The mother horse, tied up with another kind of prison in the background

Route segment: 14

Tuesday 10th October 2000

Today they are all still there in the refuge and agree to go find a shop and some coffee. We don’t get away until nearly 11
o’clock and I walk for the first time with the French Girls To “Hornillos Del Camino“. The path today takes us through mostly
wheat fields and I do not expect to see many trees but the first thing we come to of course is a small wood! The trees here
have obviously been deliberately planted as they are all in neat rows:-

The well laid out wood

There is a very attractive horse here and Margaux wants to make friends with it:-

The young horse

This horse is completely free to wander around and I begin to wonder why it is not tied up since most other animals I have
seen in Spain have been. I look around and I spot the mother, tied to a long rope. The young horse is not going to go very
far and I feel that I dislike the person the horses belong to for using this fact. There is also a large prison here and the
contrast between the foal and the prison is memorable.

We eventually leave the young horse behind and cross over onto the main road. There is a bridge here and the main two rivers of the region, the “Rio Ubierna” and the “Arlanzon” meet here. The “Arlanzon” is the river, which flows through the middle of “Burgos” and there it was so clear that there were full grown fish over a foot long swimming in it.

But where the rivers meet here, there is a horrendous stink and it is obvious that the farmlands we have passed through are the likely causes. I am very sad that they have polluted such a clean river and the people of “Burgos” are probably unaware of what has happened or don’t care:-

This picture does not convey the stink there was here !!

We eventually get to the village of “Tardajos” and there is a small refuge here. The girls stop here for lunch and they want to see the inside of the refuge so we end up staying here until three in the afternoon. This is typical for them and is the main reason I suspect that they are always so late in arriving at refuges. They are in no hurry to get anywhere.

The refuge at “Tarjados”

After lunch and viewing the refuge we head onto “Rabe De Las Calzadas“. There is a fountain here and they stop to drink the water from it. They linger and Ophelia starts playing with the water. I suspect a little mischief is brewing and as she starts to direct water in my direction I decide it is time to go. There is also a very peculiar sculpture here:-

A weird sculpture

There is a strong wind developing and I remember reading in a Camino book somewhere that it is characteristic for this region due to the lack of trees. I look up sometime later and am amused to see the two of them holding hands:-

Good friends these, they say it helps them walk !

The wind is starting to hold me back and the two of them disappear ahead of me. But I am only ten minutes behind them when we reach “Hornillos Del Camino”. The refuge here is a modern one on two levels and the entrance is on the upper level. Thierry is here and all’s right with the world.