Noplace Exactly

I hardly noticed the change. Leaving Burgos, where until then we traveled through small villages, pueblos they call them, that were nothing today as they had been in the past, as evidenced by the fine churches left from an ancient age; we have entered Castilla. What isn't evident at first is that the history seems lost.



We have traveled three days through towns like this. Nothing to see. No fine churches here. If the original camino went through here, and it surely did, there is almost no evidence of it. Even Sahagún, which is reasonably large and retains something is nothing like what we have passed.







And the history is changing again. These pueblos are being depopulated. The arrival of the tractor has allowed an old man and his dog to cultivate the whole region. The grapes are gone. The bodegas are in ruin too. And more foreboding, the children are gone to find work in the cities.

But this is our place. These are the people we know. We lived this in a day before tractors.

Yesterday I met a Viking pilgrim from the Faroe Islands. His name is Helgi. He knows old Norse and he told me he had been singing the verses of a legend about Charlemagne while walking through Roncesvalles. It was interesting to him to see the places that the verses referred to.