Camino de Santiago Ruta de La Lana GPX files, maps, places to sleep.

Camino de Santiago Ruta de La Lana GPX files, maps, places to sleep.

Updated: 29.10.2013

This page will be updated regularly until all info about albergues etc. is included.

Please inform me of any errors or omissions

alicante to cuenca gpx file  Right click and save as……..

00001704

 

NB.  I was taken from  Villarta to Iniesta by ambulance, so the route deviates at this point.

 

[mapsmarker layer=”7″]   NB this map is hefty to move: i.e. it only moves slowly.

 

 

cuenca to burgos.gpx   right click to download

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Here are the individual gpx tracks in sequence from Alicante to Chillarón (Cuenca):

20130420  Day 2  Day 3  Day 4  Day 5  Day 6  Day 7  day 8  Day 9  Day 10  Day 11

Day 12  Day 13  Day 14  Day 15  Day 16

The route between Campillo de Altobuey and Monteagudo de Salinas is not that on Mundicamino, but is the one marked by the yellow arrows.

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For all information on the Ruta de La Lana

and The Camino del Sureste.

 

Contact;  Paco Serra Telf. 965 600842 ó 629 668829

Paco will give you route details in Novelda as well as up to date information about Albergues and other places to sleep.

He is one of the author’s to the Guide to Camino del Sureste, from Alicante via Toledo to Zamora.  I believe a guide for the Ruta de La Lana is in preparation.

 

Some useful telephone numbers:

An absolute must is to contact Miguel in Alatoz.  Miguel is a volunteer in this village with others who are very active in helping those on the Ruta de La Lana, including the superb doctor, Dr. De Campo, who healed my badly injured knee in 2010.

Miguel: 682051835

The main contact in Cuenca is Luis Cañas.  Cuenca has a superb albergue.  Luis: 636351067.   Luis gave me simple route maps and lodging information for the rest of the Ruta de La Lana.

In Villaconejos de Trabaque Pepe Cava will give you an unforgettable welcome and support.  Pepe: 646128868.  Pepe is not to be missed.

Pepe Villaconejos in "The Cave"

Pepe Villaconejos in “The Cave”

In the Province of Guadalajara the contact is Jose Luis Bartolomé,  608422155.

Accomodation 

Campillo de Altobuey.  Contact the mayor.  Ask for him in one of the bars in the Plaza.  The village accomodates pilgrims in the Sports Centre.  Very welcoming village.

Paracuellos.  Two km after the village turn left on the road to Almodovar.  After a km there is a hermitage on your right.  The Casa Rural has tastefully decorated rooms offered at a discount to pilgrims.  There is also a restaurant with good food.  They do substantial sandwiches for the next part of the Camino which might be important since, apart from a small shop in Monteagudo de las Salinas, which does not sell fruit, there is nothing for the next 35 km.

Tel:  667317537 or 651683850

 

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Via de La Plata: Crossing Badajoz to Fuente de Cantos

Learning about the Camino

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When I left Monesterio with my blister popped by the patient nurse, I soon lost my way. Probably I was distracted by having to put my opened blister in the water when crossing a swollen river.  I was concerned because the torrential rain of the previous night had overwhelmed the sewage works which poured out a smelly beige froth into the river I had to wade through.

Contaminated stream outside Monesterio

Contaminated stream outside Monesterio

I was learning to walk with blisters.  At first I was afraid that putting me weight on my foot would just make it worse.  What happenned is that, with time, my foot became numb and I could walk fairly normally.  My relief at this discovery was shortly replaced with a new concern.  I could not find any yellows arrows which mark the Camino.

Beautiful path, but not the Camino

Beautiful path, but not the Camino

I had still not noticed that other people on the Camino start and finish early.  Later I learned that there were about 8 or 9 of us walking more or less the same stage each day.  I, however, was behind them all and lost.  So I looked at the sinking sun and headed North because that is where the Via de La Plata goes.  These March days were still short and I realised that I would not reach the next town by nightfall.  Then I eventually saw a yellow arrow and was comforted. I wondered about the road I had not travelled.

I climbed up a small hillside dotted encinas.  These are the oak trees which produce the acorns for the black pigs.  I recalled that I had always been puzzled that Don Quixote and Sancho Panza could live for days on acorns, albeit declaring that “hunger is the best sauce”. Encinas produce edible acorns, some sweet and some bitter but all, I am sure, nutricious.  Much land in Extremadura is dehesa:  grazing land populated by encinas.

