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Day 17 - Camino Francés: Villafranca to Atapuerca · WCBH

• 0:26
  Good morning, Day 17, 19 kilometres from Villafranca, Montes de Oca to Atapurca.
• 0:35
  Cold day, but it is blue skies and sunny, so amazing weather today for some walking.
• 0:42
  We've just walked out of Villafranca and
• 0:46
  it takes us back to the end of Day 1 into
• 0:49
  Valcarlos or parts of day two
• 0:52
  to Ronson Vales because straight out
• 0:55
  of Villa Franca it's up up
• 0:59
  up and we're not quite at the summit yet but we're
• 1:02
  we're getting closer but it is a very steep incline but the scenery of the the
• 1:08
  woods around us really beautiful snow-covered mountains off in the distance
• 1:13
  we're far enough away the main road we can see the village down there at the base of this climb,
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  but this is, this is really picturesque stuff.
• 1:25
  You know, so many beautiful scenes on the Camino, but not everything has been
• 1:29
  in the bush and in the woods. Some of it has been along the roadside. Yeah.
• 1:34
  Today has started very, very well. It's going to be a good day,
• 1:38
  a tough day if these hills keep up, but it will be a good day.
• 1:42
  We're walking along a bush track at the moment, actually quite similar to what
• 1:47
  you might find in the NT when you're out bush.
• 1:51
  You know, this is like what you'd call an unsealed road, full drive track that's
• 1:57
  just running through bush.
• 1:59
  We're on a nice flat stretch at the moment. I believe we've got a fairly long
• 2:03
  stretch before we'll actually see any more towns.
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  And last time I gave an update, we were nearly at the summit.
• 2:12
  Well, we summited that mountain and that was nice.
• 2:16
  And then we thought we just would go down one slight up and then we'd be on this long flat stretch.
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  But no, it had a few more surprises in it.
• 2:27
  Surprises being more steep hills
• 2:31
  very steep inclines like a real testing
• 2:34
  start to the day but now we're on this long flat stretch
• 2:37
  has been a little bit of muddy at times
• 2:41
  because the last few days there's been some rain but good weather conditions
• 2:46
  making good progress today's 19 tomorrow's 19 kilometers and then we get our
• 2:53
  rest day sitting at a cafe at san juan de Ortega to spend inside the church,
• 3:00
  which we believe has the remains of the patron saint here,
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  beautiful stone church.
• 3:07
  And then a mirage just outside the church appeared, a cafe that was nearly open
• 3:14
  and an oasis, not a mirage.
• 3:18
  What's the difference between a mirage and oasis?
• 3:21
  Oasis. Okay, so this is an oasis, not a mirage.
• 3:25
  The owners kindly helped us out. We didn't really have dinner last night or
• 3:31
  breakfast this morning.
• 3:32
  Been able to order some hot drinks, cola cow, which is the hot chocolate here
• 3:37
  that Chan's trying the cola cows across the country.
• 3:42
  Sherilyn's drinking the teas and I ordered a coffee, an espresso,
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  then asked for an orange juice and she made freshly squeezed orange juice.
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  And then I followed it up by Ternagro Con Leche, that team with milk.
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  But we've also got three of the cakes that they put out on the bench as well,
• 4:02
  because the place isn't really open yet. So they helped us out with a piece
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  of orange cake, a piece of apple tart, and a piece of baked cheesecake.
• 4:11
  And they're delicious. Jen, which one's your favourite?
• 4:14
  Apple tart. Sherilyn? The orange cake.
• 4:19
  They're all really good. And the baked cheesecake is a proper baked cheesecake.
• 4:23
  We had a cheesecake actually taste like cheese as well. You can taste the fresh milk, the.
• 4:30
  So anyway, not having something for dinner and breakfast. Well, we did have food.
• 4:35
  Not having what we wanted for dinner and breakfast. It's just making this,
• 4:39
  or just turning this, is it? Turning it to what?
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  Turning this lunch of three different cakes. Healthy diet here on the Camino. Yeah, it's fantastic.
• 4:50
  End of day 17. We've just come back from the park where Chan's been able to
• 4:55
  play on some playground equipment, which has been good. nine,
• 4:59
  ten kilometres to Atapurka completed.
• 5:02
  First stretch was the 12 kilometres through the bush path, bush sort of road.
• 5:09
  And then the last seven kilometres between some small towns really just melted away.
• 5:18
  The first town that we came to was where we had a very late breakfast consisting of cake.
