538 km to Santiago de Compostela
The albergue de San Anton, where we stayed last night is a restored pilgrims hospital from the XVI century. There is so much history everywhere around here.
As usual we were ready at 7:30 am, looking for breakfast we found the only place open was "el Pajaro", the bird, the truck stop. But the only breakfast was coffee, packaged donuts or buns and orange juice.
The montes de Oca were famous in the middle ages because of the bandits that assaulted all the pilgrims crossing this mountains. We were happy to learn they are all gone.
The first half hour we climbed 200 metres in just 1.5 km of very steep hills but the views were amazing. We could see clearly the snowed peaks of the Sierra de Millan. The morning was cloudy and cool, around 6C, and very windy. The vegetation changed over quickly to evergreen woods. Everything around was
beautiful.
After the Alto de Mojapan, the way was a bit easier but still with more hills. Soon we arrived to the monument of the fallen, Monumento de los caidos, here, in 1936, during the Spanish civil war, 300 men were executed by firing squad. During the construction of a highway a mass grave was discovered. A sad spot in el Camino.
From there, there are 8.5 km of evergreen woods, a nice mountain walk (and more hills) to San Juan de Ortega.
San Juan de Ortega was a disciple of Santo Domingo de la Calzada, he continued the work of Santo Domingo to facilitate the way for pilgrims. He build bridges, roads and albergues from Nájera to Burgos. In the XII century, he build a monastery and a church in the town which has his name. His tomb is in the church, a simple stone casket.
We finished the day a few kilometres down the road in the town of Ages. We are now a short distance from the town and the archeological zone of Atapuerca. Pretty exciting. I will explain tomorrow. And we expect to get to Burgos tomorrow night.
San Juan de Ortega, pray for us.
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