Camino XVII: The Bones of Burgos

July 17, 2025July 17, 2025 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Albergue Casa del Cubo, Burgos. 22.55.

There’s a grumpy old Spanish guy in the bunk below mine. He made a point of asking me earlier if I snored in that direct, you had better not way that Spaniards do (‘No roncas, eh?’). He put the same question to my two companions just before bed. Well, after a couple of rounds of solitaire in his phone, he’s snoring away down there, along with the Koreans in the bunks next door. Like it matters…! You’d have thought a pilgrim might have learned a little patience by Burgos.

We got lucky yesterday. The Albergue in Atapuerca had a room of six beds so we had a room to ourselves, complete with an en suite bathroom. Along the way we’d picked up Gust, a seventeen-year-old Belgian student who was struggling with his blisters, so we took him under our wing for the rest of the day. There weren’t many restaurants in town, so I bought some supplies from the only shop in town (where the Central American shopkeeper was having a great time rapping to a backing track while I browsed the vegetable aisle) and rustled up a rice and vegetable pisto for the six of us. It felt good to cook for company again. It’s been a while.

We set out shortly before sunrise, finding our way up the Sierra de Atapuerca by moonlight. The sun was not yet over the horizon when we crested the hill, and the soundscape was still very much that of the Spanish night: a couple of scops owls called their piping call from the trees, the high-pitched twittering of a bat occasionally caught my ears and, from somewhere far off, the unmistakeable churr of a nightjar.

We stopped for breakfast in Cardeñuela Riopico at the same place I came with Mikkel, Sofia and Lachlan two years ago. It was just as good as it was then, only this time, I allowed myself to stay and eat rather than tearing off harum-scarum for Burgos on my own.

The signs are still defaced all over the place with images of the Star of David equaling a swastika. They’ve tried to cover them up with pilgrim pointers here and there, but the pilgrim preference for the Palestinian cause is obvious.

We reached Burgos early, despite missing the turnoff for the Río Arlanzón alternative (which I maintain is bloody well hidden, as I’ve now missed that turning twice). The result was at least half an hour of trudging through Burgos’ deeply unattractive industrial estate on the eastern side of the city, so we amused ourselves with a protracted game of Just a Minute, at which Talia proved to be a past master.

It was just before eleven when we reached the albergue, which meant we still had an hour to kill, so we took it in turns to do an ice cream run / sightseeing. Gust parted with us to meet up with his brother. We might run into him on the road, or we might not. I hope he looks after his feet – they were in a bad way.

There was a Mexican wedding or quinceañera or some kind of celebration in town, dressed in the decorated black, white and red that could belong to just about any traditional European country – though the loitering mariachis rather gave the game away.

After an afternoon nap (complete with one snoring Spanish hypocrite), I set out to investigate the Museo de la Evolución Humana, one of the world’s best human evolution museums. I managed to convince the team to check it out, but set out ahead of them to take out some money for the meseta stage (where, if memory serves, ATMs are hard to come by).

I’ll be honest with you. Human evolution is one of those things that absolutely fascinates me. In another life I’d have studied anthropology and primatology. Maybe seeing chimpanzees and mountain gorillas in the wild drove it home all those years ago, or maybe it’s an offshoot of a childhood obsession with all things palaeontological, but it’s genuinely one of my major passions in life, albeit one I don’t talk about so much.

I had a similar experience with the Museo de Tenerife in the spring, but the MEH in Burgos is even more jaw-dropping. The knowledge that I was looking at the real bones of some of our earliest ancestors was genuinely spine-tingling.

The caves of Atapuerca are one of the most valuable dig sites for the bones of ancient humans in the world, with over twenty-eight specimens found to date, alongside a host of other Pleistocene and earlier animals that no longer grace these hills, such as hyenas, jaguars, Irish Elk and the mighty cave bear.

I gleaned everything I could about our ancestors the last time came here in 2013, but there was plenty more to clue up on that if missed before: this time I learned a lot about Ramón y Cajal, Spain’s most eminent scientist and the man who discovered the neuron and its function. Maybe that’s why so many of the main streets and squares in Spanish towns and cities carry his name, connecting people and places like synapses firing daily.

In this morning’s walk-and-talk, one of my companions said she was intrigued by my quest for knowledge. That’s probably the biggest ego massage I’ve had in a while, but I’ll take it. I’m glad to have learned something very new, and it is very much an integral part of my personality to be always on the hunt for a new story, a new tale to tell.

I’ll pick this last one to finish, because it’s getting late, I’m behind on my blogging and the Koreans next door are on the verge of creating an unconscious four-part harmony with their cacophonous snoring.

There’s a small replica on the third floor of the MEH that is, as the plaque reads, quite possibly one of the precious of all the treasures in the collection. It is a mammoth task carved into the shape of a human – but with one strange detail. The head isn’t human at all. Rather, it’s quite clearly the head of a cave lion: stocky, bull-nosed but intensely leonine. It’s known as the Löwenmensch figurine – or the Lion-man of Hohlenstein-Stadel, and its concrete evidence of our ancestors’ ability to imagine around 40,000 years ago. Quite possibly, it’s the earliest evidence for mythology out there: man-beast hybrids remain a fairly common feature of world mythology to this day. Just look at Hinduism.

