30th April 2024 Belorado to San Juan de Ortega

We woke up reasonably early and headed out the door as we were going to grab a coffee in Tostanos, 5km away.  We wandered through the streets of Belorado, past Cuatro Cantones where I stayed last time and past more murals until we got to the outskirts of the town.  There was an interesting sign saying in 15 steps you should look back, which of course we did, and there was a really lovely mural on the side of a building.

On we went and we could see snow-capped mountains in front of us until we turned away and they then sat over our left shoulder for some time.  It certainly felt like the wind was coming straight down from them. The sun was shining so that always helps as the cold sometimes seems to just get into your bones and makes you wish you were sitting in front of a roaring fire.  It was about 3 degrees and my face was tingling so the neck ruff came up and over my ears, the back of my hat and over my nose.  I had learned again that ruffs got wet when over your mouth and nose so I was wearing two today.  It didn’t really matter that one got wet (and cold) as the other one was keeping my neck nice and warm. 

We got to Tostanos and stopped in a lovely little café, part of an albergue, where there were clean toilets and a warm spot inside out of the wind and had coffees and a couple of pieces of cold toast with jam!  Surprising but I don’t mind cold toast although something hot would have been nice.  We pushed on and saw the Ermita Nuestra Señora de la Peña / Hermitage of our Lady of the Mount to our right (on the northern side of the village).  I would have loved to go up there as it is an amazing structure but we were on a time frame but it is a troglodyte church containing a Romanesque statue of the Virgin Mary, La Virgin de la Peña, which is carried in procession down to the village church every May and back up to the mountain in September.

On we headed, feeling good, through a few villages until the village of Villafranca Montes de Oca was in sight and we went passed the Ermita de San Felices a los pies Del Camino de Santiago – one of three surviving religious buildings in this area.  The building stands quite dilapidated to the northeast of the town, next to the Camino. The foundation for this Ermita dates to about 863 and there was originally a monastery near here too.  The history is that Count Diego Rodríguez, who was a later founder of Burgos – donated to the monastery, churches and estates.  Tradition, and some say speculation only, states that the Count is buried here.  Who knows?

We stopped in the town and ate at a cute little bar to re-fuel and finally were introduced to a British man, Anthony, who we have seen and said “Hi” to for the last week or so.  Turns out he has been staying pretty much where we have been staying.  It is his third Camino Frances.  He will be staying in San Juan in the same hotel as us, so we made a tentative plan to catch up a bit later as he seemed a very interesting man.  He headed off and we finished our lunch and began tackling the hill behind the town. 

This part of the Camino many years ago was a dangerous place for a pilgrim as the forest was infested with robbers hidden by the dense foliage.  The town itself is an interesting one as it dates to the Roman (Auca) and then Visigoth (Oca)eras.  It later became very important and was made the episcopal seat before that moved to Burgos resulting in the rapid decline of the town. 

It was a long steady climb up through the forest with a few stops for breath (good opportunity for photos too) until we made it to the summit where there is a monument dedicated to the victims of a massacre during the civil war, the inscription reads: No fue inútil su muerte, fue inútil su fusilamiento / Their death wasn't in vain, their execution was.  A mass grave containing the bodies of 60 people was found here.

The Montes de Oca are part of a range of mountains and are part of the watershed between the Atlantic and Mediterranean. There are masses of oak, juniper and ash trees and apparently there are a lot of deer and wild boar that live here in addition to otters, wildcats, foxes, badgers and wolves.  We didn’t see anything apart from some beautiful songbirds and it was lovely to just stop and listen for a while.

There had been a lot of rain so the path was quite muddy in places, but we picked our way around and came to a donativo where we got some strawberries and some extra water before heading off again towards San Juan de Ortega.  On the way in we passed lots of chickens and roosters before heading into the Romanesque Monastery where the body of St Juan lies, protected by being fenced off within the building that began in the 12th Century and was added to over the years until the 15th Century. 

For a bit of history - San Juan was a disciple of Santo Domingo and fellow civil engineer. He founded the monastery on his return from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, dedicating the church to San Nicolás de Bari, in gratitude for his safe return. In the Middle Ages San Juan became well-known for his ability to help couples who were having problems conceiving. Even Queen Isabel La Católica came here to pray at his tomb when she was trying to get pregnant. She named two of her five children Juana and Juan.

We headed over to Bar Marcela (where we had to check in) and ran into Anthony who was sitting with a couple of Irish men – Niall and Jerry – married to two sisters.  We stopped for a refreshing drink, said we would see them at 7.30 for dinner then headed to our room to shower and wash our clothes – and maybe even have a nap.

Bar Marcela was pretty full by the time we went back about 7.15 and Anthony, Niall and Jerry had been sitting there drinking all afternoon and were having a philosophical discussion of life.  There were a lot of laughs and we enjoyed their company until well after dinner when we headed back to the hotel across the road. Anthony had a room in our hotel but Niall and Jerry didn’t so they were trying to get a taxi to get them back to Villafranca Montes de Oca and it was pretty much impossible.  We hoped they would be ok.