Dehesa characteristic landscape in Extremadura

Dehesa characteristic landscape in Extremadura

As night fell I found a fairly level spot right alongside the path, took out my sleeping bag and lay under the stars.  I woke from time to time and thought of how often I have read descrptions of what people feel when they look at the night sky: thoughts of infinity, of ancestors telling stories, myths and modern astronomy, of dark matter and time and distances bigger than the debt of the USA.  I relaxed into a feeling of security.  Again, nothing else seemed important: only this grace given to be part of this mystery.  “Nada te turbe”    An inner warmth filled me with peace.

At 5 am I noticed the cold.  My sleeping bag had a label which said “min, temp -6º”.  It was frosty but not freezing.  Now I realise that the minimum temperature is very different from the “comfortable” temperature.  At the minimum temperature you nearly die.

Morning in a field near Fuented de Canto

Morning breaks  in a field near Fuentes de Canto where I had been sleeping.

 

Joyfully, I gathered my modest survival kit into my rucksack and headed for an early stop in the albergue (now closed!!) in Fuente de Cantos.  After two days without a shower I wondered if they had hot water.

 

 

 

 

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Voice recordings from Ruta de La Lana for blog subscribers.

These files are for subscribers only.  When I made them I didn’t ever intend to make them public.  They were simply to jog my memory. I now hope they will add flesh to some of the text.

 

 

Where Jacques prodded the ground as he told me of his son's death.

Where Jacques prodded the ground as he told me of his son’s death.

meeting with Jacques MP3     Blog post on the meeting with Jacques.

Apologies for the sniffing!

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My doubts are eased by meeting a fellow pilgrim. The dead walk with us. Ruta de La Lana Day 3 cont.

A meeting in the Saline valley.

I sat down to tend an emerging blister.  I had no strength in my muscles and doubted my capacity to walk for many more days.  It was 8am and I was wilting.

bleak salty valley

bleak salty valley

I became aware of an approaching figure who was obviously a fellow pilgrim.  A man of roughly my age, tall and hobbling a little, greeted me warmly.  This Belgian man exchanged the usual basic information which pilgrims share, a process of ranking in seniority on the Camino which in reality counts for nothing but probably satisfies a primitive instinct for knowing our position vis-a-vis l’autre.  This soon gave way to the nitty-gritty talk about our feet.  Jacque’s boots were new and pinching and as a veteran on the Camino he knew well that new boots can cause problems but these were exactly the same size and make as those he had just discarded, so he had hoped they would be fine. My sandals were also new and just like my old ones.  I had made the same mistake.

We were on different Caminos.  Jacques was following the Camino del Sureste which shares the same route as the Ruta de la Lana up to Almansa.  From the guest-books in the hostels I was to learn that the numbers who begin the Camino in Alicante, especially early in the year, are just a handful each month and most of these follow the Camino del Sureste.  Indeed, I had chosen my route because it is usually empty.

We talked about being solitary walkers and I listened as Jacques told me about his son who had died in 2005.  “Ah, yes,” I said, “and he is often with you as you walk.”  I know this because it was one of my first experiences when I began walking in 2009.  I felt the presence of a former acquaintance, a Jesuit, who was shot dead by guerrillas in Zimbabwe.  It was not an apparition, just an awareness of presence which can, of course, be attributed to pure imagination. This explanation does not diminish the impact of the experience on my mood, my outlook, indeed on my level of awareness of being.  Anyway, Jacques confirmed eagerly that his son is often with him.  I thought fondly of the many other pilgrims who have told me the same, of  Gerry Hughes who writes about his sister who drowned. He was aware of her in his walk to Jerusalem, a pilgrimage for peace.  I remembered my meeting on the Via de La Plata with a mother who had lost a child and spoke eloquently of her consolation in knowing her daughter walked with her.

Where Jacques prodded the ground as he told me of his son's death.

Where Jacques prodded the ground as he told me of his son’s death.

