6 October sunny, nice weather, 1.2 ESB. Maybe for cycling, but too hot for walking, and no shade to rest in.

QB walk of about 15mi summarized here: Najera–>nothing–>Azofra–>nothing–>nothing–>golf course/Ciruena/nothing–>nothing–>nothing–>defective leg stops working–>Santo Domingo–>beer.

For those who may have marched with Glen Cook’s “Black Company” series, the terrain today resembled some of his world.

Life on the road. At rest stop before the golf course, QB was offered some cucumber by pelerins from Nanaimo (they were surprised I knew of that place). In trade, QB offered them a choice of yogurt. They chose the tastiest Muesli flavor and QB had to make do with the plain yogs (no good deed, etc…, but maybe a quality reincarnation?). A further offer of apple slice was made and accepted by QB.

QB had a very hard last few kms due to a very bad leg. Limping.

KB did a bit of zigzagging (zigzaguear en Español ) with a side trip to the old Monastery Yuso.
Standard story of Shepard seeing something and then handling out miracles. Became a good spot for a monastery and then everyone (Navarre and Castille) wanted the properties so privileges were granted and the place grew.

Once again, for the medievalists among the gentle readers, 8-9 pictures have been put up on the Flickr site.

The pictures include some interesting shots of illustrated books, hymnals, the actual hymnal books, shots of the monastery itself. There is one painting with Hebrew near the top of the picture.

Herb, Moshe, or maybe our Basque scholar Bob can translate and explain the image.

Here is a picture of the Sacristy:

Boogs as Pelerins:

Lunch was at a four star Parador near the unvisited Cathedral (2+Euros). After the monastery visits and many retablos we took a break from from the spectacle; Burgos is just days away and the books advise we need two to three days in the cathedral, apart from the other sites.

Jamon Iberico was purchased at great expense. Served with a salsa (closely resembling aioli) made of eggs, oil, salt, pimento, and a small amount of garlic. One takes the salsa and puts it on the provided toast slices and then piles on the ham. We removed much of the fat so we had, on average, about a half portion by weight. Not the least bit stringy, very smooth. Quite enjoyable and a nice treat.

We are staying at another Parador, the one QB sent a geotagging photo of (QB has been taking a picture of most places we stay with the Blackberry which has a geotagging feature so we have a map of our trip). This photo is of the four star parador in the city center.

Wasteland view from QB walk: