Sometimes you can't wait for the Camino to do something good. You have to make it happen yourself. So I've been buying tickets to the Christmas Lottery. Show me a camino miracle!
Anyway, I decided to do the easiest, laziest thing and just keep going on the route I've been on. Once out of Burgos, which is a really nice walk - they seem to have strung together a dozen parks on the western edge of town so by the time you leave the city, you're practically in the country.
It's no secret that the movie The Way has had a big impact on me. I think it's because in a way I thought of it as a gift to me. I saw it within a week of losing my job and my dog dying. Seen it at least ten times and never without bawling my eyes out. One of the last strung together parks on the way out of Burgos is where the gypsy makes his kid - who stole Martin Sheens backpack carry it all the way the the end of Burgos. I noticed that spot this morning and pictured the filming of the movie.
After some suburbs comes the meseta, the central plateau of Spain and it comes upon you suddenly. It gets a bad reputation on 'Camino forums' as being so long and monotonous that a substantial percentage of people skip it. To me it's the most Camino-esque part of the whole thing.
There are very few choices of where to stay on the meseta and since the Camino is far more crowded than it was last time I figured I'd better call ahead to book a room (most places don't use booking.com, etc in these smaller places.) The guy at the other end of the phone said the his place "Casa Rural Sol y Sol" was sold out, but that I should call him when I got into town and he'd come & take me to 'El Molino' 6km away and drive me back in the morning.
El Molino is way out of the way but it's a very nice old house. There's an autographed 'The Way' poster on the wall, so I googled it.
It turns out that the whole movie was inspired by Martin Sheen staying here in the mid 2000's while driving the Camino with his grandson. The grandson fell in love with el Molino's owner's daughter and they got married. Apparently they live in Burgos. If you've seen the movie, El Molino was also the place where Martin Sheen and his gang made themselves a great dinner.
If you're interested, http://alibi.com/film/39145/Martin-Sheen-and-Emilio-Estevez.html
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