As the bus trundled out of the valley and into Abarzuza, every European's cell phone started chiming, to tell them that they had messages. (There is no cell phone coverage in the narrow valley where the monastery is - those who wanted to call home had to walk down to the village to make the call.)
We drove back through Estella and turned to the west, passing pilgrims on foot and on bikes, and stopping at Santo Domingo de la Calzada, to visit the church there.
The city grew on the site of the hermitage of Santo Domingo, who, to aid the passing pilgrims, built a road, a bridge, and a hospital. The Miracle of the Cock and Hen
A couple and their teenage son were on pilgrimage to Santiago and stopped for the night at an inn in Santo Domingo. A girl working at the inn grew enamored of the son and propositioned him, but was rebuffed. In revenge, she secreted a silver goblet in his pack, then accused him of theft. He was captured, tried, convicted, sentenced and hanged, all in the space of a day.
The next day, as his sorrowful parents left the city, they passed the field were his body was still hanging, and they heard him whisper, "Mother, Father, I'm still alive! Santo Domingo is holding my feet up." They ran back to the city and rushed to the magistrate as he sat down to dinner, shouting of the miracle. The magistrate mocked them, saying that their son was as dead as the roast cock and hen on the table in front of him.
At which point, naturally, the cock and hen leaped up and began to crow. And ever since, in commemoration of this miracle, a cock and hen have been kept in an alcove of the cathedral.
From there we drove on a ways longer, stopping at a trailhead to let those who felt up to walking try a stretch of the camino on foot, but driving the rest of us to San Juan de Ortega.
Another hermitage catering to the passing pilgrim. This one didn't grow into a city, though, and is still not much more than a rest stop for weary pilgrims.We were treated to lunch in the hostel, and then sang a short concert in the church for whichever pilgrims happened to be in residence at the time.
(You can tell that we've left Navarre, with its lishp, and entered Castille, with an entirely different lithp. The signs outside the hostel, in three languages, asking pilgrims to keep their boots off off the chairs, end the English portion with a "Zank you".)
And finally, after a busy day, we arrived in Burgos.
