We walked out the door at 6:16 this morning to beat the heat forecast for the afternoon. It’s our earliest start and the first time I’ve need to use the headlamp. In the dark we ran into a memorial to death. Towards the end, an attempt at resurrection.
The Spanish Civil War fought from 1936-39 was brutal, and often involved fights within cities and families. In the dark we ran across a memorial to 300 people brought by Franco’s fascist forces early in the war to the forest east of Burgos, executed for being part of the opposition, and buried in a mass grave. The site was excavated in the 1990s and a memorial erected. Unfortunately, this kind of extrajudicial punishment was not uncommon on either side.
But towards the end of our lengthy hike we passed a church in a small town that had collapsed about fifty years ago. The church of Saint John the Evangelist is being renovated under the leadership of a German man who walked the Camino several times with his wife. While on the Camino they fell in love with the ruins. She passed away four years ago. To honor her, he has taken up the effort to rebuild the church in Villaval. You can read more about the progress and how to donate in the website here. Unfortunately, the site is in German. I’ve tried to provide the English version of it.
Our early start paid off as we walked in the cool until later in the day. Tomorrow we have just over three hours until we reach our end point for this year in Burgos.
More Reading. A great book about Spanish Culture, including the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, is Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through Spain and its Silent Past by Giles Tremlett. One of the chapters describes how Spaniards adore their children and you can see it on the Camino. I highly recommend it.
