Skulls, Baby Bullfights, & Irish Bars (Spanish Class Trip Day 2)

The second day of our trip started off with a delicious breakfast at the hostel. Shortly after, it was time to explore more of El Camino. The downfall of this was that it was raining, cold, and foggy. We had our second tour of El Camino and this time it included the chapel of St. James. The chapel was very small and could hold about 35 people. The building was completely original and reminded me of a shed with a cross on the roof. Then we moved on to what seemed like an indoor graveyard. There were people buried all around the altar. The most surprising aspect was the fact that this building had an underground crypt with real human skulls and bones. Now I’m not talking about one or two. I’m talking about 10ish skulls with an endless amount of bones that have previously decayed. The tour guide said bodies would just get thrown in there on top of each other. This was a bit disturbing but pretty neat to see skulls/bones outside of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disney World.  We also quickly viewed a small museum containing crowns, relics, crosses and paintings from hundreds of years ago that were in mint condition. 

This concluded our first stop in Burguete, Spain (part of the Pyrenees zone).  The middle portion of the day landed us in a remote area where there is only some sheep, cows, oxen, and a typical church. This time, this church had 5 monks living there. There are only 200 of these particular monks left in the world. Some fun facts about them include shaving 3 times a year, taking care of the animals, and only washing their face, hands and feet. EW. Unfortunately we didn’t get the chance to see any of them. Our time here was quick because our tour guide literally spoke at the speed of light. No one could understand her even after one of our teachers told her to slow down so we could understand. Turns out she was speed talking because she wanted to get lunch at 2 p.m. Rude. Once we were done here, the teachers told us we would have another 30-45min in the bus before we reached our next stop, hotel #2. In fact, it only took literally 15 min. Everyone was like what the heck? Once again we had about 2 hours to find lunch on our own in this new town called Estella. 

 

Soccer in the plaza

Not much was open in this town when we arrived, nor were there any people walking around.  Luckily we found a place that was open with great meal deals. I tried paella for the first time and it was delicious. Paella is rice mixed with normally seafood and chicken and is among one of the most popular dishes in Spain. I would definitely have it again. After lunch, the boys got themselves involved in a small soccer game with some of the town kids who are about 9-11yrs old. The public even stopped to watch! Lunch time went by pretty fast, so we all walked back to the hotel to meet up with everyone for our walking tour. This tour guide was the best tour guide of the entire trip. She spoke clearly and slowly so that we could actually comprehend what she was saying. Occasionally she would crack a joke too which the other tour-guides did not. On our tour we explored more of El Camino except this part of the path was actually built up in a pueblo rather than a path in the middle of nowhere.  

Rita, Me & Lauren

Estella has a lot of original architecture. One church, she explained, has a shoot where people would go to the bathroom and the waste would literally drip down the side of the cliff. As we rounded the church, there was a large group of kids in a square below. We had no idea what this was until after we finished touring the church. Our tour guide asked us if we wanted to go pet the little piglet (which was part of the “petting zoo” in the square with all the children). Little did we know, we were getting ourselves involved with a baby bullfight.  The gentleman in charge of this whole animal petting zoo let a calf run around the square while he held onto it with a rope. The calf, confused and scared, would stand still and then charge at the children. The kids would flash their jackets the same way a matador would at a real bull fight. One kid even had the same cloth used in a real bullfight.  Another kid actually got head-butted by the calf and ended up crying. Everyone from my group was like, “Good! You deserved that since the calf didn’t do anything to you and is just scared!”  We obviously couldn’t just sit there and watch the entire thing because we were in the middle of a tour but boy was that a bizarre thing to see. The parents were even on one side watching their kids do this! 

Baby bullfighting w/ parents watching

Anyways, we moved on with the tour and saw a few more historical churches. The tour guide even showed us a conch shell which symbolizes the path, so travelers always know they are on track if they see this symbol.  We were essentially on our own after the tour for the rest of the night. Most of us went back to our hotel rooms and relaxed for a bit. Then basically everyone went out on the town which was a lot of fun.  We didn’t have to be up as earlier the next day, which meant for some people they could stay out till 4 or 5 a.m. This wasn’t the case with me. We still had another day of sightseeing and traveling. Check back to see what’s in store for the last day of my class trip!