Day 2

Via de la Plata

Thursday 29 March 2012

Day 2

 

Guillena to Castilblanco de los Arroyos. 20 km.

 

We got to bed last night about 9:00, and had to put up with people coming in and out of the dorm, leaving the door open and creating a lot of noise. But eventually everything settled down and it was quiet from 10:00, except for the couple of snorers we had.

 

I had a good night's sleep and was awake at 6:00, I went to the loo and Moira went at the same time. We decided we would go to the kitchen and make an early morning cup of tea. Another two guys were already there having breakfast and not caring how much racket they made. We settled on having breakfast as well, and when others started to get up we went back to the dorm and packed our gear. Now we were ready we got going, it was only 7:30 and it was still dark, it would be another half hour before the sun got up. Fortunately a few others had also started and were just ahead of us on the road so we followed them.

 

The route was straight forward at the beginning even though the yellow arrows were difficulty to see in the dark. From the town we followed a concrete path along the side of a river which was the obvious track but when we turned on to busy road we then began to doubt if the people we were trailing knew where they were going. This became more worrying with no sign of arrows. We stopped and dug out the Cicerone and a torch to consult the actual guide and map when the two French woman, who we met at Sevilla, came along and assured us that we were heading the right way. Not much further on we were reassured by the sight of an arrow on a lamppost. The Camino then turned through an industrial area where it picked up a wide gravel track. This track was now straight with no deviation for 13 km where it met the main road into Castilbanco.

The gravel path which turned into a rough rutted path was nice walking with beautiful views of the small hills in the distance as the sun began to rise. The two guys we were following earlier could be seen up ahead and after a few kilometres we overtook them. When we stopped later for a break and refreshments, a drink of water and an apple,they came past again followed in turn by the two French ladies, a Dutch couple and another guy. When we started again we gradually re-passed all these people.There were plenty of arrows all along this track even though the route was obvious with no alternatives to confuse us. We were making very good time and getting more and more comfortable with our packs with each day.

 

We reached the main road to Castilbanco at 10:30, with just 4km to go to the albergue, we were making about 5km per hour, not a bad pace. This was confirm as we hit the road by a large advertising hoarding which stated - Albergue de Perigrinos 4km. We thought that we were to walk on the side of this busy road for the remainder of this section into town but after a short distance we were directed on to a narrow path that meandered among the bushes and trees at the side of the highway.

 

When we reached Castilbanco the albergue was well signposted and had no trouble finding it. A few people, who must have left Guillena very early, had arrived before us but there were plenty of bunks and we were able to select two bottom ones near the door and convenient for frequent my nightly visits to the loo. Later more and more people arrived, well into the afternoon, a lot that we didn't recognise from staying at the albergue last night, we couldn't figure out where they were coming from. There was one girl already there who was from Wales, she had arrived yesterday but was having a day off because of blisters. Later Moira helped her by bursting and draining them before applying mercurochrome, she said they felt much better after taking stroll to the shops.

After securing our selected bunks we made for the showers. Again the water was lovely and warm, I took advantage of the soapy water to wash my socks and t-shirt at the same time. We intended to eat out tonight and the guide book said that the bar opposite the albergue did a big pilgrim's meal. Unfortunately when we were coming to the albergue it looked closed, there was a general strike called today in Spain and we weren't sure what would be open, obviously this wasn't a strike breaker. Once cleaned and changed we took a walk into the town centre to check out the shops and bars there. We found a supermarket and decided to buy something for tomorrow's breakfast and got a tin of tuna to go with pasta which would do tonight rather than eating out. We continued to stroll round the town, there were a few bars open for business but they weren't displaying a menu and didn't look very inviting. We headed back to the albergue settled on our tuna pasta for dinner. The town itself wasn't particularly interesting, typical Spanish houses, though the church was attractive with its high square bell tower with a number of nesting storks on top.

Melanie Radzicki McManus

 

Back at the hostel which was quite crowded now we had our lunch in the tiny little kitchen. It wasn't very comfortable with only a small table and two wooden chairs. There was a bigger table and chairs outside on the patio with the washing lines, but there was a cool breeze blowing and that option wasn't very inviting. Lunch over we went to the dorm and stretched out on our bunks to relax, it was the most comfortable place in the dorm and a number of others were of the same mind.

 

Californian Alison arrived mid-afternoon but she wasn't staying at the albergue. She had managed to get a room to herself in a small hostal for E10, it had a common room with a TV as well. She also said that she found a bar where she had the pilgrim menu for lunch. We had second thoughts now about staying in to eat, especially in the cramped kitchen. I had another look in the guide book and found that the place opposite that was closed wasn't the recommended one, there was as another restaurant close by. We went for a walk to check it out and found it was open with the menu of the day for E8, it was now our plan for later. For now we had another walk through the town following the Camino arrows to familiarise ourselves with tomorrow's start of the route.

 

We wandered over to the restaurant at 6:00 and there were a few other pilgrims already there sitting outside, but it seemed a bit cold there and we took a table near the bar. The meal was very good, there was olives as an appetiser then we had a tuna salad with lovely freshly baked bread to mop up the olive oil. For main course we thought we ordered pork chops but instead we got a pork stew and chips, we didn't complain as it was delicious. We finished with an ice cream and all this cost us E19 which included wine.

 

Back at the albergue we got to bed early for comfort, Moira read a book on the iPad and I dozed off. I was just dropping off to sleep when there was loud shouting in Spanish, the guy was told to keep quite and ushered out of the dorm, I don't know what his problem was. The next time when I was nearly sleeping the guy in the bunk above Moira started to snore, and could he snore, he was a champion. Strangely when somebody coughed this stopped his snoring, so every time he started up again and disturbed me I gave a loud cough and this stopped him.