Jacques took his leave and left me to put a magic plastic coating on my foot.  My energy level had changed and my doubts were absent, replaced by a sense of wonder at how two strangers can meet and, in five minutes, explore the limitations of our everyday experience in which our normal discourse is petrified.  The mundane is usually so dominant that when we break out from it, loosening its sticky, clinging grasp we fly free to experience the unimaginable. While it is possible to claim that the imagination is a complete explanation for this common phenomenon, (an awareness of the dead), imagining those who have died as being present to us is quite different from experiencing an awareness of their presence.  Philosophical issues matter to me when I am in a state of doubt.  After my meeting with Jacques this changed.  I felt engaged again with my Camino and its challenge to all that I take for granted as “normal”.  Doubting becomes unimportant. Indeed it is the flowering of paradox which grows alongside the camino like rosemary which opens the self to being empty of certainty;  like the little blue petals which part to offer their pollen to the air and the bees.

Rosemary bordering the Ruta de La Lana.

Rosemary bordering the Ruta de La Lana.

The paradox in this moment for me, as Jacques parted on his solitary Camino and I continued on mine, is how, in this solitude, I encountered a fullness of union, with Jacques with my fellow pilgrims, with humanity and nature, with the dead. The communion of saints.

 

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First doubts. Ruta de La Lana GPS Tracks Day 3

First doubts.

Novelda to Sax  23.5km

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Novelda

Arriving on the outskirts of Novelda, I was approached by a man who asked if I was on the Camino.  This is not so obvious as it might seem:  I was once given money by a tramp who took pity on my bedraggled state.  He said there was a good place to stay and took me into the town centre to the Procurator’s office where I was greeted very warmly by Fransico Serra, one of the authors of the guide to the Camino del Sureste .  This was my first of many contacts with the Amigos del Camino in Alicante, Albacete and Cuenca.  I doubt if the Templars were ever so completely dedicated to helping and protecting pilgrims.  “Paco” gave me all sorts of advice and a detailed route as well as lists of telephone numbers of places to stay.  On the Camino Francés many people said that they had decided against the Ruta de La Lana for its lack of infrastructure.  These Amigos, apart from marking the route with yellow arrows…………..thanks amigos1 have negotiated terms for lodging from individuals, casa rurales and Hostals, as well as offering their own houses to Pilgrims and establishing some excellent albergues.  “Don’t give me a donation, give it to the next beggar you meet,”  was the encouragement I received.  The Spirit of the Camino thrives with this group of men and women who keep alive the tradition of  hospitality, opening their doors and the hearts to all who pass their Way.

I was exhausted and had only walked 31 km in two days.  Although I had arrived early, about 2pm, I lay in bed full of aches.  Many of these were normal muscle pains included my usual list of ankle, knee and shoulder.  However, 10 days before I began this Camino I had developed a urinary infection and was just about to finish my second course of antibiotics.  They had seemed to be working, but now I doubted it.

Corrosive Doubt

The morning always brings new energy and unfailing surprise at  being able to lift my rucksack again.

P1100929

 

It was hard going all the same.  Paco had suggested that I visit a sanctuary designed by a great admirer of Gaudi.  This building came into view immediately on leaving Novelda and appeared like a mini Sagrada Familia. It was perched on a hill above the valley.

Mini Sagrada Familia near Villena

Mini Sagrada Familia near Villena

I was flagging. 34 km into a Camino of 1300km, Day3!!  In the weeks before beginning my Caminos I awake in the mornings with no desire to go off walking again.  A house is a comfortable place to live.  When faced with an approaching departure into a life on the road, central heating, clean clothes and a cosy bed conspire in trying to convince me to stay at home.  For the first week, the walking is always hard and my confidence shaky, but I am full of determination.  This time, however, I felt washed out: I looked up at this strange sanctuary and had no strength in me to climb up to it. Already I had lost the path twice. ( You can see this if you zoom in on the map where the track leaves Novelda.) Each time I had to double back, just 50 metres or so, but this was a sign of weariness.  I found a rock to sit on in the barren valley beneath the church, where the rain has eroded the saline rocks into fascinating bas-relief forms which tickle the imagination.

natural bas-relief

natural bas-relief

My doubts about this Camino were growing.  Concretely, my ankle was very painful.  The surgeon in Caceres had told me that I couldn’t walk any more Caminos, just a year earlier.  What if he was right? My reasons for taking on a Camino are complex but I’ve always felt it was something I was meant to be doing.  My desire on this one was to have time to pray in solitude.  I had chosen this route for its reputation as the most solitary of Caminos.  I longed for silence and days with little human contact. Maybe my discernment was skewed and what had come to me in prayer as something I should do was just a romantic notion stimulated by reading Belden Lane’s “The Solace of fierce Landscapes”.

