El Cubo de la Tierra del Vino 26 September

The view of the cathedral in Salamanca from near our albergue

This was the walk out of Salamanca this morning

This is the view that I saw most of the day.

Walking into the village

Garbanzos with bacalao fish and paprika

eggs with beef

Main Street in the village

The albergue

Our hospitelero helping the bicycle pilgrim to repair his flat tire

Well today's walk was a long and dull mostly on the highway, 23 miles or so, with no alternate place to stop any sooner. This is very good farming country, wheat, corn, and sunflowers, but not a lot of people or villages. Tonight's stop is a farming village, El Cubo de la Tierra del Vino, which would translate as the Cube of the Earth of the Wine. Hhmmm?

I am staying at a mom and pop albergue in this little farming town. Just got in after 7 1/2 hours of walking. The hospitalera was surprised that I arrived as soon as I did, since I was walking from Salamanca.  As soon as I arrived, I had the comida casera ( home cooking) for mid day meal. The primer plato was garbanzos in a sauce of paprika and bacalao fish, the segundo plata two eggs with peppers and beef, and a postre of the really good Spanish melon.

After my meal, shower, and clothes washing, I took a walk around the village. Aside from a little activity in the two bars, nothing else seemed to be going on. I walked back to the albergue to see that Tinga from Hungary and Jay from northern Ireland were just arriving.

What a contrast this is just one day's walk from the cosmopolitan university city of Salamanca. There is a tractor parked in the town square. Our hosts have horses, dogs, olives, grapes, straw bales. I have to admire the entrepreneurial spirit of our hosts. He sat along the road coming into town pitching his place with all the reasons why we should stay.  He convinced us. As I am sitting here writing this, I see that he just brought in a couple on a tandem bicycle, hauling them in on his trailer. They look very tired and also have a flat tire, which he is now helping them to fix. He just took off again to the highway to see if more pilgrims will arrive later.

Salamanca 25 September

Today is kind of a rest day with an easy 12 mile walk into Salamanca. This city is a place of good memories as Kathy and I spent almost a week here in 2005. Then I was here for two days again in 2010. I arrived at the albergue around noon, but they do not open until 4, so I left my pack there and am reacquainting myself with the city this afternoon. 

Starting to get out of the hilly grazing country into flatter, cultivated land just before Salamanca

The sunflowers around here are pretty spindly and small compared to the ones at home

Walking across the river on the Puente Romana, the cathedral is in view in the background

Brass plates set into the pavement to show the way. I saw this one in 2010, today it helped me to find the way.

Don Quixote, where Kathy and I studied Spanish in 2005

Morille 24 September

More walking today through the high plains of Castilla y Leon, 18 miles Lots of grazing land, mostly cattle and some pigs, also some wheat stubble left behind after the wheat harvest. Tomorrow it is 18 km to Salamanca, which will the the largest city so far on my walk.

Once again we are walking on the old Roman Road

Kent, here is a photo for you, expensive ham eating up the acorns

My midday snack break on a bench outside a church in a small village. The wine is in a plastic water bottle to cut down on carrying weight.

Matt, you could weld up some sculptures like this from scrap iron

Fuenterroble de Salvatierra 23 September

I needed to walk 33 km or about 21 miles today, so that the next two days into Salamanca would be manageable distances. It took 7 hours with a lot of ups and a few downs, so not too bad. This is somewhat mountainous land about 3500 feet in elevation at the summit. Much forested with some grazing land. It will be a lot of up and down again tomorrow before I descend into the plains around Salamanca. When I arrived at the albergue today, I saw many of the same walkers that I first met three or four days ago. They had walked on farther than I had two days ago, but my long day today made up the difference. It rained quite a bit last night, but luckily, the rain held off for most of the walk today, with only a few brief showers.

This is the way to see Spain. It is definitely not the tourist Spain of Barcelona, Madrid, and Sevilla, but very much the average, everyday workingman's Spain. And seeing it at 3 miles per hour gives you a much closer perspective. Lots of cows, brush, flies, and gravel! Right now I am sitting in the local bar and enjoying the only decent wifi in the village, all for only the cost of a glass of wine. At the next table are a group of local men, playing cards, they are getting pretty excited about it. 

What's not to like about walking through beautiful countryside like this?

Here is a selfie of me at a village fountain during a midmorning break

All the rain makes for some occasional muddy walking

More beautiful countryside descending from the day's last summit

Baños de Montemayor 22 September

Today was relatively easier at about 13 miles. But we are starting to get into the mountains separating Extremadura from Castilla y Leon, so the next two days there will be a lot of climbing and downslopes, plus with the spacing of the albergues it means some 18 mile days.

