Griffon and Stork: Day 14: Atapuera to Burgos

I strolled out of Atapuera up a mountain and looked back over a Savannah of oak, plains, and ravines. How much more to the human story must be hidden in the caves here? There are hundreds of scientists working here and in the research labs in Burgos on the fossils found here and around Spain. I couldn't wait to get to Burgos to see the Museum of Human Evolution! I think I was half-jogging! Science!

Monument to our Neolithic and Paleolithic ancestors in Atapuera.

Pilgrims walking through the Atapuera plain at dawn.

Over a million years of human history in the caves below.

The Castilian Serengeti continuously occupied by human species for 1 million years

Over the low hills we hiked, the Germans out in front, followed by the speedy Japanese, the French men striding along, the Danes, then me - toddling this way and that to take pictures of this ancient Serengeti-like landscape. Underneath it all were the caves - hundreds of miles of galleries, sinkholes, and karst shafts- filled with sediments that contain pure ancestry and the fossils of plants and animals we ate, tamed, harvested, and gathered. I imagined mammoths, giant bears, wild horses, and wolves. Then up over the ridge and - bam! There's religion, again!

Wait... where's my science?

Spain is religion. You can't escape it. It holds the relics and legends of more saints that anywhere I can think of. Loyola the Basque. Teresa the Castilian. Juan of the forests. Every town has it's saint and it's own special dancers to honor them with enormous floats, costumes, songs - multiple holy days and festivals. I think Spain was Catholic before Catholicism was ever a thing. Symbolism, ritual, ceremony, the stuff of fantastic stories and wild legend. Santiago himself is mostly legend. There's no evidence he was actually ever in Spain but the stories of the paths of stars, beheaded apostles, faithful companions, and the ever-present scallop shell is laid out along this path like a continuous lines of ribbon stitched to the land. People believe, and have been walking The Way since the 800s to atone for their sins, mark their passage through life, and plead for mercy at the foot of Saint Jacque. The Frenchmen up ahead had a catchy pirate song about Captain Jacque the Saint of Stars that kept drifting back until the sun finally rose.

Rosie the one-armed T-Rex was found near here. So here is her monument.

I walked through a few tiny towns with their massive churches and thick-walled bell towers. Bells clanged the hours, quarter hour, half hour, quarter of. Bells don't ring in Spain. They clang, bang, crash, gong. They don't play pretty tunes or chime at all. They holler and shout. Heavy, metallic, meaning business.

Burgos!

Finally I came into the city through an industrial area that was mostly rubble. This is Spain too. Rubble piles of Roman occupation, mud-brick peasant walls, stone, cement, twisted metal of wars and economic distress. I was followed by two Camino dogs, who hoped I would give them food. But I knew better than to feed them, lest I have two dogs to follow me to Santiago! Once in the modern part of the city I looked for the police department. I wanted to get a stamp for Pat, in his memory. Two miles later I found it. The Chief was very glad to see me. "Not many pilgrims come off the Camino so far for this stamp!" I told him about my friend, killed in the line of duty this past February. The department chief has walked the Camino three times from SJPP and he knew about honor walks. He made quite the ceremony of getting the official stamp!

A stamp from the Chief if Police, Burgos. For Pat.

I had to get directions back to the Camino and everyone I asked was so kind. The old people, especially, were so happy to help a pilgrim. With their help, I walked through the old city gates and up the hill to the municipal albergue. I was exhausted and done after 15+2 miles. I stood in line for check in, dreaming of a shower. There was the Welshman, Mike Peterson, just ahead of me. Happy reunion!