Day 3

Via de la Plata

Friday 30 March 2012

Day 3

 

Castilblanco de los Arroyos to Almadén de la Plata 29km

 

What little sleep we had due to the snoring was then disturbed by people up before 5:00 getting ready to go. I found them packing their bags when I got to the loo, I went back to bed but couldn't sleep so at 6:00 I got up and made a cup of coffee for us which we had in our beds. By this time everybody was up and getting ready so we made for the kitchen to make sure we got the use of the cooker to make more coffee and fill our flask for lunch. Surprisingly nobody was having breakfast they were all too busy preparing for an early start, it was a long walk today and they were probably worried about the time it would take. We were going to wait until it was lighter before setting off.

 

As it turned out the place was deserted shortly after 7:00 so we decided to make a move and half an hour later we got going. The first section through the back streets of the town was alright with plenty of lighting to spot the arrows and when we reached the SE185, the Carretera de Almaden road the sun was rising and giving us a beautiful red sky. We had 16km along this road and some people thought this was too much of a slog and could cause injuries. One of these was Alison who was taking a taxi, Silvia was sharing with her which I could understand as she was suffering with her blisters, but my view is if you are here for the walk then walk. The stretch wasn't so bad, with the firm surface underfoot I was able to look about and admire the countryside which was a series of large private estates or Cortijos with elaborate entrance gates. There was no right of way through these Cortijos for the Camino thus the necessity of using the road. We were making excellent time, I checked it against the kilometre markers with my stopwatch, we were doing an average of 11 minutes per km. The road was through undulating wooded heathland, the trees mainly holm oak for their cork barks. We had passed a few people on the road that had started shortly in front of us but I thought that we would have caught up with more of the slower earlier starters. We began to think that when they left the albergue they headed for the nearest bar that was open for breakfast as they hadn't,t eaten before departing. Or maybe a lot of them had also taken a taxi.

By 11:00 we reached the point where we came off the road and entered El Brrocal, a provincial nature reserve dedicated to the replanting of trees. Initially it was mainly the oaks with the bottom half of their barks stripped for cork but later as we got higher these were replaced by pines then with eucalyptus. The track was on a wide gravel track well way marked not only with the familiar yellow arrows but also nice granite plagues at each junction with the scallop shell in one corner and the park symbol in the other. We stopped in the valley where the track had descended for our lunch, we found a stone wall above a stream to sit and rest our tired legs. From this valley it was a steady climb culminating in a steep last section to a ridge where we were rewarded with two view points. One looked back over the green wooded park to the south while the other gave a panorama of the town of Almadén de la Plata beside a small lake and the countryside to the north where we were going. It had been worth the climb and was only a couple of kilometres down the other side for our bed for the night.

 

We had a pleasant surprise when we reached the albergue, the main dorm was full but the woman opened a small room and it had just the one set of bunks, we had our own private accommodation, anybody snoring tonight wouldn't disturb us. Our first priority was a cup of coffee and we found Silvia in the kitchen preparing her lunch,she had managed fine walking the section through the nature reserve, her blisters not a problem. She didn't know where Alison was, she probably had found a room to herself in another B&B. The next thing was a shower, they weren't particularly good but the water was hot. We then relaxed for a couple of hours before making for a restaurant we passed in town for our meal.

 

The 'Perigrino menu' was as good as last night but we started off with a bowl of hot soup, it had been cold now when we walked to the restaurant and this warmed us up again. We both and chicken and chips followed by 'postre', all costing E17.50 including drinks. On the walk back to the albergue the sky was looking dark with clouds gathering, there. Could be rain tomorrow.