Wynette Richards – Page 2 – WynChar Camino 2026

May 3: Travel Day, Burgos to Palencia

(Written on May 5.)

So, given my illness, what were our plans for after I got well? We had originally planned to spend a week in Zamora after we finished this year’s Camino in Sahagún on May 6. We had the option to cancel the Zamora plan and spend that week finishing the Camino. When I got sick, we had to cancel all our upcoming reservations for hotels, etc. At this point, private rooms on the Camino were scarce. It wasn’t at all clear we’d be able to get accommodations at short notice except for bunk bed albergues. And Charlie and I had decided … no more of those.

I was feeling a lot better by the 3rd. It was looking like soon I’d be able to start walking again. But … because of the accommodation problem we reluctantly decided that it would be best to not try to finish. I was really disappointed. Already feeling nostalgia for our daily walks in the pretty countryside and through the little towns, never having to retrace our steps. Getting into a delightful town and into our accommodation for the night. Making brief connections with the pilgrims and locals along the way. But then we thought about scrambling to find places to stay. We probably made the right decision but it made me very sad.

We decided to leave Burgos and come to Palencia for a few days. It is a medium sized city (77,000). We rented an Airbnb for 4 nights in Palencia and then we will move on on Thursday to spend the planned week in Zamora.

So, May 3 was a travel day. We didn’t have to leave our Burgos hotel till noon so we (1) had another good breakfast at the hotel, (2) walked the Camino to the edge of Burgos and back (about 4 miles round trip, much of it through a neat park), (3) packed up and then took a taxi to the train station, (5) took a train to Palencia, (6) got into our Airbnb, (7) took a walk around Palencia and were awestruck by the huge and pretty cathedral — third largest in Spain!

Where the Camino leaves Burgos (looking back into Burgos park). There was a scene in the movie *The Way* at this spot, we think.

We are just starting to see storks. There are two in this photo. Can you find them? Look up, look down.

Magpie on the Burgos walk. We hear it is bad luck if you only see one (and not two).

River in Palencia. The whitish stuff on the water is “cotton” from the trees. We found out it was from poplar trees, also called Alamos. In other words, cottonwoods! The trees don’t look like the cottonwoods in Albuquerque but the cotton coming out of the trees and filling the air does!

May 1 and May 2: Two more sick days in Burgos

(This post written on May 4, several days later.)

Yep, that illness was not going away!! I didn’t feel up to moving on on the camino and we had to be out of our great apartment. It was May 1 which is Labor Day in Spain. Terrible timing! It was a 3-day holiday weekend in a popular Spanish tourist destination city. Hotels were either booked up or very expensive. But we did find a comfortable place to stay for 361 euros for 2 nights, including breakfast. A lot more than we usually pay in Spain, but not outrageous, at least by USA and other European country standards.

Of course, nearly everything except bars and restaurants were closed on May 1 as well and I was still running a fever and it seemed I had developed a sinus infection and conjunctivitis. The AI was screaming “see a doctor!” Luckily, when I asked the AI where to find a doctor in Burgos on Labor Day, the AI told me that Spain has great on-line telehealth services. I did some research and ended up contacting virtualclinica.com. It was great. Fast and inexpensive (35 euros). I reported my symptoms and did a video call with a doctor and he prescribed antibiotic pills and eye drops and decongestant. We found a pharmacy that was open (every city has at least one that is open no matter what). Total cost for all three prescriptions: 12 euros. Health care is affordable in Spain!

We moved to the hotel, Crisol Mesón del Cid, which is next to the famous Burgos cathedral. We stayed there May 1 and 2 and I rested and we tried to figure out the rest of our trip.

Plaza, cathedral on the left, our hotel on the right, not shown

View from our hotel room. Can you see the farm land in the not-far distance? That is where the Camino was headed, where the famous meseta begins, and we weren’t on it!

View of the cathedral from the hotel breakfast room

Breakfast buffet. You name it, they had it.

Behind the cathedral. I liked this scene. Burgos is a pretty city.

April 29 and 30: Sick Days in Burgos

I’ve been sick. A lot of fever every day and a runny nose that just won’t stop. It sure is hanging on. I’ve spent most of the last two days in bed. Charlie has been so nice to me. He’s made a few trips to the farmacia and several for groceries. He did manage to get out to see the incredible Burgos cathedral (which we toured in 2013) and to visit the Museum of Human Evolution.

