Yesterday we met the Vanderbilt Spanish Club on the Camino. They had been walking since Roncesvalles but were about to get on a bus in Santo Domingo that would take them to Burgos. It will take Anne and me three days of walking to cover that distance.
After today’s walk, we are starting to understand why the Spanish Club skipped this part of the Camino. Although there is some great scenery, a lot of the walk today was beside a busy highway. But, as it happened, today was the best day we have had on the Camino.
When we left our hotel this morning in Santo Domingo we passed by a statue dedicated to the peregrinos:
Walking out of town, we passed a small monastery:
We then crossed over the rio Oja:
On the other side of the river we came across what appeared to be a publicly run smog-check station, surrounded by farm land, far from even a medium-sized city:
Out in the countryside, we passed the Cruz de los Valientes, the site of a medieval property dispute that was settled by combat:
The Camino went through the village of Granon, which is in the background:
The church in Granon was open. It has the same ornate woodwork found in the churches and cathedrals that we have seen in this area:
At the top of a hill, we came across a marker identifying the border between La Rioja and Castille-Leon: 
In an earlier post I had referred to La Rioja and Navarre as provinces. They are not. They are autonomous communities, which are larger than Spanish provinces. There are 17 autonomous communities in Spain and two autonomous municipalities. Most of the autonomous regions are subdivided into provinces. We are now in the autonomous region of Castile-Leon, the largest in Spain, in the province of Burgos.
Although there was some great scenery along today’s walk, much of the day was spent walking beside a busy highway:
We put our heads down, resigned ourselves to the walk, and it was over quickly.
Soon we were on the outskirts of Belorado:
We had dinner and then walked over to the main cathedral to see whether there was an evening Mass.
Here is Belorado’s main cathedral:
The door was closed, and we could hear singing coming from inside. There was nothing posted about Mass times.
Not wanting to interrupt, we walked over another church, which was about 50 yards away to see if anything was posted there:
On the door of that church, there was a notice for a 7 o’clock Mass at the cathedral we had just come from, and it was now just about 7:30. We decided to go back and sit in the back of church.
When we walked in, the Mass had just ended, and townspeople were walking out of the cathedral. An older man said something to us in Spanish, put his hand on my shoulder, and pointed us towards a small room off the main chapel. The room was filled with about 20 pilgrims sitting in folding chairs around the sides of the room. In the middle was a priest. Here is a picture of the pilgrims. The priest is in back, in the middle, in a white robe. He is singing, as he was almost constantly while we were there:
The priest handed out sheets of paper with prayers and songs in each pilgrim’s language. He had us sing a song or recite a prayer together, each in our own language. It was a cacophony, perfect for the Friday before Pentecost.
The priest then called out each country represented in the room and asked those from that country to sing a song. The French started. When he called on the United States, Anne and I stood and sang Amazing Grace. Fortunately, it is a song that transcends borders. Everyone there knew Amazing Grace and joined in their own language. It was fortunate that everyone joined in because I was having a hard time singing, and kept from crying only by staring at a woman’s purple tennis shoe. Before we left, we thanked the priest. He put his hands on our heads and prayed for us.
When we left the cathedral, Anne told me that she had been continually tearing up during the pilgrim ceremony. We turned onto an empty street. A old woman walked up from behind us and wished us “vaya con Dios.”
When I woke up this morning, for the first time in a very long time, I remembered a dream. In it was a friend who was stricken with a horrible disease several years ago that has robbed him of almost everything. In my dream his hair had turned silver. I have prayed for him for many years. Not on this trip. I have been praying for another, older friend. But now I will start praying for both of them.
As we were walking along several days ago, I told Anne that I didn’t understand the point of praying. Was I reminding God of something that he had forgotten? Was I convincing him to do something that up to this point he hadn’t seen the wisdom of doing? Anne started to get annoyed. So I stopped.
Too bad I can’s put my questions to the hermits who lived in the cliffs behind Belogrado. But they are long gone, and their caves have been converted into vacation homes:
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