrina Nora for lunch. She came dressed in pyjama pants and she was starving. During the meal she updated us on her troubles – she could not walk for a few days due to severe chaffing on her legs. Oh my god, she must have walked at least for a few hours! We inspired her to see the museum.
The cathedral was unfortunately closed, so our favorite passtime was to walk around, kick some chestnuts down the hill and listen to peoples’ conversations. We overheard a woman not happy with her walking partner: “Tu problema es que hablas mucho (Your problem is that you talk a lot)!” Her partner did not respond. She kept talking without missing a beat. I looked at Juan, we immediately understood each other and laughed.
Suddenly I had an idea how to name our Camino team – Walkie-Talkie.
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