We are glad we are in such a nice comfortable apartment. We called this morning to see if it was available for us to stay an extra day and it was! We got charged for our cancelled reservation in Rabe where we had planned to be tonight (April 30), but it was worth it to have another day to recuperate. I just hope this will end soon! Since we have reserved all our alojamiento (lodging) for this Camino, we’ll have to skip walking to Rabe. Another taxi tomorrow, no matter what.

View from one of our 11th floor apartment windows. Pretty much all I’ve seen of Burgos the past two days. Most people in Spain live in apartments like the one we are in. Here you can see several hundred of them.

April 28: Travel Day Atapuerca to Burgos

Miles walked: about 4, all around Burgos

It was clear I had caught a bug so we scratched all plans for walking and took a taxi from Atapuerca to Burgos. I told Charlie we need to call this “The Taxi Camino.”

We got to Burgos around 9:30 but couldn’t get into our apartment until 3:00. We filled that time having breakfast in a great bar (Boston), going to the Post Office to pick up a package we’d cached here, walking to a pharmacy for a covid test, going to another bar for coffee, going for raman noodles at a Japanese place (ok, not great). I was starting to fade but made it through all that. The covid test was negative. Yay!

When we finally got to our apartment, which we had reserved for two nights, I crashed. Lovely comfortable beds. Great roomy apartment.

Over the years we’ve stayed in a number of Spanish apartments. They, without fail have a very roomy entry way. This is by far the smallest entry way we’ve seen. But, I think it’s cute.

April 27: Travel and Walking Day, Villafranca Montes de Oca to Atapuerca

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.

The albergue kitchen. Charlie made us some coffee before we left in the morning. Some of the other pilgrims used the kitchen to make a big pasta dish for a group dinner.

April 26: Walking Day, Belorado to Villafranca Montes del Oca

Miles walked: 8.2

Cumulative total: 139.5

Flights of stairs equivalent climbed: 17

Pleasant easy walk today, cold at the beginning, warm at the end. Went through several charming little towns.

We had breakfast in the small village of Tosantos. I’m mainly bringing this up because I love that name: Tosantos. The bar there seemed like it was set up in someone’s house and was run by three or four very young people. Barely in their 20s, I think. Our order of fried eggs and toast really confounded them and they spent a long time trying to figure out what we wanted and then how to charge us since it wasn’t on their regular menu. They were very serious and discussed it together for a long time.

Villafranca Montes de Oca is a small town but as usual with an impressive church.

This was a feared point in the medieval pilgrimage to Santiago because it is at the beginning of the Montes de Oca (Goose Mountains) which were plagued by bandits and robbers.

We wanted to stay in the super nice and historic hotel here (where we stayed in 2014) but there was no vacancy when I was making reservations a few months ago. So we are in Pension y Bar Ivis which, despite 4.3 review on Google, is not great (soft beds, ouch). We decided to hang out in the bar/meson at the other end of town. (The only other place in town open.) A busy place full of locals out for Sunday lunch.

Just outside Belorado. Gronze called this little park one of the nicest spots on the Camino. It was very nice but we didn’t stop.

Iglesia de Santiago Apóstol in Villafranca. Some descriptions said it was Romanesque and some said it was built in 18th century. So … I am confused.

April 25: Travel and Walking Day, Santo Domingo to Belorado

Miles walked: 8.8

Cumulative miles walked: 131.3

Flights of stairs climbed: 15 (many more than that downhill)

We did the same today as yesterday to make our walk the length we enjoy, i.e., we took a taxi to cut the 13 miles to about 7.

Walked about 3 miles and came to one of the best bars ever, in Villamayor del Rio (“main village of the river”).

We loved the bar because: they made our fried eggs and toast with a smile, coffee was amazing, the bar appeared just when we really wanted to stop, it was decorated with flags reminding me of my dorky hobby of learning geography including country flags. Mostly it reminded me how many I’ve forgotten since I haven’t been doing my flashcards while on the Camino. Believe it or not, we stay too busy! Sometimes we are busy resting, but … It’s gotta be done.

