21st September, Via de la Plata, Day 3

To Galisteo

Another hot day meant another early start. At 6.30am (the one in the morning) I snuck out of the community centre, leaving the cyclists to get themselves organised for their day’s slog.

I didn’t bother with breakfast, preferring to get off as soon as possible and take advantage of the cool morning.

There were plenty of signs for much of the route, more often than not just a yellow arrow painted on a rock or whatever, but also more elaborate affairs:

Although these signs were good, I had been warned of misleading and missing waymarkings before Galisteo. A farmer objects to the right of way going through his land and does his level best to divert peregrinos via Rio Lobos….thereby adding another 5 – 6km to the day’s walk.

Some enterprising locals have capitalised on the diversion:

More evidence of Roman habitation became, er, more evident. Milarios – Roman Milestones appeared every now and then – 1000 paces apart. Sometimes their more modern counterparts are found planted next to the originals:

    The new and the old

Slowly but surely, the further north I walked, the landscape began to take on an greener hue. It was very gradual, A couple of days earlier the only greenery I saw was the salad on my plate. The tracks were still very hard and stony, playing merry-hell with the soles of my feet.

The sky was changing now, clouds were more frequent although it was still very hot.

I was really ready for coffee and a bite to eat but the couple of villages I passed through couldn’t offer any refreshment. It was a matter of finding a suitable spot to sit down and attack the now disintegrating Aldi fruity bars. The front porch of the (locked) Ermita Ntr. Senora de ‘La Argamasa’ fitted the bill perfectly. ‘Argamasa’ incidently, is Spanish for mortar (cement). Obviously when you think about it. Innit.

      

I won’t insult your intelligence by translating the text here, I’m sure you can all do that with ease. Ahem.

Anyway, half-an-hour of feet-uppedness certainly helped my feet and allowed me to cool off a little. Leaving the shade of my refuge wasn’t easy, when the sun was out the heat was uncomfortable at best – heaven knows what it would be like in the height of summer

The countryside was far more agricultural now, fields of all sorts of crops – sweetcorn, grapes, oranges, olives, chilli-peppers and more.

Hot stuff

On tarmac once again, route to Galisteo passed close to a solar panel site. These panels were quite clever, servo-driven so that when the sun was up and about, they were always perpendicular to the sun – thus they were able to capture the maximum possible level of solar energy from it’s source 93 million miles away. Spain seems to capitalise on it’s sunshine, these fields of solar panel were not uncommon – although I noticed that some weren’t steerable.

Solar panels on the road to Galisteo

By now the walled town of Galisteo was quite visible although it was still a couple of hours away:

Then it started to rain. Not much, but without doubt it was wet rain. As soon as the rain stopped the humidity soared making it extremely uncomfortable for around 30 minutes or so.

Anyway, onwards to Galisteo.

There was an albergue outside the walls, conveniently situated almost next-door to the Bar Los Imigrantes, purveyors of ice-cold beer and rather good cheese, tomato and bacon butties. Just what the doctor ordered.

Bar Los Imigrantes

My lack of good Spanish caused some panic. The bar staff had me understand that the albergue was closed and there wasn’t any alternative accommodation available. I had got it completely wrong – there was plenty of space in the albergue, much to the relief of me and Nico who had just arrived in town – very hot and pretty tired.

The albergue

I spent much of the late afternoon and early evening exploring the town. The walls were quite accessible and provided excellent views of the town and surrounding countryside.

Views of the town, plus the servo-operated church bell. Technology eh?

The next day’s target was Arco de Caparra, going via Carcaboso. The route incolved 10km of busy tarmac so the executive decision was taken to avoid this first part of the walk by using the bus or taxi. Bus transport is minimal in these out of the way places so the choice was to either phone for a taxi or walk. In my best Spanish I phoned the local taxi man. He had no English, I had even less Spanish. The phone call left me convinced the man couldn’t understand me and the taxi I tried to order for the 7am following morning just wasn’t going to arrive.

I slept heavily that night, waking up at 6.50am, just in time to hear the taxi man roll up. Perhaps my Spanish isn’t quite so unintelligible after all.

Total distance for the day: around 24km