Villambistia

The church bell strikes seven and the only reply is a cockerel somewhere behind the stone houses. In Villambistia, population forty-five on a optimistic census, the morning news travels by tractor exhaust note rather than radio. Stand on the single street at dawn and you can watch the day being decided: which field to harrow, whether the bar will open for coffee, if the wind from the Meseta will carry dust or the smell of wet earth.

Eight hundred metres above sea level, the village sits on a slight rise above the cereal ocean of southern Burgos. The horizon is ruler-straight in every direction except south-west, where the Montes de Oca bump the skyline twelve kilometres away. That elevation is enough to shave two degrees off the valley temperatures; night frost is possible well into April, and midsummer evenings demand a jumper once the sun drops. Pilgrims arriving from sultry Belorado invariably zip up their fleeces within minutes.

There is no square in the Castilian sense, just a widening where the road remembers to breathe. On one side the seventeenth-century church of San Pedro keeps its door latched unless the priest drives over from Villafranca; on the other, Casa de los Deseos offers twelve bunk beds, a washing machine that eats one-euro coins and a handwritten menu that hasn’t changed since 2018. Between them the tarmac carries the yellow arrows of the Camino de Santiago, the economic lifeline that brings 8,000 boots through each spring and then abandons the place to its own silence until the following year.

Walk the length of the village and you have covered 300 metres, passed seven working grain stores and counted more storks’ nests than permanent residents. Houses are built from the same limestone that lies just underneath the thin topsoil; walls are a metre thick, windows pint-sized, roofs the colour of burnt toast. Many still have the family name carved into the lintel and a slit for hauling up hay when the ground floor sheltered animals. Today most ground floors are garages for combine harvesters worth more than the buildings themselves.

The bar opens at eight, or when María arrives on her moped, whichever is later. Breakfast options are toast with jam, toast with tomato, or—if you asked the night before—two boiled eggs lowered into a pan of water that once served the pasta. Coffee comes in glasses, strong enough to float the spoon, and the price never budges: €1.20. There is no card machine; the nearest ATM is eight kilometres away in Villafranca Montes de Oca, so bring notes unless you fancy back-tracking before the day’s walk.

By nine the through-traffic has evaporated. Those twelve kilometres to San Juan de Ortega feel longest in April when the wheat is still green stubbles and there is no shade until the next village. The path is a farm track, soft with chalky dust that coats boots and lungs alike. Skylarks keep pace for a hundred metres then drop back into the barley; occasionally a hare breaks cover, ears flattened like twin exhaust pipes. The only water fountain is a solar-powered trough for sheep—potable, the sign insists, though the taste confirms every ewe within five kilometres has used it.

Return in October and the palette has flipped to ochre and rust. Farmers burn the stubble at dusk, sending columns of smoke straight upwards in the still air. The smell drifts into the albergue dormitory if someone leaves the window open; earplugs won’t block the scent, but they will blunt the church bells that chime the hour all night. Double glazing hasn’t reached Villambistia yet, and the priest keeps the bell rope short so the ring carries—useful, he says, when half the parish is out in the fields.

Midday presents a choice: cover the five kilometres to Espinosa del Camino for a pilgrim menu, or stay put and hope the bar kitchen is in the mood. The menu del día appears at 13:30 sharp: soup or pasta, then pollo al chilindrón or a vegetarian stew of chickpeas and spinach, followed by yoghurt or fruit. Wine is included; so is a second helping if you ask before the saucepan is empty. €12 buys the lot, served on mismatched plates that pre-date the euro. The television in the corner stays on mute, subtitles scrolling beneath a quiz show nobody watches.

Afternoon is siesta time, observed with religious intensity. Metal shutters clatter down, the village cat claims the warm tarmac, and even the storks seem to stop clacking. Cycling Brits sometimes attempt the loop south to Monterrubio but discover the track dissolves into ploughed earth after two kilometres; the safe option is to follow the Camino westwards, then double back on the paved road that delivers grain lorries to the cooperative. Traffic is light—one lorry every twenty minutes, driver waving because he recognises the same face from the bar.

Evening brings the return of locals from the fields. They gather at the single bench, exchanging predictions about rain and commodity prices in the same breath. Conversation stops when a foreign rucksack appears; a nod suffices for greeting. English is limited to “hello” and “water”, but willingness to try Spanish—however ropey—earns an invitation to sit. Someone produces a bottle of orujo distilled last winter; the first sip tastes of aniseed and fire, the second of hospitality. Night falls fast once the sun slips behind the grain silos; by ten the bench is empty and only moths bother the streetlight.

Stay overnight and you’ll discover why star-gazers detour here. The nearest town of consequence is twenty-five kilometres away, so light pollution is a yellow glow on the northern horizon rather than a dome. Step beyond the last streetlamp and the Milky Way resolves into individual crystals. British walkers compare the darkness to Dartmoor, then admit the high-altitude chill is sharper. Bring a down jacket even in June; dew forms before midnight and soaks grass shoes by morning.

Leave before dawn and you’ll share the path with a farmer driving his tractor to the fields, headlights carving a white tunnel through the cereal. The engine note fades, replaced by your own breathing and the crunch of boots on gravel. Behind you, Villambistia shrinks to a silhouette: church tower, grain stores, one lit window where the hospitalero is already boiling water for the next batch of pilgrims. Ahead lie twelve kilometres of empty plateau before the next coffee, the next conversation, the next reminder that places this quiet are not hidden—they’re simply happy to let the world pass through and keep moving.