I’ll have to look into this incredible artefact some more when I get hole. But for now – sleep. I’ll be up again in five and a half hours… unless the Koreans wouldst wake Heaven with their snoring. BB x

Camino X: Hellmouth

July 10, 2025July 11, 2025 / Benjamin Barnabas / 1 Comment

Albergue Municipal, Estella-Lizarra. 20.39.

Excuse the late entry – I’ve chosen to be sociable today and have spent most of the afternoon in the company of fellow pilgrims from around the world. It’s been a welcome change after nine days of silence! But a promise is a promise, and I have a duty to uphold! So here’s today’s report.

I was up early this morning – five to four, to be precise. Falling asleep around ten didn’t help my sleep pattern, I guess. I couldn’t quite justify striking out for Estella so soon – it is only just under 22km from Puente La Reina – so I dawdled until five, at which point several pilgrims were already getting ready to go. Again, I dawdled, not wanting to arrive in Estella with two hours to kill before being able to jettison my rucksack, so I carved the names “Niña” and “Pinta” into my sticks (after Columbus’ ships – the Santa María, the third of the trio, is my rosary). It’s not especially visible, as all I had to hand was a kitchen knife, but it’s a start.

I was one of the first to strike out, but I gradually let a fair number of pilgrims overtake me. I stopped frequently; waiting for the sunrise at Cirauqui, sketching a lonely cemetery, grabbing a tortilla sandwich at the same bar I ate in when I walked this path with my mother six years ago. I also managed to collect a few stamps, which is always a plus.

I spent a lot of time today looking at the decorations on houses and doors, which suddenly become more elaborate upon entering the Basque territories. Many houses bear a heraldic crest, and around here the motif of the knight’s helmet with the visor raised is fairly common. In heraldry, this is usually the sign of high-ranking nobility. Many of medieval Spain’s most prominent nobles were of Basque extraction (or Basque adjacent), like the Mendoza, Loyola and Haro lines.

Curiously, scratched beneath one of these crests were two symbols. One is easily recognisable as the Índalo, an ancient fertility symbol from Spain’s southeast. The other is… well, I’m not entirely sure. I’m fairly certain it’s an invention by the artist who left the Índalo, in much the same style, with what seems to be a serpent drawn out of the end. Graffiti usually has a point to make – I wonder what it could mean?

I couldn’t help noticing the door knockers as I passed through Cirauqui. My mother used to fill memory cards with photographs of these things, which in the south (and here) often take the shape of a woman’s hand holding a metal ball, known as a Hand of Fátima. It’s an ancient Moorish motif used to ward off the evil eye, and appears in a lot of Mediterranean and North African jewellery. The lion’s head – a style much more familiar to those of us who live on the other side of the Pyrenees – does much the same thing, warding off evil spirits with its frozen roar.

I am, of course, reading far too much into this. I imagine your average Joe (or José) probably doesn’t consider how effective this or that door knocker will be at warding off evil spirits. Still, it’s one of those things that’s so deeply embedded into our psyche that we don’t even realise we’re doing it. Like Christmas, in a way. Most of us don’t give thanks to God for the birth of Jesus Christ on the 25th December, but that doesn’t stop us from opening presents and celebrating late into the night.

I spent so much time hobnobbing with fellow pilgrims this afternoon that I didn’t really get to explore Estella much. It was also a sweltering 36°C, which didn’t exactly encourage an afternoon wander. Fortunately, I stayed here for two whole days the last time I came through, so I’ve seen all of Estella and its charms before.

One thing I did seek out, though, was the remarkable archway of the Iglesia del Santo Sepulcro. It caught my attention today for the same reason it did all those years ago: the horrifying maw swallowing sinners, and dragging them into Hell.

This motif is not unique to Estella. It can be found all over Europe. I’m fairly sure I saw one in Bordeaux last week. It’s known as a Hellmouth, and it can be found in Anglo-Saxon artwork at least as far back as the 8th century. It’s thought to be a representation of the “Crack of Doom”, the Day of Judgment – crack having a dual meaning in English, being both a harsh sound (like a thunderbolt or trumpet blast) and a chasm or pit. It may even have ties to an old Scandinavian legend of the Fenris Wolf, who was destined to swallow up Odin, the Allfather, and thus the world entire.

It’s certainly funny to think that such an English (read: Anglo-Saxon) blend of Christian and pagan imagery should find its way onto the doorway of a Spanish church, over a thousand kilometres to the south. It’s just one more reminder of the power of a good story: dropped in the right place, and told in the right way, it can send ripples that cross entire oceans.