Most of the people I had been walking with are going at a slower pace. Of those I've met, only Georgio is still here at the albergue tonight. 

Some of the last of  the Extremadura landscape

This portion of the camino is the actual Roman Road

Only 569 km to go to Santiago (about 350 miles)

Jarilla 21 September

Very tired and sore after another 19 mile day. Leg muscles ache, sore shoulders from the pack, and 4 toes that are starting to have the nails turn blue, meaning they will be gone soon. But I feel great and am glad I can do this. Tomorrow I will have a "rest day" of only about 12 miles. 

In the province of Extremedura, the towns and villages are spread farther apart, so one must often walk farther than desired to find a place to stay. Today that was the case, and I detoured about two kilometers to the highway to stay in a hostel (which is like an inexpensive hotel) for the night, as the next albergue was another  8 km up the path and no way was I going to walk that  far today. Several of the other pereginos that I met are also staying here. After arriving about 2 pm, I met up with Mike from Australia and Georgio from Italy, along with a new peregrina from Oregon, Linda, and we had a midday meal in the hostal. Mine was alubias blanco con chorizo (white beans with sausage) and trout with peppers. That hit the spot as I ran out of food to carry since the supermercados were closed last night due to the festival. Still no groceries as this is Sunday and nothing here is open, but I will be able to resupply tomorrow morning when I walk into the next larger town.

Ah, me gusto mucho España!

I have to post this photo of our gracious 79 year old  hospitalera from last night, Elena. In addition to providing us with an excellent albergue, she also phoned ahead to make our hostal reservations for tonight.

Some of the beautiful farm country we walked through today.

The Arco de Cappara, ruins dating from Roman times, on today's walk

Carcaboso 20 September

The walk today was long  at 19 miles. My legs and shoulders are sore, still not in shape yet, but will get there in a few days. The first part of the walk was on a track through a hunting preserve area, no no traffic to contend with. After about 6 miles, I had my morning coffee in Rio Lobos, then the rest of the way was on lightly used paved roads through farming and grazing country to arrive mid afternoon in the little town of Carcaboso. It's Saturday, with a fiesta going on here, lots of beer tents set up and loud music. Hopefully, the music won't last too late tonight.

Through the hunting preserve

Tabacco in Spain?

Part of the fiesta

Pilgrim dinner; Jack from Northern Ireland, Ton and Martin from Holland, Kristina from  Germany, Georgio  from Italy, and me from USA

Grimaldo 19 September

Difficult decision today, should I walk 12 miles to the first albergue or 24 miles to the next one. Since it rained most of the first twelve miles, I decided to stop at the first one. Also am a  bit  sore, since I am still trying to get in shape. So will rest up this afternoon and walk farther tomorrow. The walk today was through a scenic park area and alongside the new high speed rail that is being built. Pretty country but walking while you are wet is not as much fun.

Walking in the rain

Embalse de Alcantara

Walking on the road is not a lot of fun

Much nicer on this country road

Lots of cattle and sheep gates to go through

The granite waymarkers. This is one point that the old Roman Road diverges from the current Camino route

The view of the reservoir from our albergue

It is good to be walking, but this is sparsely populated country outside of the big cities, so I had to walk a bit farther than I would have liked for the first day, about 32 km or 20 miles. The first 10 km were on the highway to Casar de Caceres, with not much of a shoulder to walk on, there was not an option walk elsewhere. However , beyond Casar de Caceres, the path was mainly an unpaved country road, most of it decomposed granite. Besides less traffic, it was also much easier on the feet than the hard asphalt. I walked all day without seeing another pilgrim, which I always like. There are about 18 to 20 people in the albergue tonight, but all except myself and another person walked from Casar de Caceres.

I have to explain that I am currently walking the Via de la Plata (Road of the Silver). This is the old Roman road that they used to haul the silver that they mined in northern Spain.     The modern day camino route is often on the same path. I discovered the unique granite cube waymarkers are marked in green for the old Roman road and yellow for the modern day route.Where they coincide there are both yellow and green tiles on the cube. The top of the cube is always marked with an arrow designating the direction one should be traveling. A pretty good system. I wonder if these markers will continue.

Many walkers would probably find the rural areas that I walked through today to be boring and uninteresting, just as many skip the meseta between Burgos and Leon on the Camino Frances. As a farmer, I find it interesting to study the different forms that agriculture takes in different places. Centuries have evolved this seemingly bleak looking area into one that is productive for wheat farming on the better soils and grazing land for cattle and sheep on the rest. There are even some oak groves growing in pastures so the acorns can provide the feed for the prized pigs raised on them. 

