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

 



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….

And then again road, road… after having turned off the road onto a nice sandy track following the camino markings Andrea found that we were on an alternative route which was taking us far from where we wanted to be. So we made our way through a field back to our road….

Out of Yelbes sandy tracks for a while - had another rest after one hour’s walk - complete rest with short sleep - and then back to the very busy Nacional, almost all the way to here. We had sun all day and at times quite strong wind, this has been an agreeable day for me inspite of the sun. Andrea of course would say because of the sun!

Made it! To the local bar anyway where we have picked up the key for the albergue - no other accommodation to be had in this village. But the bar does food and early breakfast!

Arriving here we noticed how much green vegetation there is, hedges, flower beds, etc. And the flagged path into the centre with grass and trees on either side was dug up at one point with pipes ending there and a water tap. This looked like a watering system being installed underground to avoid wasting water. I also noticed in a field of young mais plants there was a thin plastic pipe running each time between two rows of plants. And similarly later there was one such pipe each along a row of young olive trees.






                                                            Santa Cecilia without her steeple





Trying to get back on our way across the field



                                                                       Back on the road! 










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