Back in the big city

Today we walked 20km from Atapuerca to Burgos, a big city just at the start of the Meseta (or plains). Another glorious day weather-wise!

We made our way out of Atapuerca, with an immediate but short climb over a small mountain and then a long downhill walk toward the city of Burgos. We could see it in the distance as soon as we hit the top of the mountain, and it seemed pretty close. But it still took five hours to walk to our hotel in downtown.

Today we walked with our pilgrim friends from Arizona who stayed at our same hotel last night and had dinner with, and they were headed to the same hotel as us today. The long trek through the outskirts (industrial section) of Burgos was made more pleasant by following the extensive park system that ran parallel to the Rio Arlanzon for most of the last 8km to our hotel. Otherwise we would have been walking alongside a freeway much of the time.

After a much needed shower and rest, we had a beer with the others then went in search of an udon fix at Udon Asian Food. It was such a nice switch in cuisine! We stuffed ourselves with gyoza, chicken udon, mochi and a beer.

After that we headed to the famous gothic Burgos Catedral de Santa Maria. It is hard to describe just how enormous and ornate this place was. At least twice the size and opulence as the one in Santo Domingo. It was initially built in the 1200’s but was added onto and embellished over the next several hundred years. The architecture alone is mind-boggling, how the huge arched ceiling and pillars could be built without modern technology. And then there is the artwork - the beautiful paintings (even one by Leonardo da Vinci), the marble and stone carvings with intricate detail of faces and clothing, the elaborate ceilings depicting so many religious figures and scenes, the silver and gold ceremonial objects. It’s crazy to think of the cost and labor that went into all of it.

After the visit to the catedral, we made our way to the Museo de la Evolucion Humana to see the extensive exhibit on the archeological site in Atapuerca. Truly fascinating to learn about the finding of human remains from 1.5 million years ago and learn how they lived. There is evidence that some these earliest humans were cannibals - either because of need/opportunity or ritualistic reasons. The museum also displayed how different human species evolved in the region, from hunters and gatherers to farmers to animal husbandry. As new tools and knowledge were applied to food procurement and production - use of sharpened bits of rock, discovery of fire and the wheel, etc - the society of these humans evolved to be more sedentary (in the sense that they didn’t have to move with the herds or move on when they had exhausted the resources of a particular area). Thus nomadic tribes turned into villages and towns. All over hundreds of thousands of years. Fascinating lesson in the evolution of humans.

Exhausted from our walk and history lessons, we headed back to the hotel for the night. Too tired for a proper dinner, had a bag of Cheetos and part of an apple.

Tomorrow, we begin the much-maligned Meseta. Many kilometers of nothing but wheat fields and not much else. Lots of time for reflection.