The sun is intense, but not hot, as I pull away from the train station in Burgos. There's a slight breeze coming out of the west; the sky is filled with puffy clouds, making it look like the very beginning of the opening sequence of "The Simpsons". The fields, which were Irish-green, boggy and fertile at the end of April, have been toasted to a lovely blonde colour, and every so often, the silence of the Camino de Santiago gets broken by the sounds of combines taking in the wheat and leaving braids of hay as far as the eye can see.
I thought the trail would be full of people walking to Santiago, but that isn't the case: in the stretch between Burgos and Castrojeriz, I only meet a dozen walkers and a handful of cyclists. (I later find out that the numbers of pilgrims are down this year - fewer Spaniards are attempting or doing the Camino, and most Germans have decided that they'd rather do it in the spring.) Not that that's a hassle: Several times during the afternoon, I stop, get off the bike and just listen to the sound of distant combines, wind rustling the drying hay, and I become acutely aware of how silence is such a physical feeling - almost the same feeling as when you arrive in a new land and all you can feel is the pressure around your temples that comes from a noise you're not accustomed to.
The riding is generally smooth, except for the descent into Hornillos del Camino (which is always too washed out and too eroded to safely go down on two wheels.) The sun is suave, the wind just enough to keep sweat and bugs from being a problem. If it keeps up like this for a couple of days more, at least until I get to Astorga, then I'll be well on my way to forgetting all the crap that I had to endure at the end of April.
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