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Day 13
Although probably not that unusual in July or August on the Camino, we discovered yesterday evening that there were no beds available in San Juan de Ortega, our intended destination for today. With the full realization of our pending difficult 16 mile hike, no one was too interested in extending it to the next town. OUR SOLUTION: take a cab from San Juan de Ortega to Burgos, 16 miles away. Book a room for two nights in Burgos, and then take a taxi back to San Juan de Ortega early Thursday morning and complete our walk back to Burgos. “Necessity is the mother of invention'” – and it sure beats spending the night in the woods. The first half of the day was very scenic and relatively easy. We left our alburgue just outside Belorado before 8:00am. Our route took us through rolling hills to the small village of Tosantos, three miles away. We had hoped to have breakfast there, but saw nothing open. An unexpected highlight, however, was the view of Ermita de la Virgen de la Pena as we passed by the town. What appeared to be a chapel carved in the side of a cliff was truly amazing. We later discovered that 800 years ago a woman, known as La Ermita ministered to passing pilgrims from a cave in the side of the cliff. A chapel was later erected in the cave opening in her honor and once a year the inhabitants of Tosantos take the path to the cave in the cliff and give thanks to God, Santa Maria, and La Ermita for blessing their town. From Tosantos we passed through the small villages of Villambistia and Espinosa del Camino, before arriving in Villafranca Montes de Oca. From there things got much more difficult, as in our next 2 miles we climbed continuously for over 800 feet to the top of a mountain ridge. We followed the crest of the mountain for about three miles where we unexpectedly found an Oasis. Over several years a lady had built a very clever rest stop, equipped with hammocks, benches, etc – in the middle of nowhere. She also had food and drinks – a much-needed stop before our last mile, straight downhill, dropping several hundred feet into San Juan de Ortega.
Day 13
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