A
much easier day’s walking after the hard slog the previous day. We woke up at
6.30 am in the wonderful Emaús albergue and at 6.45 beautiful children’s choral
music began from speakers set into the walls beside our bunk beds, which
gradually rose in volume. I felt encouraged to rise above the problems and
issues of life that can drag me down and instead, lift up our eyes and focus on
God. The opening line of morning liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer for Ordinary Radicals says:
“O Lord, let my soul rise up to meet you
As the day rises to meet the sun”
The
ethereal choral music certainly helped me rise physically and spiritually to
face the day’s walking ahead!
 |
| Matthew & David outside the Emaus albergue |
We
had a communal breakfast together and said our goodbyes – we hoped to see some
of our fellow pilgrims again, but David and the Polish brother and sister were
walking faster and further than us, so we knew it was unlikely we would see
them again as they planned to walk to Hontanas, whilst we were only going as
far as Hornillos (21.0km). We slipped out quietly so as not to disturb those
praying in the chapel and said our final goodbyes to Marie – Noelle, promising
to pray for her as she requested.
 |
| Plaza Mayor |
We
cut down to the river and we could have followed the south bank westwards
towards Santa Maria de Las Huelgas, but David wanted to find an ATM and anyway,
I was keen to re-join the traditional Camino route in the medieval city centre.
We had entered the old city through Arco San Juan and I wanted to symbolically
exit the city through Arco San Martin. To do this we therefore crossed the rio
Arlanzón on the Puente San Pablo, passed the statue of El Cid and walked across
Plaza Mayor. It was lovely to see children walking to school, satchels on their
backs, with their parents. This is one of the things I love about the Spanish
cities I have seen; unlike British historic city centres, that seem to have
lost their souls as families have moved out to the suburbs, families in Spain
still seem to live their lives in the centres of cities like Burgos.
 |
| Arco San Martin |
We
found an ATM and then climbed up onto calle
Fernán Gonzales, passing the rear of the cathedral where street sweepers
were already at work, before exiting the old city through the 13th century Arco
San Martin with it’s horseshoe shaped Mozarab gateway flanked by two towers. A
descent down the hill on which the medieval city is built, brought us again
across the Puente Malatos over the Arlanzón that we had crossed three days
earlier when visiting Santa Maria de las Huelgas.
I
was keen to see the 12th century gateway of the Hospital del Rey on the way out of the city, but I didn’t trust the
John Brierley guidebook map of Burgos after our previous experiences of trying
to find Las Huelgas and the Emaús albergue, so I asked a passing pedestrian. I
was right to be sceptical; the map showed the Hospital del Rey as being just
across the bridge behind the Hospital Miliatar. In fact it was on the other
side of Parque El Parral. (It was however correctly located on the Burgos –
Hornillos map). We reached the hospital passing another small hermitage gateway
on the way.
 |
| Plateresque gateway of Hospital del Rey |
The
Hospital del Rey was one of the most important pilgrim hospitals on the Camino
route and was founded in 1195 by King Alfonso VIII at the same time that he
founded the convent of Santa Maria de las Huelgas. A few Romanesque ruins of
the hospital survive, but most of what we see today dates from the 16th
century and has now been incorporated into the Law Faculty of Burgos
University. A fine Plateresque Puerto de
Romeros (Pilgrim’s Gate) pierces the wall of the hospital and leads through
to a courtyard with the equally fine Pórtico
de la iglesia. According to A
Practical Guide for Pilgrims by Lozano, the Renaissance wooden church door
has exceptional wood carvings featuring three generations of a family making a
pilgrimage to Santiago but I missed that detail!
The
rising sun was setting alight the pinnacles of the Puerto de Romeros and making it look very special indeed, but I was
aware that Matthew and David were not keen to loiter and were waiting
impatiently, so I quickly took some photographs of the gateways and hospital
ruins, nipped into the reception desk of the Law Faculty to get a stamp on my
credencial and then we moved on!
We
walked on through the suburbs of Burgos before finally entering open
countryside. The weather was warm and sunny and the rain had gone. I was
feeling a little weary and Matthew said his legs felt very tired. However we
pressed on and we again found the fields full of dead sunflowers; many of them
starting to fall over or rot. This mystified me – why plant field after field
of sunflowers if they are not going to be harvested and left to start decaying?
Were they harvested after we had departed? I saw hundreds of such fields of
unharvested sunflowers on our walk. Maybe someone reading this blog can explain
why?
 |
| Ruins of Hospital del Rey |
In
a picnic area near Villalbilla we stopped for a snack and together said Morning
Prayer before passing under a railway line and negotiating the muddy and
confusing building site where the intersection of the A-231 and N-120 was being
re-designed. The extensive construction site was hard to negotiate and
temporary Camino signs were confusing and hard to follow.
 |
| Fields of Dead Sunflowers |
 |
| Puente de Arzobispo |
De Rabé a
Tarjados,
no te
faltarán trabajos;
de Tarjados a
Rabé,
¡libera nos,
Domine!”
“From Rabé to
Tarjados,
you’ll have
your work cut out for you;
from Tarjados
to Rabé,
spare us
Lord!”
