from Burgos to Villalcázar de Sirga
Venga, vamo’
Day 14 – Burgos to Hornillos del Camino – 21.7 km
Probably it’s no surprise when I tell you that… well… after those aquarium-sized sangrias last night, we were facing a lazy, and certainly a late start today.
After leaving the albergue we ran into Clemens and Mariane at the nearest bakery, so we stayed for a cafecito to kick start this morning.

We slowly got going, long day ahead… (spoiler alert: at this point, we didn’t know how long it was really gonna be) Mariane walked with us today, and Clemens decided to wait for the others to get down to the coffee place – we never truly lost him though, because he walks faaast, so we were always crossing each other’s path from day 1 to the end.
The way out of Burgos wasn’t complicated but I remember it to be a bit long. At least you have a chance to buy some food for the day in any given supermarket in the city. This is what we did, and then slowly we returned to nature.

… Suddenly everything got so flat. Is it already the so-called meseta? Can’t be just yet, is it?

According to the book, today is supposed to be more flat than usual, but this much? By the time I was done reasoning this in my head, we were already climbing up a bit, and then back down, so never mind.

Nothing crazy, 220m height difference only, but we are at the end of May, out in the Spanish sun, spot on at midday and today was hardly any shade, or little bar to get a refresco. So we had to improvise and we found our luxury spot:

Thank you, fellow -unknown- Pilgrim for taking this picture. Buen Camino 🙌
You see… if you ask me, this is what I would call Camino Magic. A lot of different people, from every corner of the world come together and share a moment, a “Buen Camino” greeting, a day, a whole month, and sometimes even a lifelong friendship. I met some of the most kind, amazing, and helpful people on the road. I remember how everyone was trying to help with my blister problems, I remember all the advice I got, how a guy gave me his water when I was catching my breath, how the physio girl, Ilona, was trying to help everyone in the albergue, and putting tapes on our muscles and gave massages. That moment when I got a scarf from a girl when I was soaking wet and cold on the last day arriving in Santiago. I also remember the first night which was also my 30th birthday. It was a really tough day, it slapped me in the face big time, I thought I would smash this Camino, but there on the first day up in the Pyrenees, I was questioning everything and thinking about how to get back to Paris from there. As I said many times before, if Cindy hadn’t stopped there to pull me through I’m not sure how or even if I would’ve continued… And then dinner came that day, like 20 of us sitting down for my birthday dinner. All of us from Brazil to Australia, from Italy to Canada…. and me the Hungarian. All sitting at the same table, enjoying the food and the wine experience. I just love it.
Okay, enough of the emotions, and buckle up and go before it gets too late.

As we were 20 km in for the day, we felt like maybe it was time to look for a place to sleep. The albergue that we had in mind was full. So hey-ho, we had to continue to the next stop, Hornillos del Camino. The time was passing, it was getting late in the afternoon and we had at least 4 km to go. I went on booking.com and hotels.com to look for something nearby – nothing. Asked mighty Google for help, and ta-daaa our prayer got answered by Casa rural la casa del abuelo – buuut there was no option to book online, only by phone call. So after all the “rock-paper-scissors” turns, and the “you do it – no, you – noOooOoo yOuuUu” with Mariane (who also spoke a little Spanish), I can announce that today was the day of my very first phone call with my – back then – very shaky Spanish – and hands.
Every Spanish encounter I had on the Camino I always tried my luck, and opened with: “hola, hablas ingles?” … well, the answer was usually: “no.” 💀 Long story short – we got the beds, and it was only 3.7 km to go…
Day 15 – Hornillos del Camino to Castrojeriz -20.9 km
Today is supposed to be an easy one – fingers crossed for that tho’. The scenery was beautiful from the beginning of the day as we were heading towards Hontanas.

Not much shadow as you can see, but so beautiful. Also, a bit of in the middle of nowhere – you will cross San Bol with ZERO civilization – so I would recommend bringing enough water.

We had some lunch and a quick recharge in Hontanas – I swear to God by the way, that I love this blogging thing going on here. Going through the pictures – with time stamps on – my notes and memories… Basically, the whole Camino comes back to me even though it was like… 5 years ago?! Wow.
Aaaanyway…
Shortly after Hontanas, the path changed to concrete – I actually preferred that at that moment after all the dirt roads. And it was shade! Proper shade, people! Finally. Also, a lovely old man was selling his cherries on the side of the road. After that, it was very easy to follow the path because, besides the yellow shells, you saw the cherry pits thrown all around the road too.

In an hour or so you will run into the magnificent ruins of the 16th-century Monastery of San Anton. Since today’s route follows the historic pilgrim one it still goes through the arch that was connecting the monastery with the church in the Middle Ages. The monastery is from the 12th century and it was used as a pilgrim hospital. The remaining walls of the church give 14th – 15th century. It’s quite an interesting feeling to walk around this kind of history. Unfortunately, it was taped down so we couldn’t go all Indiana Jones in it. As I’m doing some research now I see that a part of it is a functioning Albergue – with 12 beds.

