Back onto the Camino today - another long day of biking down the N-120, the major autoroute that closely follows the Camino de Santiago for most of the Camino Francés portion but deviates somewhat out here in the plains above La Mancha. We had hoped to reach León by dusk, but instead stop short in the small town of El Burgo Ranero about 20 km out. World Cup fever is rising to a crescendo as we enter the finals; the Germany - Uruguay losers' match ends in a resounding victory for Deutschland, giving Valkyrie's friend Julius yet one more thing to gloat over...but, even here in Spain (during a game where Spain is not playing!) the bars fill up with all the locals. An older couple from Norway cheer on Germany, and are rebuffed by a local who sides with Uruguay (as he puts it, "I have to root for a Spanish-speaking country.") - they are doing the Burgos-León portion of the Camino again, having completed the long voyage to Santiago de Compostela three years ago.
This is part of the magic of the Camino - it is followed by travellers the world over, by the young and old alike, by itinerant soul-seekers and IT professionals and monks and hiking enthusiasts, and each pilgrim carries an entirely different story. For us at this point, the story is this: we're 3000 km into our trip, having cycled down from the frigid mid-May rain and fog of Denmark along the North Sea and down the west coast of France only to meet the blistering heat and mountainous terrain here in northern Spain, and for the first time we feel like we might actually make it to Istanbul before we have to head home in late November. 3000 km - out of everyone we've spoken to, maybe two or three cyclists have attempted a trip of even that length. (One we met in Pamplona at the Ezcala campsite - he had biked down from Denmark through Iran to India several years back. The ambitious nature of this journey astonished even us; here in Europe, things are generally clean and safe and relatively wealthy except perhaps in the worst parts.)
We saw a procession of roughly 20 people walking the Camino with two statues and an enormous cross - a reminder that, although many follow the Camino for secular reasons, it is still a religious pilgrimage of great importance to some. Quite the burden to bear in this heat; we wonder where they will stop, whether they will attempt crossing the mountains further to the west...
So we rest again for today - an earlier stop than some of our other camino days, thankfully, and one with a proper roof over our heads thanks to the inexpensive albergues available in most every town - and continue out tomorrow towards León, after which we hope to reach Astorga in time for the World Cup finals.