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  Then we went on to the next town. And I think that was called,
• 5:28
  well, it's spelled A-G-E-S.
• 5:31
  The E's got an accent on top of it, so I'm not too sure if it's ages, agias.
• 5:38
  Probably can come up with other ways to say it. I'm probably getting this town
• 5:42
  and so many other towns wrong.
• 5:43
  But it was beautiful, very quaint. But we weren't staying there.
• 5:47
  Then we made our way to Atapurka, which once again was just a stone's throw
• 5:52
  away. It had some areas of significance around the outside of it.
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  There had been archaeological digs to find remains of Neanderthal,
• 6:06
  who had lived in the area thousands of years ago.
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  And they had done a little bit around the tourism of that dig and had also done
• 6:17
  some other nice little things like plant lots of...
• 6:21
  Fruit trees. They're still in their infant stage at the moment,
• 6:24
  but to create a boulevard as you enter into Atapurka. It's a nice little town.
• 6:30
  Now, in terms of our accommodation, we're not actually staying in Atapurka. That's where we walk to.
• 6:36
  Our accommodation is outside of Atapurka, but our host drove to Atapurka,
• 6:43
  picked us up, has brought us to another town. I think it's called Fresno de Radilla.
• 6:48
  We're staying at their house, our private house. And then tomorrow morning,
• 6:52
  they will drive us back to Atapurka, which is where we'll start our walk again, 19 kilometers.
• 6:58
  As we were walking along today, we just started discussing movies that we felt
• 7:03
  that at various stages that we've been in.
• 7:06
  I mentioned the other day, it felt like we were in the Wizard of Oz following
• 7:10
  the yellow brick road to the Emerald City as we were marching through the rolling
• 7:14
  green hills along that pretty...
• 7:17
  A pretty rocky and sandy path which did resemble a little bit of the Yellow Brick Road.
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  Even at times there was concrete which had a pattern stamped into it and that
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  was yellow in colour so it did feel like the Yellow Brick Road.
• 7:35
  Sherilyn, you thought we were in a film today?
• 7:38
  Yeah, it felt very much like either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings that were on this journey,
• 7:45
  a long journey, which we are, but travelling through forests and fields with
• 7:50
  mountains, it felt very much like Lord of the Rings.
• 7:54
  So, and then we came across the Forbidden Forest today as well, didn't we?
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  Which was straight out of Harry Potter, where there were pine forests and it must be a plantation,
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  but they'd been planted so close together, you
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  went from a bright sunny day to absolute
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  darkness in the pine forest within a
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  matter of meters so very very spooky can imagine being out there at night and
• 8:23
  your imagination would really run away with itself and so we were calling it
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  the forbidden forest out of harry potter aragog and centaurs and unicorns and
• 8:33
  all sorts of things could come out of that thing.
• 8:36
  Incidentally, when we're on the plane on the way, we're flying through Dubai.
• 8:40
  We passed through there about a week before all the issues that are currently being faced over there.
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  But I was watching a movie called The Long Walk.
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  Now, it has absolutely nothing to do with the Camino, but I thought,
• 8:54
  oh, we're about to do a long walk. I might watch this long walk and see what this is about.
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  This was, I think it falls into the genre of horror,
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  and it's post-apocalyptic, and it's got a Hunger Games feel that each region
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  enters one buoy each year into the game, the long walk.
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  They have to walk three miles per hour, and they don't stop.
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  And it's not a good outcome if you get my drift for the person who can't keep
• 9:28
  up with the three miles an hour.
• 9:30
  But they just walked for days and days and
• 9:33
  days and days and day and night they walked day
• 9:36
  and night anyway while we were walking today particularly along that long 12
• 9:41
  kilometer stretch with no services no roads no nothing just bush i was actually
• 9:45
  feeling that a little bit that we were stuck in the long walked anyway it has
• 9:50
  been a good day whatever we're up to day 17.
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  Tomorrow another 19 kilometers that will
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  get us from atapurka into burgos and we're
• 9:59
  really looking forward to a rest day
• 10:02
  just to do nothing get all the
• 10:05
  washing done try and find a shop and buy some food that we can prepare in the
• 10:11
  apartment that we would eat back at home or if you know a place that we can
• 10:15
  get vegemite in burgos please message us we could really do with some um some
• 10:21
  toast butter and Vegemite.
• 10:23
  We know we're not probably going to get that, but I've got a few other things
• 10:26
  on the list that I'd like to try and get in Burgos.