With
the bridge and a chat with some pilgrims from New Zealand along the way, the
walk to Rabé seemed more pleasant for us!
 |
| Rabe de las Calzadas |
 |
| Matthew looking intrepid before the Meseta escarpment! |
 |
| Hermitage at Rabe with detail of doorway carvings |
The
initial ascent onto the escarpment was pleasant and Matthew and I took the
opportunity to do Midday Prayer together as we climbed. At the summit of Cuesta
de Matamulos (another mule killer slope!) however, we were surprised to
suddenly come upon Matt who was sitting admiring the view with a few pilgrims he
had met including Annika from Birmingham.
Meeting
Matt surprised us as we were not expecting to meet up with him until we reached
Hornillos. Matt of course was delighted to meet us and being the highly
gregarious and talkative person that he is, immediately began to pepper us with
conversation, questions and anecdotes about his pilgrimage thus far! As I lay
on the grass resting I felt a sense of culture shock come over me; Matthew,
David and I had spent five days travelling together and three days walking on
the Camino and had fallen into a comfortable rhythm of talking interspersed
with periods of silence quiet reflection. As often seems to happen when I walk
on the Camino, I find that the longer I walk, the less I feel the need to talk
and enjoy the periods of solitude and silence. Now suddenly, I felt bombarded by
Matt’s conversation and almost unable to cope with it! My silence began to draw
Matt’s attention, which only made me feel worse as he began to ask questions
like “What’s wrong with you Michael?”, “Why are you so quiet?”, “Are you in a
bad mood?”
Over
the next few days I would struggle with Matt’s constant stream of conversation
as we walked and I began to feel guilty for wanting to wander off by myself or
just tell him to shut up for a few minutes! Matt is a lovely guy and his
chatter was friendly and well-meaning. So why was I having trouble coping with
it? Was I being selfish for wanting peace and quiet and the Camino? These were
inner questions I struggled with as I walked.
The
answer however came to me as I read Henri Nouwen’s The Way of the Heart – The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and
Mothers (www.harperone.com). I usually bring a small devotional book on the
Camino to read at bedtime as I lie in my albergue bunk and this is the book I had
brought this time. However, I didn’t get to read it until near the end of the
trip and was therefore surprised to find that it was divided into three
sections: Solitude, Silence and Prayer. As
I read the chapter on silence, I was startled to hear Nouwen say that “First silence makes us pilgrims. Secondly silence guards the fire within.
Thirdly, silence teaches us to speak” Nouwen then went on to quote Abba
Tithoes who said that “Pilgrimage means
that a man should control his tongue” and said that “To be on pilgrimage is to be silent (pergrinato est tacere)” In
short, says Nouwen “words can give us the
feeling of having stopped too long at one of the little villages that we pass
on our journey, of having been motivated more by curiosity than service”.
The
other positive feature of silence that Nouwen discussed was that Silence is the discipline by which the inner
fire of God is tended and kept alive”. To illustrate this Nouwen quoted
Diadochus of Photiki who said that “When
the door of the steambath is continually left open, the heat inside rapidly
escapes through it: likewise the soul, in it’s desire to say many things,
dissipates it’s remembrance of God through the door of speech, even though
everything it says may be good”.
From
reading Nouwen’s book, I came to realise that God was actually speaking to me
through Matt’s constant chatter. When I had started walking the Camino in
September 2014, I had gradually realised that God was drawing me to the value
of solitude; I had spent more and more time walking and sitting by myself, just
enjoying the peace of God’s presence. This time I realised that God was
speaking to me about the value of silence. It wasn’t about Matt talking too
much or about me feeling selfish, it was about me learning to talk less and
build up the steam of God’s presence and love in my heart, so that I have
something to offer people when God brings them to me and to help me realise
that silence, as Nouwen said, can become “a
portable cell taken with us from the solitary place into the midst of our
ministry”. This is countercultural stuff in a verbose world that never
shuts up and is full of a constant stream of chatter (much of it inane) on radio,
television and social media, but something I need to learn if I am to have
anything to offer of value to those around me.
 |
Descending Cuesta Matamulas with
Hornillos in distance
|
 |
| Calle Real, Hornillos |
 |
| Medieval jettied buildings |
Beyond
the edge of town, David, Matthew and I also stumbled upon some medieval ruins
which may have been the remains of the Hospital of San Lázaro – one of many
leprosaria that were once strung along the Camino? The surrounding area seemed
to full of storerooms built into the hillside and presumably used by the locals
to keep produce cool in summer before the days of refrigeration?
 |
| Sarcophagus doorway |
In
the centre of the village was a small plaza with a Parish Church and the picturesque
Hen Fountain or Fuente del Gallo. Annika
was sitting on the steps of the municipal albergue doctoring her feet, which
looked in a very sorry state with numerous blisters.
 |
| Fuente del Gallo |
 |
We
finished the evening by sitting on the bench outside the albergue under a
starry meseta sky saying Evening Prayer together before the chill got too much
and we scuttled back inside.
 |
| Paella |
