May 24--Tunnels and Finding My Water Bottle

I think, after three weeks on the Camino, I have finally mastered the art of sello collection! It's all about making sure I allocate space properly and keep things tidy and clean--the borders between stamps need to be clear, but the space should be well-used and not wasted.  Bigger stamps that aren't square can still tastefully fit onto the sheet while space is still preserved in an effective way.  #MyLifeInAllAspects

Another finished credential!

Anyway, once again, another great day of hiking.  The day stayed nice and cool, but we still saw a fair bit of sun, so it was a very good balance of both.  By the time we walked into town (Castrojeriz), it was only 12:30 p.m.  The actual traversal through town to the hotel did take a while, so we passed the time wholeheartedly singing songs from Hercules that we DEFINITELY did not 100% know ;D By happen stance, as we were about to reach our hotel, a building contractor walked out of a bar and struck up a conversation with us.   Turns out, he has renovated and restored a TON of albergues and houses in the area, and when we showed interest in his work, he invited us into a house he is currently renovating/restoring (I use the / because the structures built in these towns are hundreds of years old and are so sturdy and completely intact, but here and there they need additional support as well as new plastered walls, coats of paint and finished floors.)  Anyway, he invites us into this house, and it is BEAUTIFUL.  Newly plastered white walls (behind which are the original stone walls) which are accented by restored pieces of wood which support the underlying rock.  He showed us the original wooden doors that are still functioning, the rooms they still had to finish, and while leading us to the back patio, we saw these giant stone stairs leading into this gaping pit in the middle of the floor.

Like, WHAT?!?

OF COURSE we asked about the giant, enticing pit, and he invited us down to show us what it was.  At the time, and especially now after talking to my mom, I realize that he literally could have been luring us down there to kill us as we trotted down the stairs with enthusiasm (a la Hansel and Gretel), but thankfully the house wasn't made of gingerbread and candy AND we found out some AWESOME details about this town.  SO...turns out that Castrojeriz is built on an old fort which protected the ancient Castillan castle located farther up the hill.  The pit we entered was an entrance from the house into tunnels that run under the entire city, originally used as part of the fort hundreds of years ago.  Most of the buildings in the town have entrances to these tunnels in them, and without purposefully blocking passageways between houses, you would be able to enter any building in the town using the tunnels beneath the city.  We saw, as SOON as we walked into the front entryway of our hotel, an original stone staircase that lead into a dark hole and tunnels below.  The only thing separating the average person from exploring the tunnel underneath our hotel was a small chain hung across the stone staircase.

The house also had a wine press with a giant fulcrum beam which was attached to a screw-like mechanism that could be turned to lift or lower the beam to help in the process of making wine.  This is the kind of history basically EVERY town in Europe has--hundreds, even thousands of years of history literally at or underneath their feet.  It is INSANE!

The rest of the day was pretty normal: shower, wash clothes, go to lunch (where we had free refills on pop which was SO NICE), a nice nappy-nap, and then a church tour.  Surprisingly, this church tour was NOT a group activity; my roommate and I simply went of our own volition (since I needed more credneciales to put sellos in, and I wanted the stamp BAD).  We stopped at a few albergues to get some more sellos before we made it back to the church.  Somehow, we had come at the time when basically no one was there, so the guy who gave us entry decided to give us our own private tour of everything in the church.  It was actually pretty fun! He let us see the back room where they keep all the pieces from the church which still need to be restored: several paintings, a clock, stone and wood sculptures, etc.  He told us that there is only enough money to restore any of the paintings, and it costs $6 million PER PAINTING to do so, so there were six on display in the church, but the rest were just sitting in the room unrestored.  While we were there, we also saw the tomb of a nephew of one of the kings/queens of the castle that sits on the hill of Castrojeriz.  Turns out, he had just been straight up murdered IN THE CASTLE for political reasons...but was still buried in the church for some reason? 

Anyway, after AN HOUR AND A HALF in this church, we finally said goodbye to our new friend, Amelio, and headed back to the hotel.  BUT, when we got back, I realized I had left my water bottle somewhere (I mean, if you know me, you know I lose things pretty easily, but I was NOT losing my water bottle!) so I walked the 15 minutes back through town to look for it.  I eventually did find it, and in the meantime took some cool pictures of the ruins of the castle on the hill.

Dinner was tasty, and afterwards several people went up to the castle.  I would have, but having already
walked through the entire town that day, I decided to take it easy and relax for the evening, playing games and later on, telling spooky stories.  Let me tell you, no place makes a more creepy space to tell ghost stories than an eclectically decorated room in an ancient stone building with a well in the middle of it with a glass roof as the sun beings to set.  Oh yeah, it was DIANA all over again :D