The walk to the village of Catrojeriz (“judge’s camp”), once a walled medieval village, was largely uneventful except for the most beautiful sunrise I’ve seen in a long time…
Just before arriving to the village, the camino passes right through the ruins of the 15th century convention, San Anton…
And then walking up to Castrojeriz I was taken back by the castle ruins on the mountain top, with the later gothacized, originally Romanesque church building at the foot of the mountain as I entered town…
I also noticed one of the recurring religious motifs here on the camino where by folks pick up and pile stones, the quintessential act being at the Cruz de Ferr where one is supposed to leave a stone with their name on it.
Most of these motifs are echos of mankind’s struggle with sin and it’s accompanying guilt. Of course, the camino itself is originally catholic a rite of penance, dotted with acts that symbolize the removal of guilt or stated more secularly, “the laying down of burdens.”
Here are a few burdens laid at the entrance to town…
I also decided to buy lunch at the local market vs the bar next to albergue where I noticed that there is a local market protocol… the shopkeeper customer relationship is personal and rooted in community where the shop keeper accommodates the apparent impulsive buying of their client, which is actually the clients enjoying a more full customer service experience where the keeper knows exactly what is in their motley array of goods… and while they work together to close the purchase, they catch up on the village news… I learned about a current funeral, an up and coming wedding, and the various plans that each grandmother has to keep her grandchildren busy over summer break…
After checking into the albergue and running through routine (shower, laundry, lunch, devotional, nap, & blog) I ran into the young seminarians and spent the afternoon touring the various churches before having a quiet dinner by myself…
Around mid-night I was jolted from my bunk by what sounded like canon fire echoing through the stone buildings and the surrounding valley… I could hear the initial blast and then the multiple echos followed by repeated blasts. I finally got up to see that they were celebrating the day of San Juan with plenty of midnight fireworks… not the soft popping ones from back home, but what seemed to be stone shattering blasts.
After shaking off a bit of blast-related PTSD, :), I finally found myself asleep.