Tomorrow I make for Los Arcos, a town I bypassed last time in favour of the ice baths of Sansol. Let’s see what I missed! BB x

Devils of Fire and Dust

April 7, 2025April 7, 2025 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Capsule 19, Atypicap, Puerto de la Cruz. 19.02.

The last post went off on a tangent about guaguas – so much so that I didn’t even get on to talking about the purpose of my voyage: to hike in the caldera of Spain’s tallest mountain and the symbol of Tenerife itself: Teide National Park.

Ignore the ads plastered across bus stations and billboards: Teide, not the widely advertised Loro Parque, is the true ‘must’ of Tenerife. There is so much about Teide that is worthy of a story. It is an active volcano, erupting most recently in 1909. It was sacred to the Guanche people (the native peoples of the Canaries before the Spanish conquest), who saw it as both a holy mountain and the jail of the fire demon Guayota, interred within the mountain by their supreme deity, Achamán.

What did Guayota do to deserve such a fate? He kidnapped Magec, the Guanche sun god, and trapped them inside the mountain, plunging the world into darkness. Despairing for their future, the islanders prayed to Achamán, who fought a fierce battle with Guayota and imprisoned him within the mountain forever.

Teide itself is a mighty thing indeed. Even from the caldera – which, it must be said, is not the mountain’s most beautiful side – it towers above everything else, dwarfing not just the high cliffs and mountains around Tenerife’s rim but the surrounding islands as well. One can only imagine the terror the islanders must have felt when it caused the earth to roar and spewed fire and fury out of its peak.

It was said that Teide’s eruptions were a sign of Guayota’s fury at his imprisonment, and that his children, in the form of demonic dogs known as tibicenas, haunted the mountainside by night.

I didn’t see any hellhounds on my lap of the park, but I did see a dust devil as I set out from El Portillo. I used to see these quite frequently when I lived in Jordan, but outside of desert environments they are quite rare.

Scattered around the caldera floor are a number of unfinished or ruined dwellings built out of the scattered basalt rocks. These present a mystery to the casual hiker: what were they? The ancient dwellings of the Guanches? An initiative by the park authorities? Hunting refuges? In truth, they are none of these things: the caldera was far too hostile an environment for settlement by the Guanches, construction within the national park is tightly restricted, and hunting – naturally outlawed – would net a poor return, as the largest birds within the park are kestrels and the odd buzzard, and the only native mammals are bats.

No – they are actually the remains of a German attempt to build a sanatorium within the caldera in the early 20th century. A lack of funding, the eventual creation of the National park and, of course, two world wars put a bullet in the head of the project and now all that remains are the foundations of these houses, which now provide shelter for the enigmatic blue-bellied lizards that can only be found here on Tenerife.

These creatures are everywhere in the caldera, darting across the path and into the numerous crevices in the boulder-strewn ash field as you pass. There are two other species endemic reptiles within the park – the Tenerife skink and the Tenerife gecko – but the casual observer is much more likely to cross paths with the Tenerife lizard, especially around the Parador car park where they have become quite fearless.

The Canary Islands – curiously, named not for the species of finch that calls the islands home, but for the large population of monk seals (or sea dogs) that once lived here – are home to a large number of endemic reptiles, some of them textbook cases of island gigantism: that is, where a species has fewer natural predators and can thus grow to a size far greater than its mainland relatives. The largest of these, the El Hierro giant lizard, is a relic of precolonial times, when giant lizards were much more common in these islands, as well as much larger: fossils indicate that some could exceed a metre in length, right up until the arrival of the Spanish in the 1490s.

No visit to Teide would be complete without taking in the Roques de García, the roots of an ancient mountain even older than Teide itself. The most well-known of these has to be the Roque Cinchado, also known as ‘el árbol de piedra’ – the stone tree. Standing on the footpath a few paces from the car park provides you with one of the most famous views in all of Spain: the Roque Cinchado with Teide as its backdrop. The old man of the mountain and its son. I had to wait for a family testing out their drone to get a clear shot, but it was worth it.

It’s not the only impressive rock formation in the caldera: there’s a mighty organ-like basalt structure down in the valley floor, and the largest of the Roques de García seems to have become – of all things – a beauty spot. Three Italian men sat at the top of the steps, sporting designer sunglasses and expensive shoes. A Ukrainian girl dressed in pink with her hair tied back in a high ponytail occupied one of the lower peaks for the best part of twenty minutes, turning her head this way and that while her friend took photographs. As a matter of fact, I was the odd one out for not wearing my best: it seems whole busloads of well-dressed teens and students come up here for the ultimate profile picture.

I wonder if they spared a thought for the ancient fire demon trapped with the mountain behind them – or whether they thought to learn about the Guanches, the true Canarians, whose fire was extinguished many hundreds of years ago. They were crushed as a mere prelude to the conquest of the Americas, and I don’t remember their story featuring much in my history classes in Spain. If there are any left, their bloodline had long since mingled with the Spanish to the point where it has all but faded away. Perhaps it is fate that they too, like the fire demon Guayota, now lie buried deep within the mountain.