When we were leaving the bar I told the people running the bar and kitchen how much we liked the coffee and they beamed and told us “it is Colombian coffee.” The cups said “Candelas” brand.

The walk itself? Well, there was maybe a mile that was quite nice. But all the rest was on a wide path that followed just feet from a busy, noisy highway. It was pretty country and beautiful weather, but that traffic noise is tiring, probably our least favorite walking day. (The part we missed in the taxi was along the highway, too. The true pilgrims endured that the full 13 miles.)

After we got into our place for the night in Belorado (Hostal Punto B), we went for lunch. The best meal we’ve had so far. More about that in a separate post!

Now, true to routine, we are in the bar across from our hotel blogging and listening to music. American blues mostly. Very nice.

Part of the walk today that was not along the busy highway

Inside the best bar ever: Albergue Bar Tienda Villamayor.

I was skeptical this would be a place for breakfast because it was called “Tienda” on Google maps. That means “store”. Turned out it was a store, too. This shelf was its entire stock. But enough to make dinner in an albergue kitchen.

Leaving the bar/tienda. Side entrance. The owners probably live upstairs.

A statue in Villamayor del Rio: Santo Domingo with the famous Santo Domingo chickens. Read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santo_Domingo_de_la_Calzada_Cathedral Note: we tried to go into the cathedral yesterday, but it was temporarily closed. I’d love to see those chickens but probably never will.

Shortly before we arrived in Belorado we ran into this cheerful young pilgrim we had walked with briefly two or three days ago. He’s German. I asked him what city he was from and he said Leipzig and added that Leipzig was in eastern Germany and had been in East Germany when that existed. He then added that he was born 10 days after the wall came down. He said that when the wall came down, his mother was so pregnant with him that she wasn’t able to leave her house to celebrate and go to the other side. She was fearful it would not last and they’d be walled up again before she had a chance to cross.

April 24: Travel and Walking Day, Nájara to Santo Domingo de la Calzada

Miles walked: 6.7

Cumulative miles walked: 122.5

Stairs climbed equivalence: 0 (but lots of fairly steep downhill). We are on the 4th floor in our hotel but (yay!) there is an elevator, so I won’t get any stair walking in at the hotel. However, Charlie is taking the stairs!

Santo Domingo de la Calzada, where we are tonight, might be translated Santo Domingo of the Road. Or perhaps Saint Sunday of the Road.

The 13 miles between Nájara and Santo Domino was more than we semi-pilgrims wanted to do, so from our hotel this morning we headed for the taxi stand by the bus stop, got a taxi, and asked him to take us to a point 7 miles along the Camino.

The point where we asked him to let us off was a place we remembered from being here in 2013 and 2014: a large golf course surrounded by hundreds (thousands?) of condominiums of various styles. In 2013, only 5 years after the 2008 economic collapse that was devastating to Spain, this place was a ghost town. Before the collapse, there had been a huge building boom in Spain but then the money ran out and we saw so many deserted constructions sites then. This place was one of them and was particularly shocking to us. So, we were curious to see it 13 years later. We were glad to see it is no longer a ghost town. Most of the condos looked like they were being maintained pretty well. I asked the taxi driver about it and he said it’s usually fairly empty this time of the year but in the summer it fills up. So, it is now a vacation destination for Spaniards, because of the golf course. Here is the video Charlie made about it in 2013: https://photos.app.goo.gl/jAUUPEjnhH53Z6JR8

Condos by the golf course today. There’s even a cute little playground and a swimming pool.

A steady stream of peregrinos walking into Santo Domingo

The classic Camino photo. I particularly love this part of the walk. Strangely, though we are still in La Rioja, no vineyards today, which is fine with me!

For the sake of truth in advertising, we do walk through some places like this, industrial area before getting into town.

But Santo Domino, population 6400, is a vibrant little town. This is in front of the bar where we are now blogging.

Here’s the inside. We walked around town a while to find this bar — looking for one with good music and this is a winner! We love blogging and listening to good music. Today, an interesting mixture of American and Spanish pop music, seems mostly from the 80s. Love is All Around (Wet Wet Wet), Like a Prayer (Madonna), I Was Made for Loving You (Kiss), I Will Love Again (Lara Fabian), I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Whitney Houston), Friends Will Be Friends (Queen) can be perfect if you are in the right mood. The bartender has been singing along. The Spanish seem to really like American music. Who can blame them?