After this we were heading to our destination of the day, Castrojeriz. We had the Albergue booked – lesson learned from before. The path continuing was easy-peasy- shadowy and breezy.
– But over the horizon, we saw something sinister not too far away…

Please just tell me Castrojeriz is not on the literal top of that F@%&ing mountain 🙏 😭

… No, it’s not 😇 – but tomorrow’s start doesn’t look too promising, actually.
I need to tell you specifically about tonight’s stay – Albergue Orion – because it was THAT good and THAT special, yes. – btw at one point down on this Camino Diaries I wanna share with you all the details of all the Albergues I stayed in – price, location, contact details, amenities, etc… I think it would be a useful article for you guys.
Sooo, Albergue Orion
The place looks amazing, and spotless, and is run by a Spanish man and his Korean wife. Here’s the best part: the food. You can get noodles at the bar, and the dinner offer is special too. It’s a Korean food called Bi-bim-bap (sorry if I’m butchering the language) prepared by the lady. It was A-amazing!
… And honestly a lovely twist on your Camino journey. No need to mention I guess, that I went all in, obviously. Noodles are my guilty pleasure and I love trying different foods from different countries. So I can advise you to forget all the tapas and bocadillos for a moment, and if you are staying at this place, bring on all the noodles.

… and after going through these pictures, I may or may not be cooking noodles right now, for lunch 🤦
Aaaanywaaaay …..
Day 16 – Castrojeriz to Fromista – 23.9 km
So, the new day and that sinister hill indeed arrived, literally half an hour after we left the Albergue the ascent began to Alto de Mostelares – What a kickstart of a day, right? Wakes you up better than a Red Bull…
Even the hospitalero mentioned it’s gonna be quite a climb, good luck, and Buen Camino. He knew. He knew very well.

If you ever make it to the top – which I was questioning many times that morning – the view is quite nice back down at Castrojeriz and the surroundings. I hate to say it, but it was worth climbing it… not that you have a choice here tho’ – this is the only way.
… but of course, what goes up, oh hell yeah, it must go down…

I don’t know about you guys but I prefer going downhill – any given moment of any day till’ now. Let me know in the comments below, I’m curious about your preferences.
They say going up slowly is better, going down kills the knees. Well, my knees are steel or I don’t know – but for me uphill is a real near-death experience. As soon as my heart starts beating faster, I’m starting to catch my breath like crazy – no control there whatsoever, believe me. Then, my body panics I’m not gonna get enough oxygen, then it starts sending me these mixed signals that “you gonna pass out in 3-2-1…” and then I need to stop, I just feel like I can’t push through because indeed I will die… Theeen, I calm down, continue and when I make it to the top my body is like “Okay, so we didn’t die, let’s run downhill…” – like nothing happened. What the heck is this, really? The way I can imagine it is that my little cells are pretty much like this in my brain, trying to control my reactions:

The rest of the day went back to normal, with plain fields and beautiful flowers around as you make your easy 23.9 km long way to Fromista.

Just a quick storytime here, cuz I have to 🤭
So Mariane is vegetarian. Obviously eating in Spain is a bit more difficult in this way, especially in small towns on the Camino. So over the days the more difficult it got for her to eat properly, she became more flexible by eating more fish, etc… Today was long and quite hard with that climb at the beginning, so we needed food and energy at dinner. Mariane said “It’s okay, I can eat fried fish” When they put the fish in front of her she turned white out of pure shock – honestly not just her, me and Cindy too… – and she said “But…I thought it’s a fillet… this has eyes” 😳 😂 … I mean if you zoom in closely you can see it has teeth too… Buen provecho!

Day 17 – Fromista to Villalcázar de Sirga- 15.4 km
Today looked very very flat in the book, it officially feels like the Meseta, guys. Well, technically it starts after Burgos and finishes around Astorga – with the “worst” part around Leon… I remember that day well when there was not even a single tree next to the straight road. But no spoilers, it’s coming in a couple of days, don’t you worry.

I don’t have many notes written about today. I summed the day up with a few words: hot, flat, and bees. Those beautiful flowers that I mentioned earlier? Yea, they are beautiful but they attract bees like crazy to the side of the road. As we were walking today we ran into a guy riding a bike, a few minutes later we crossed paths with him again, he seemed possessed running in circles – but it wasn’t a demon, it was a bee stuck in his helmet. We tried to help him as much as we could, Cindy was trying to take out the bee’s butt of the guy’s head – this is a sentence I never thought I would say – Me? I was mostly in shock because I’m terrified of bees and wasps – it’s like a proper phobia. Poor guy… We gave him some water and chocolate and stayed with him for a while. He said he couldn’t continue and called for help to come and pick him and his bike up.
Just gonna leave a side note here:
112 – general emergency
091 – police
062 – guardia civil
061 – health emergency
080 – firefighters

We also ran into an interesting crossroads today – you know they say you can’t get lost on the Camino, just follow the yellow shells and arrows.

And what now? We went to the left… 🤷
Is there anyone here who took the right turn before?
See you at the next one,
Buen Camino,
Noémi