Day 12–to Tardajos—Short but good company—May 3, 2024

I had the Continental breakfast which was included in the cost of the hotel, and after that I rested up in my room until about 11.  This was to  recover from my bout of food poisoning from the Kebab ABBAs restaurant nearby the night before.

After clearing the suburbs of Burgos and walking alongside the the highway for about 10 km, I arrived about 4:30 at the Tardajos Municipal Albergue. I had tried two other albergues in town, but they were both full.

This was the first I was asked for donations rather than money. It was staffed by a volunteer, Rocco from Madrid, and she promptly offered me hot tea while she took care of registration and explained the rules. She said that she volunteered here for one week every year through the Camino Association.

There were just 10 people that night of a possible 18. I got to know two of them:  Chris retired Australian soldier with recent duty in Angola, and Mickey from Massachusetts who was a hard-core marathon runner—including the recent Boston Marathon.

Chris explained that he and his other 9 buddies along the Camino were honoring one of their fallen who had committed suicide. He said their ritual every morning before they started off was to pour a bottle of beer on the ground in his mate’s honor and drink one as well.

Mickey indicated that he had worked primarily in Thailand and Malaysia over the past 25 years in the public health area. In addition to marathon running, he did super marathons as well as marathons where they have to carry a 25 pound pack in the race. He looked like a runner because he was tall and lean.

They had met up on the train to the Camino. Santiago and Mickey had the same name as the fallen mate. Since then, they have been meeting up every night at the albergues.

But that night Chris’s knee was worse—aggravated from an old war injury, so he decided to take a bus to the meeting town—Castrojeriz.

The place was spotless, showers were great, and we even had a heater in our room to take the chill off of the cold 4° nights.

In the morning, Roco had prepared a Continental breakfast for us.

Here’s a luggage service many of the pilgrims use to go from albergue to albergue that cost €6 for every transfer. Pretty good deal, if you don’t want to carry a pack while walking.

On to the next place passing this Peregrino.