We really like our hotel: Rey Pedro I. She proudly showed us some exposed wall in the sitting room downstairs — part of the city wall from the 14th century.

And on a sad note. We thought we’d switch things up and have Indian food at the place next to our hotel. Disappointing food, but the sad part was what was showing on the TV while we ate. It’s hard to get away from the depressing news. Here is the Spanish president responding to Trump’s attempt to get Spain out of NATO.

To give you an idea of the bar culture in Spain. In Google maps I typed in “bar near me” and this is what I got. We checked out about half these bars looking for the one with the right music! Kind of embarrassing just poking your head in the door and then leaving, but worth it. Most places just had televisions going. As Charlie mentioned in a previous post, bars here are really community gathering places. At least three I poked my head into had old men gathered around a table playing card games. Currently there is a family in the table next to us with a child. These are really tapas and coffee bars that happen to also sell alcohol. You rarely see heavy drinking in Spain. Public drunkenness meets strong disapproval. PS. The red line at the top of the map is the Camino. It goes through the old town and misses a lot of the vibrancy of Santo Domingo. However, it is a camino stage town so I’m sure many pilgrims explore the town well.

April 23: Walking Day, Navarrete to Nájara.

Miles walked: 10.7 (a little over a mile of that has been around Nájara).

Total miles walked to date: 115.8

Flights of stairs climbed (equivalence): only 22

We were on the trail by a little before 7:00 this morning. The earliest we’ve gotten out, I think. Trying to beat the heat. It’s been unseasonably warm here. Highs in the 80s. Very hot in the sun. However, it wasn’t quite so hot today (76) and there was a brisk wind so we were actually kind of cold. No complaints!!

We met a nice couple from Ottawa, Canada, today who matched our pace pretty well. We ended up eating breakfast together in Ventosa, about 4 miles from the beginning of the walk. They were excited to learn about ordering fried eggs and toast. (It took us quite a while of camino-ing to realize we could ask for things not advertised on any menu. They hadn’t yet realized that.)

So, it was a mostly typical day on the Camino: up, walk, breakfast, walk, get to our town, find our hotel, be told it’s too early to check in but we can leave our pack, go to find a place for lunch, eat a nice menu del dia, go back to the hotel to check in, get to our room, unpack a bit, rest a bit, shower, rest some more (maybe even take a nap), set up pack transfer for tomorrow, go out for a stroll, look for a bar and have a light supper snack, blog. Soon we’ll go to bed, hopefully sleep well, and start it again tomorrow. Good thing we like this routine.

Two out-of-routine things did happened. (1) I’ve gotten a pretty bad blister on my little toe. So a visit to a farmacia for some mole skin to pad it (recommendation from my new Canadian friend as we were commiserating about our blisters). And (2) Charlie’s neat foldable hat blew off his head while we were crossing a bridge and it fell into the river. Irretrievable.

One more photo of where we stayed last night in Navarrete. Charlie walking up the steps to our albergue after we were done with blogging.

Leaving Navarette this morning. We had a cat join us for a while.

We’ve already walked alongside miles of vineyards. La Rioja is famous for its wines. And often when we see vineyards, nearby will be an olive grove. In the above photo, grapes on the right, olives on the left, and pilgrims piling up in the middle.

Can you spot Charlie’s hat? It doesn’t look irretrievable in this photo but there was quite a bit of water flowing on both sides of the river. He dropped it near a little island in the mddle.

Poor little hat seen from above through telephoto lens.

The Zia Symbol

We have the following patch on Charlie’s backpack — the pack we carry on the Camino with things we need for the day.

I had it on my back pack the past few caminos. Over the years we’ve had a few people stop us who recognized the Zia symbol. It happened again today. We were sitting in front of our albergue drinking coffee and a woman came up and said “I saw your Zia symbol”. She then held out her arm to show us her tattoo.

She said she grew up in Santa Fe and her father still lives there. She moved to France when she was 20 and has lived there ever since. (She looked to be 40 to 45.) She said she had met 3 people on the Camino this year who are from Albuquerque. We haven’t met any (other) New Mexicans yet.