Day 16 or Huelgas Reales Found

Notes on day 16, March 11th, Burgos to Hornillos del Camino



I was not in a hurry to leave my hotel this morning. I stopped at the Cathedral for a last, lingering, incredulous look, and when I finally did hit the grassy trail leading out of Burgos, I met up with some of the Germans. Corina and I began chatting immediately, falling effortlessly into conversation just like we did the night before. But when we reached the end of the park, the Germans turned right, and I turned left.



There was a monastery I wanted to see, and after missing the one at Cenas I thought I would double my efforts to find this one. My guidebook is on my naughty list right now for giving utterly vague directions that got me lost when the monastery was really pathetically easy to find, and I gained an extra 2 km out of the misdirected hunt, thank you Mr. guidebook author, sir.



It is the Monasterio de las Huelgas Reales in a small village outside of Burgos. I entered under the medieval archway and for twenty enchanting and sneaky minutes I poked around undetected and took pictures. But when I tried to squeak through a closed gate, a security guard stopped me. I apologized for my snooping and asked him if the monastery was in fact closed. He told me to wait 15 minutes and it would open.



So I waited, and when it finally did open, I was the only tourist on this expansive campus, and check this: I scored a private tour! :) And check this: it was in Spanish. :( But Ana, my tour guide, spoke slowly enough and used enough hand gestures that I actually followed her pretty decently. See, these past two weeks in Spain I have been collecting Spanish words like a bee gathers nectar, a little bit here, a little bit there. Sweet morsels of understanding. And so when Ana explained to me about the batalla (battle) of Toledo, the Mozarabic parts of the monastery that were from the Siglo doce (twelfth century), and the Christian Romanesque bits that were from the Siglo trece (thirteenth century), I understood! Once again, I am a badass.



The 12th century cloister was sublime. It was a teensy affair, with delicate double columned arches. Each capital was carved differently but just as intricately as the last. It is officially my favorite cloister in all of Spain thus far, and all I wanted to do was sit and read a romance novel or some transcendentalist poetry in its grassy center.



The collection of tombs in the three naves was straight out of a scene from Lord of the Rings (I don´t remember if there was a scene with a bunch of tombs in that movie, but if there was, I am sure it would´ve looked like this).



The monastery also contains a medieval fabrics museum. I swoon over antique garments people, and these were the oldest I have ever seen. The funerary garments of Eleanor of Angleterre from 1244 were on display, and I had trouble containing myself. The oldest dress I had ever seen was the silver tissue court dress from the 1570´s at the costume museum in Bath, England. But these clothes were 300 years older, phenomenal, rare, and evocative.

In all I spent two hours at the monastery with Ana, which meant I was getting a very late start on the road, but Huelgas Reales was such a divine place, a living monastery with such out of contrl treasures, and so beautifully preserved, that I could not help but be completely adrenalized for the rest of my hike. And I thought how fateful it was that I missed the detour to the monastery at Cenas, and how fortunate it was that I found this one instead.



And later on the trail ran through a little village where I stopped in a little shop for some groceries and supplies, and I exercised my vocabulary even more by pointing to the fruits and vegetables I wanted and naming them like an eager first year Spanish student. The shop keeper asked me where I was from (Estados Unitos), which state, and how close Georgia was to where Hurricane Katrina hit. She asked me if I was alone (solamente) on the Camino and when I said si, she looked surprised. I didn´t know how to say I got divorced in Spanish so I mimed taking a ring off my left hand and chucking it in the trash. ¨Ahhhhh,¨ she said as realization dawned and she laughed. ¨Buen Camino!¨ she called as I took my leave.



And in the evening when I reached the albergue (which was less than 10 meters from the 14th century iglesia), in Hornillos del Camino, the gaggle of Germans had already settled in and begun their binge drinking. The common room was an absolute Oktoberfest. Peter, who wears suspenders that are so reminiscent of lederhosen he might as well be wearing them, is soooo German he is almost a caracature of a German. He speaks English the way you would speak English if you were making fun of a German speaking English. And he speaks German that way too. He pronounces his vowel sounds with that swooping, over-the-top musicality, and he punches his consonants with oooompf. He and some Korean guy I have not seen before and can only describe as an utter spaz spent the evening singing Stevie Wonder and Fleetwood Mac songs. I guess it just goes to prove that you can take the man out of the beer hall, but you can´t take the beer hall out of the man.

I stepped outside to call family, and the wind was warm and the night sky was covered with stars and high blue-grey clouds. I sat alone for a while on the church square overlooking the town and the countryside and listened to the laughter and singing from the Germans inside the ancient albergue. ¨Look where I am,¨ I thought. ¨Look where I am.¨