Day 2 Pinos Puente - Moclin



15.4 km   441 m up   26 m down

3:46 h as walked by Andrea. Her app was set not to measure the pauses of which there were many. The total length of time between our departure in the morning was 7 h which includes my walking time and an estimated 2 h of pauses.

Up early for breakfast in our hotel before daybreak. We left at 7:45 h into a cool morning. Pinos is not a large town, so left behind quite quickly into olive groves - in fact the mountains are covered in olive groves, nothing but olive groves with the camino going right through or alongside - have repeated this so often here that it can be considered said for the rest of the day! 

The camino went on chalky tracks, mildly up and down, easy. At one point we hit water - no way round it. It was not deep and did not flow fast, almost stagnant. So off came our shoes and with flipflops (Andrea) and crocks (Ina) we waded through. The time it took to get back into walking gear afforded a welcome pause for my foot. 

A propos foot, it was alright this morning and stayed that way all day  - I took care about the way I put it down, and occasionally shifting it inside the shoe and curling my toes such that it did not have the time to develop a pain.

A second pause some time later under an olive tree each, a short sleep for me, some more chalky track and we arrived in Olivares in the midday heat. No bar open - with plenty of water in our packs, an apple and a pear and a piece of buttered bread left from my breakfast this morning we were fine.

After that the difficult walk up to Moclin. Moclin sits on top of a mountain (hill) - the steep ascent is feared by ramblers. At the highest point is a fortress(in ruins now) which goes back to the wars between the Muslim and Christian rulers of various parts of the Iberian peninsula - part of a series of frontier fortifications. So we started going up - Andrea always ahead and then waiting for me in a particularly nice shady spot with a view - me following labouriously. However I did make it and, just like yesterday, dropped on the bed and straight to sleep even before having a shower.

In the evening we went out for a bite to eat and saw this German prilgrim the man on the scooter yesterday had told us about - she was having her meal in the bar in the main square. So we had a long talk - she has done a fair number of caminos, unusual ones like the Way of St Olaf. She is doing the same stages, but going all the way to Merida where the Camino Mozárabe meets the Via de la Plata. So there was plenty to talk about! Which is why I am writing this so late - I should be sleeping now. In fact I will call this off and talk to you tomorrow....


.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 5 Alcaudete - Baena

Image
  26.5 km     Walking time without the pauses 6:07 hrs and I kept up with Andrea! Total time 8:30 hrs    Average speed 4.3 km/h up 319 m    down 569 m Glorious day today! Sunny and hot, but a fairly strong cool wind all day such that I did not unfold my umbrella at all, my hat and sweat band were sufficient to keep me going. Two long pauses of 1 hour, then 45 minutes. Plus two more of about 20 minutes. And my foot kept up beautifully - I had cut a big hole into a pad to go under the sole of my foot with the hole to accommodate the hurtful point on the sole. And it worked. Which is how I managed to keep up with Andrea. She slows down her normal speed for me anyway, but during the last few days I did not even manage that to keep up with her.... So we stayed with the olive groves, the tracks are still chalkily white - quite blinding in the sun. But today there was a lot of flat track, very little road and no bar in a village or a bar w...
Read more

Day 9. Wednesday, 31/05/2023. Don Benito to Torrefresneda

Image
  26.5 km.    5:35 h. plus about 2 hours walkabout and sitting about in Medellin, then 1 hour  in Yelbes and finally 50 min somewhere in the shade under an olive tree where I had a siesta and we had some food left in our packs…. Sitting in a/the only bar in the village of Yelbes, at well over half today’s distance. Mostly road again - quite scary coming out of Don Benito during this morning’s rush hour! For a change the sun is shining, but there is quite a stiff breeze, nice and cool. After two hours a first stop (two hours walking followed by two hours stop!) in Medellin - some sightseeing for a change. Will have to look up some of the places ie the church of Santa Cecilia - its clock tower is missing like broken off - why? how? The history of the ruined castle? The church of St Martin and of Santiago at the foot of the castle - closed, being renovated)?  Hernan Cortez was born here - there is an impressive statue in the square in front of the town hall…. ...
Read more

Day 10. Thursday, 01/06/2023. Torrefresneda to Mérida

Image
  26 km.   5:30h.   Plus pauses: 55, 40 and 20 min, plus the occasional stop just standing still, thus giving my feet a rest After a first stop in San Pedro de Mérida at 9.8 km on top of the only hill where we had a delicious gigantic churro now a second stop (another 6.7km) in Tujillanos, drinks only, no food here. An amazing church with a group of storks - they are nesting on every protruding part and there is one nest on top of the steeple - the chief stork??? The landscape continues the same. The camino is road all day long, not black asphalt, but pebbly concrete, I think. See photo. And this road goes parallel, more or less distant, to the motorway all the way to Mérida. We have another 10 km to go. End of pause….. Made it! To go back to the end of pause, see above, after coming out of Tujillanos we did not have to go back to the road going along the motorway, but came to a nice sandy track through the fields and olive groves all the way to Mérida. However ...
Read more