Tonight's albergue is not in a city or village, but rather overlooks the Embalse (reservoir) de Alcantara, which dams up the Rio Tajo. The Rio Tajo flows from Toledo and beyond here finally enters the ocean at Lisbon in Portugal. A picturesque setting. Clouds threatened today, but no rain. I think we will have some rain tomorrow.

Note: I tried to post some photos, but the internet here is too slow to do that before Christmas. Hopefully later.

Caceres 17 September

After starting out over 24 hours ago in Woodland,I am now in Caceres Spain, with only a few hours of poor quality sleep. Several delays in my flight to Atlanta, meant that I barely caught my flight to Madrid. Even more surprisingly, my checked backpack made it, too. After a Metro ride to Estacion Sur in Madrid, I then send four hours on the bus to Caceres. All went well, but I am tired, so hopefully will sleep well tonight. The private albergue here has only two other walkers and I have a room to myself. It has rained off and on today, sometimes hard. Tomorrow may be more clear, but more rain predicted Friday and Saturday. Ugh, walking in the rain is necessary but not pleasant. I will start my walk tomorrow, planning on 31 km if all goes well.

Here I go again on my latest Camino

If its September, John must be leaving soon for another camino in Spain. I will fly to Madrid, arriving on September 17 for my fifth Camino in six years. This time I plan to walk at least 400 miles and on a different route than previously. I plan to start farther south, in the city of Caceres in the province of Extremadura. I will walk the Via de la Plata north through Salamanca and to just beyond Zamora where I will continue on the Camino Sanabres through Ourense and on to Santiago de Compostela.

This 65 year old guy has been preparing by doing a lot of walking around Woodland on the levees of Cache Creek, Yolo Bypass, Ridge Cut Slough, and Sacramento River. Yesterday I just finished a typical and dusty nine mile walk through the Cache Creek settling basin and up Cache Creek back to our house in 90 degree plus heat.

I will try to post daily on my walk, but may miss a day here and there when I can not find internet access. For those who already follow my blog, you should continue to receive an email each time I post. For those who are not yet following my blog, it is easy to do so. Just enter your email at the "Follow by Email" link on the main page of this blog. You will receive an email notification each time I post and, don't worry, you will not be added to anyone's spam marketing list. If you want to comment on any of my posts, please feel free to do so.

Finally, I would like to thank in advance the person who makes this all possible, my loving wife, Kathy. She continues to work full time at her job plus take care of my my business while I am gone, in order for me to be able pursue my passion for walking long distances day after day.

Camino 2013 Final Post

I have been home almost a week now,but want to wrap things up with one final posting for this 2013 Camino of mine. After Cordoba, I took the train back to Madrid, where I visited the Prado and Reina Sofia art museums, also took a half day trip to Toledo and visited another favorite spot, the cathedral in Madrid.

The high speed (180 mph) train that I took from Cordoba to Madrid. The transit systems in Spain are fantastic

It is not a major city in Spain unless there is some sort of demonstration going on. This group in Madrid was protesting Monsanto's transgenic seeds.

Here is the interior of Madrid's cathedral. I like it because it was only completed in the twentieth century and has such a modern feel to it.












To wrap things up, a friend of mine just emailed me to mention that I never really said why I am doing camino after camino. It made me stop and think and put it down in words. Here is what I wrote back to him:

I am afraid my blog can be a bit boring at times, since I usually just talk about the ease or difficulty of the day's walk and maybe mention the food or something else that caught my attention. I refrain from talking very much about the many people that I meet as sometimes I may not have the nicest observations to make and I don't want to hurt any feelings since they sometimes read my blog, too. That said, I am glad you enjoyed following along.

Why do I walk the various caminos? Good question that I am not sure I can really answer satisfactorily, but there are several reasons why I continue to do it.

Religious? Definitely not now, perhaps to some extent, my first one in 2009, but seeing the effects of organized religion (the Inquisition, harsh treatment of the Moors and Jews, and other violence committed in the name of religion) has made me a firm agnostic.

History? Yes, I love seeing the various cathedrals, bridges, castles, etc. and it is always a source of wonder that these were built hundreds of years ago without the modern equipment we have today.

Spiritual? I suppose this would be the discovering oneself part. Perhaps I have to some extent, especially in regard to the religion question, but not really something that I think about a lot. Walking alone for hours does give a person lots of thinking time. I prefer to walk alone and I rarely listen to music while I am walking. I think I am generally a happy, well-adjusted person anyway, so there is not something that I am trying to find or some problem that I am hoping to get an answer for. I have not had any great revelations along the way. I know there are a lot of pilgrims there that are walking for these reasons.

Exercise? Well, I am glad that I am physically able to walk 14-22 miles a day, day after day. I think that perhaps only 5 % of the population, all ages, would be able to do that. I am thankful that I can, but the only way to know that I can is if I go out and do it. It is always a challenge year after year to see if I can still do that and so far I have been able to. One of these years, I know that will not be the case.