As I sat beneath the sculpted rock in this valley of corrosion where locals bathe in pools of warm salt water seeping up from the earth’s crust,

A salt pool prepared for bathing.

A salt pool prepared for bathing.

another pilgrim approached……………….

 

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Camino Francés, Cruz de Hierro, Rabanal del Camino, Foncebadón, Manjarín

When the symbolic does its job and helps us to change.

 

Entering El Ganso with the mountains ahead.

Entering El Ganso with the mountains ahead.

I begin this first post on the Camino Francés with the stage which passes by the Iron Cross, El Cruz de Heirro.  It is a part of the Camino which deeply moves many people.  When I arrived on the Camino Francés this year, I joined it in Burgos after walking from Alicante on the Ruta de la Lana. The Ruta de la Lana is very quiet, I did not meet a single other pilgrim and, on some days, nobody at all.  The Camino from Burgos was very busy, so I enjoyed my mornings walking with other pilgrims and then, in the afternoons, I walked alone.  This is possible since nearly everyone stops for the day at lunch-time.  These afternoon hours were silent and felt much less rushed.  Most pilgrims walk a lot faster than me and there appears to be a type of collective motorway consciousness about the mornings on this Camino.

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When I arrived in Rabanal del Camino, all beds were taken.  This little village is a comfortable distance from Astorga and hundreds of pilrims often stay the night there.  One of the hostals is run by the Confraternity of St.James, who have several albergues on the Camino.  The Confraternity is very English, super-polite and takes its mission to serve pilgrims very seriously indeed.  So, in spite of there being no beds, I was offered a balcony to sleep on which delighted me most since I was in the fresh air with the snorer’s incarcerated inside.

Confraternity of St James, Rabanal del Camino

Confraternity of St James, Rabanal del Camino

The hostal is beside a monastery with sung evening prayers which is a soothing way to end the day sending me off to sleep in the pew.  After that I moved on to the balcony for a good night’s sleep in a thunderstorm.  I was protected by a roof, yet outside and I felt ready to tackle the ascent to the famous iron cross.  The path rises gently in a climb which feels easier than anticipated to Foncebadón (which on Google Earth is under cloud).

Foncebadón, Google Earth, 2013

Foncebadón, Google Earth, 2013

On the approach to this little village where many stop for breakfast, the pilgrims, over the years, have stuck sticks in the fence in the form of crosses.  What do they think of when they do this?  It is a deliberate act and I imagine, for many, there is a prayer, an intention or maybe a hope in the selection of the bits of wood and the weaving into the fence.  A little gesture and each gesture a bit different from the others.  Collectively, for me, the impression is of unity, collaboration and solidarity. I felt happy to be a part of this common declaration that sticking bits of wood in a fence in the form of a cross is significant: undefined significance.  “Undefined but felt” is better and stronger than “defined and understood” in preparing us to change.

Entering Foncebadón, Many small acts create a great impression.

Entering Foncebadón, Many small acts create a great impression.

There are thousands of these crosses and, the Christian symbolism is underlined its simplicity and lack of commentary.  This is a prelude to the Iron Cross where the symbolic act is more defined.  Here each pilgrim is invited by tradition to choose a stone, carry it up to the cross and leave it there.  Those who arrive in Foncebadón without knowing about the Iron Cross usually learn about it before they leave, since it is a common topic of conversation over refreshments before the climb to the summit.

Pilgrims leaving Foncebadón.

Pilgrims leaving Foncebadón.

Many of those who walk the Camino have already decided that they want to make a significant change to their lives, or to learn to live with a loss, to unburden themselves of injustices or violence, or to repent. The Iron Cross can be a very emotional experience and often there are people seated an the pile of stones, facing the cross, in tears.

Pilgrims at the foot of the Iron Cross.

Pilgrims at the foot of the Iron Cross.

The cross is posted on top of a wooden pole on which pilgrims have pinned prayers, promises. photos, cigarette packets half-full and other objects of personal significance. Each one of these seems intensely private, made public here and in this manner transformed.

Petitiona and promises on the Iron Cross post.

Petitions and promises on the Iron Cross post.

The resolution becomes a vow, the cutting blade of sorrow is blunted and the grief acknowledged begins to emerge into a brighter world: we share our humanity, our weaknesses before this unsophisticated pole with a little cross on top and we gain strength in our unity.  In reality we are one body, one spirit.  we pray, we cry, we leave something behind as individuals and we pick up our rucksacks and walk on together. We change.

