Miles walked: about 6
We started the day with a taxi ride around the once-bandit-filled Montes de Oca (Goose Mountains). That’s an option the medieval pilgrims did not have. We weren’t too worried about bandits, but we did the taxi to make the too long distance manageable. The taxi left us off in San Juan de Ortega. Closer to Atapuerca than we wanted but it was the only place on the Camino that the taxi could get to that wasn’t a farm track.
We had breakfast in San Juan de Ortega in another best bar ever. Charlie just made a post with photos.
We got into Atapuerca around 11. Couldn’t get into our (extremely charming) albergue (private room with private bath) until 1:45 so we had coffee in the Atapuerca bar and then went to the tiny grocery store and got food for a picnic and ate in the park.
Went back to our albergue to wait to get in and found a bunch of other pilgrims waiting. We had a nice time visiting with a French Canadian couple, a French French couple, a Dutch woman, and a young couple from Yorkshire, England. Luckily we were under a cover because it started to thunder and rain.
It was probably just as well that we had a short walking day. The night before I had noticed a tickle in my throat and by 2:30, after we’d gotten into our room, I noticed I was getting a fever. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in bed.
Note: Atapuerca is a famous archaeological site. Here are some photos from the web. We didn’t get to see it. You have to arrange a tour ahead of time.