Why do some people such as I go on multiple caminos? This is a question that has been discussed many times on a camino forum that I subscribe to. As one other pilgrim on this forum put it-
"Not walking itself, but continuing to walk caminos. I can speak only for myself, of course, but I regard it strictly as another manifestation of OCD. How else can I explain doing something that is costly, unproductive, and taking up time from more responsible endeavors. Cheap vacation?? Ha! Trips to Europe are not cheap no matter how cheap the lodging might be. I live in an area that is the destination of a great many tourists from around the world and I can find plenty of low cost places to visit within one or two day's drive. I can only view the camino trips as an addiction and not necessarily a healthy one, not even physically."
I don't know if I agree totally with his outlook, but I know I do not have the starry eyed feeling that some people have and I am probably a bit more realistic about my expectations in completing the walk. Sometimes it can be a bit unnerving walking on a long road with traffic and sometimes boring, when you are just tired of reading another book on Kindle and its not time yet to eat or go to bed. But all in all, the people you meet from all over the world (not too many Americans), the scenery, the food, it is all enjoyable.

Bottom line? I enjoy walking and I enjoy Spain. The infrastructure is there for these extended walks in a way that it is not in other countries. The food is great, the people are great, I enjoy seeing how their agriculture is different than ours. It is even fun walking in the rain once in a while, but not too often. I don't want to do wilderness backpacking trips anymore carrying 50 pounds of food, tents, stoves, etc. but I do like carrying my 25 pound pack knowing that I will be able to spread out my sleeping bag on a cot under cover (even if there are 10 to 50 other people in the same room) and go out for a nice restaurant meal pretty much every day, too.

So why do I do it? I give any compellingly good reasons. I just enjoy it.

John

Córdoba tourist 11 October

At its 8:30 am opening, I was at the cathedral, which is named la Mezquita, here in Córdoba. It is totally different from any of the numerous cathedrals that i have previously seen in Spain. First the total area is probably 5 times that of the normal cathedral. This is because it started out at a mosque around the year 800. The original ceiling is also flat and not nearly as high as one might think. After Ferdinand and Isabella's successful reconquista, it was converted to a Christian cathedral, with the center part razed and a much higher building made for the cathedral part. It's hard to describe, and hard to get good photos in the generally dim interior lighting, but I hope my photos can convey some of the sense of the place. I also visited the Jewish synagogue, a much more modest building that is maybe 30 by 50 feet. It is significant because it is one of only three Jewish synagogues n Spain dating to the Middle Ages. I also visited the Alcazar, the former Muslim fortress converted to a living quarters by Ferdinand and Isabella. Aside from the buildings, the formal gardens were imposing. One can see that in a hot climate like Cordoba (it was 88 degrees today in mid October), cool, shaded gardens are a necessity. I also walked across the Roman bridge, found the track of the Camino Mozarbe, visited the Museum of Fine Art (which had a nice interactive display of Federico Lorca's 'Pequeño vals vienés'. Tomorrow, I am headed back to Madrid for two days.

Part of the original mosque in the Mezquita

The center part that was added to make the Mezquita into a cathedral.

When they added the cathedral arches, they did not always line up with the mosque arches.

The synagogue

View from the Puente Romano back towards the Mezquita.

View from the Rio Guadalquiver of the Puente Romano and the Mezquita.

Waymarking symbol for the Camino Mozarbe to Santiago.

A view of the gardens in the Alcazar.

Another view of the gardens in the Alcazar.

Córdoba10 October

Today was mostly a travel day and what a change of scenery! From cool and moist Galicia in northwestern Spain to warm and dry Andalusia. I took the regular train from Santiago to Madrid arriving mid afternoon, then the superfast AVE train (speeds up to 180 mph) to Cordoba. I had a tight connection in Madrid, complicated by the arrival in the first train in Chamartin station and the AVE train leaving from Atocha station. I was able to get a free transfer between stations on the cercania (local) train and luckily had about 20 minutes to spare.

I arrived at 6 pm in Cordoba and then walked down to the old town district. It was not possible to find a room in a pension or hostal, but I did get a bed in an albergue type hostal that has wifi and a lot of space. I spent a bit of time walking around the old quarter scoping out the sights to see for tomorrow, so that I will be prepared to be a tourist.

Lots of pilgrims headed back to Madrid on the morning train.

A view of the Mezquita from the Roman Bridge (Puente Romano). I will go inside the Mezquita tomorrow. It is the cathedral here that was converted from a mosque.

Night scene in Cordoba about 8:30 pm. Like most all Spanish cities, young and old alike are out after dark enjoying it.