 

For some reason I chose a large stone this year.  I liked its markings of pencil-thin coloured lines.  The condemnation of the Pharisees, making public their penances and prayers was on my mind as I approached the cross with the hefty rock but I needed a big enough stone for my purpose and I still expect it was far too small.  Nothing of this matters, though, since the objects we choose as symbols work by linking realities within our psyche with the external world, making visible all those inner turmoils, conflicts, losses, frustrations, angers and obsessions, addictions and every variety of wounds which take possession of us and torment us.

A stone for the Iron cross, rather beautiful

A stone for the Iron cross, rather beautiful

So I put my boulder on the pile with all the other smaller stones.  The pilgrims walk on for a while in silence.  This solemnity is broken within a few kilometres when Manjarín comes into view.  Another place where symbols abound, although to me it seems more like a scrap-yard for decommissioned relics. This abondoned village has been rescued by Tomás and his small retinue.  These are Templars who follow the code and rite of the Ancient Order of Templars, dedicated to protecting pilgrims on the Camino. Their reception, on the road-side gives little hint of any coherent ethos, being a mixture of new-age, hippy, traditional Catholic, Templar and eccentric.  They ring a bell whenever a group of pilgrims approaches welcoming them and inviting them to a coffee or tea in a very run-down hut.  I had the privilege to stay overnight in this community on my first Camino. I relished its unique atmosphere, communality and strange rules.  The facilities now are very basic; I am assured that they have much improved in the last few years. I hear that there is now a toilet. (The Pharisee in me again!  My own piece of land in Spain to which I welcome visitors is without a toilet to this day).

Pilrima answering the call of the beel in Manjarín

Pilrims answering the call of the bell in Manjarín

After Majarín,  and for those who have engaged with the spirit of the Camino the work of the symbolic begins and that is often the hardest.   But the road from now on is downhill and our eyes can look up from introspection to mountain views, wide horizons and the purple and yellow bushes growing over the trail.  Everything becomes clear……..almost……..

Be warned.

Be warned.

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Iona Community Prayers on the Camino de Santiago 1.

 Prayers can be surprisingly sensual and very joyful.

Iona Abbey, Iona

 

In the summer after finishing the Via de La Plata, I spent a week in the Abbey on the Scottish island of Iona where visitors make up the community for the time of their stay.  I was so impressed with the quality of the daily prayers that I am now an associate member of the community.  I have met other members  on the Camino.  We each carry the Personal daily prayers of the community.  Here is how they begin:

The beginning of the Iona Community daily prayers.

The beginning of the Iona Community daily prayers.

I tend to get tired rapidly of set prayers.  These, however, continue to stir me.  They are sensual, freeing, and joyful.  Phrases such as , “I will woo you and lead you into the wilderness and speak to your heart”, lend themselves to the Camino.  Sometimes I change it to, “Here I am, you have wooed me and led me into this wilderness, now speak to my heart”, and then I sit in silence.  A common piece of advice about prayer is to concentrate on your breathing. It is not just Eastern religions which advocate this: Ignatius of Loyola proposes it in the “Spiritual Exercises” (The Third method of Prayer).  Often, when I start this first prayer  I realise that I am taking in a huge breath and letting it our slowly, not consciously, but as a physical reaction to the prayer itself.  The setting, in the wilderness, adds to the force of these opening lines.  I have no set time for stopping so  I can wait until a place suggests itself.

On the Camino Sanabrés, after Granja de Moreruela. A prayer spot.

On the Camino Sanabrés, after Granja de Moreruela.
A prayer spot.

One of the great advantages of walking is that it is easy to stop. The earth is the church; the prayer says this in several ways.

I also like the idea of faith springing from the ground, since I feel, as a pilgrim, a special, rhythmic contact with the earth, step by step.  I like to think faith is in plentiful supply because I use mine up very quickly.

The Magnificat

The Magnificat (again)

The Magnificat (again)

This Magnificat is bold and earthy, a working man’s Gloria. It sanctifies the carnal and ends with a the joyful, “Sing out my soul”.  The mention of the gift of tears is very apt on the Camino.  One of my posts will be about “the gift of tears” since it is common for pilgrims to suddenly find themselves tearful and at the same time very happy.

