Hornillos del Camino-Castrojeriz

To Santiago 470 Kms

(Distance 21 Kms // Time walking 4 hours and 20 minutes)

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_{It is almost six o’clock when we quit the hostel. Before leaving we drink a cup of milk that, I do not know if I already mentioned it, the boss prepared the night before for pilgrims.}

_{Quails chirp and the field smells of dry cereal. They have hardly started to harvest. At once we overtake the two American women I spoke to the day before. We only say good morning, we fancy going alone.}

_{There is small hostel with a chapel in Arroyo San Bol. Walkers can have a coffee there. We do not stop. We go up to the moorland again. The plain, plenty of yellow grain, reaches as far as you can see and it is wet yellow, matt yellow and heavy yellow at such small hours in the morning.}

_{Hontanas almost suddenly looms up from the ground. We go down from the moors to the village and we enter the first open tavern we find. It is Vitoriano’s tavern, one of the most squalid places we have seen in the Camino. However, Vitoriano is talkative and solicitous towards pilgrims, besides, he can drink wine from a porrón* or a botillo* pouring the wine on his forehead. This is a very notorious skill of which not many people can boast.}

_{Vitoriano is not very friendly towards the people who manage the pilgrims’ hostels in Hornillos and Hontanas. He says that the first one should not charge pilgrims 500 pesetas because he already receives an amount of money from the Castilla-Leon Government, and the second one is in league with the swimming-pool bar’s owner, where he sends pilgrims who want to have a meal, and thus humble Victoriano’s tavern is at a disadvantage.}

_{We tell Victoriano that the money collected by the Hornillos hostel manager is for the town council, according to his wife’s testimony and, besides, they gave us a glass of milk in the morning.}

_{Vitoriano answers that this money story being for the town council is all cock-and-bull and, what is more, if they are receiving 20.000 pesetas a day from pilgrims, not to mention the amount that Castilla-Leon gives them, they can jolly well afford to give some milk to pilgrims, so they can.}

_{We leave Hontanas walking along a path where we can see how rabbits run. A viper*, frightened away by our tread and chatter, disappears into the weeds on the right side of the path. We walk this bit of the Camino, to Castrojeriz, with Fernando and Javier. We met them at Hontanas’ swimming-pool bar when we were quitting the village.}

_{The pilgrims take a picture of themselves below San Anton’s convent arches. A small cycling tour (Xacobea, of course) overtakes us. We notice they are very well organized because all of them zoom past us looking terribly serious and solemn. Only the last one, by delegation, says: « Good Camino ! »}

_{Paca and I remember that there are four horseshoes nailed on the Collegiata Church main door in Castrojeriz. Ten years ago, when we visited this place for the first time, a local cicerone told us that the horseshoes were put there by Santaigo’s horse when it jumped from the castle to the church in one spectacular jump. Fernando and Javier split their sides laughing. In spite of their laughing, the anecdote is true.}

_{When we arrive in Castrojeriz we visit the Colegiata Church and stamp our credentials. Fernando and Javier check that the four horseshoes are in their place. In the Colegiata people tell us the hostel opens at one o’clock p.m. It is eleven o’clock and a lot of pilgrims at his door are waiting for the hostel to be opened. Paca and I leave Fernando and Javier and lodge in the Hostal El Meson.}

_{At one o’clock Castrojeriz offers the peculiar Castillian weather for this date and time of day. People look for shade, they want to sit under the shade, stick to the shade, and tuck it under their arms.}

_{Before having lunch we buy a shampoo bottle for all of us (nobody likes carrying a half-kilo bottle), we use it and we give it to Fernando, Pepe and Javier. We also write and send two post cards from Castrojeriz, one for Ramiro who is in Villanueva de Alcoron, another to the Bar El Trebol in Guadalajara. We have lunch with our mates in El Meson. In the evening we have a drink with Fernando and Pepe. By the way, Pepe had to buy a new transistor in Castrojeriz because the one he had was stolen. Someone took it while Pepe was having breakfast in a bar. Thieves do not rest, you know.}

_{Paca and I have dinner in the same place we had lunch. We go to bed at ten o’clock.}

_{*porrón.- a glass vessel with a pointed long spout.}

_{*botillo.- A wineskin with a long spout.}

_{*viper.- A small poisonous snake.}

Stage 13 Stage 14