Magnificat

Magnificat

Most modern pilgrims are not poor, although some are without employment or security these days, but life on the Camino is simple.  A rucksack contains all we have with us (including bank cards!!) The physical comforts are few.   Pilgrims know moments of hunger, exhaustion and pain.  In these, I become very attuned to my body. I marvel at the human body, its performance, its capacity to repair itself and to say what it needs. In this tired or aching, or satisfied or thirsty,  or ready and perspiring fount of energy, God dwells.

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The Iona Magnificat is a free translation and the phrase “(God) has inhabited our flesh” fits perfectly with the rest.  I was brought up to believe that “God is all around” watching everything I did and said. It took me most of my life to experience that God is actually within .   It is walking the Camino which has brought home to me how much God inhabits my flesh.  My body becomes present to me through constant walking; I pray, giving thanks for it, naming parts one by one, gratefully.  My Catholic education had led me to understand otherwise, especially in relation to the production of testosterone. What a blasphemy!!  It was no help at all to be told that sexual drives are to be resisted so instead, (or, rather, as well) I ate loads of sweets and cakes, (strawberry tarts and chocolate cup cakes mainly).  I’d rather have known that God inhabits my flesh.  After all, this is the foundation of what we call “The Good News”.  Thus it is a topic to which I will return in this blog.

 

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Ruta de La Lana GPS tracks: Day 2

From Motorway E15 to Novelda

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This is my own GPS track.  The squiggly bits at the start are due to the erratic way in which my awful GPS (Garmin e-trex) finds the signal.

A beautiful morning to wake up on my chosen veranda.

Nearly ready to move off.

Nearly ready to move off.

My first early morning.  Being, by now, an experienced Caminante, I had learned the joy of being on the move by day-break.  The silence, which becomes as nourishing as food on a camino, is intense at this moment.  I don’t mean the absence of sound:  I mean a stillness, a catch of breath that the day is being born, an imperative reverence before the majesty of the slowly gathering light.

Morning light.

Morning light.

The path, after the motorway at last becomes interesting, climbing over rocky terrain eaten away by torrential rains and flooded arroyos.  In some places the climbs are short but steep and stony.  For the first time, too, I felt solitude, the solitude which is the opposite of aloneness.  I merge and become part of the world around me.  My surroundings surround me and incorporate me.  There are degrees of this feeling which first came to me intensely near Sanabria on the Camino Sanabres, so I will say no more just now.

Walking into solitude.

Walking into solitude

 

The experience was brief because the wilderness soon descends into a large plain, with more roads, factories and railway lines.  There is a need in such “civilization” to concentrate on traffic, finding the path, engine noises and people. Urban and semi-urban landscapes are also interesting.  Our human sculpting of our environment, our consuming of space, our creativity cry out to be listened to and understood, stimulating a flow of questions which fill my mind.  Diverting, indeed, but this is not peaceful like the mountains or even the great cultivated plains in Spain where man and nature co-operate to produce wine and food.

Descending into civilization, Monforte del Cid

Descending into civilization, Monforte del Cid

I arrived in Novelda and was very tired indeed.

 

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Ruta de La Lana GPS data Day 1

Overview  Alicante to Atienza

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This is a track I downloaded from Wikiloc to help me.  It is probably drawn by hand.  What follows is my own tracks, including all the twists and turns of visiting an occasional supermarket and the other oddities of using a GPS.  I think I was about 95% faithful to the marked path.

My first day is missing because this track swallowed it!!!

Alicante to Motorway E-15

I walked down to the port in Alicante after arriving by train because I wanted to start from the Med.  I also wanted to see if I could by a small size copy of St. John’s gospel – but that is for another post.

Boat parking in Alicante.

Boat parking in Alicante.

It was the Tuesday of Easter week and everything was shut and pretty bleak. It was not cold, but after I set off up through the town it began to rain.

Rain, the time and the first arrow, although for some reason it is white.

Rain, the time and the first arrow, although for some reason it is white.

 

Leaving Alicante, the Camino is well marked.  Indeed it is well marked all the way to Burgos.  I will remark more than once that this Camino is loved and cared for by an active and enthusiastic group of volunteers.  More than once someone came up to me on entering a town, guided me to an albergue or house or flat where I could stay, welcomed me and offered help with the next steps of the camino.

The outskirts of Alicante are dull but I met some children in a fairly run-down area who were a joy.  They fired questions at me, touched everything and asked me to take their photo.

A joyful meeting with sisters and their little brother.

A joyful meeting with sisters and their little brother.

Once I left Alicante, the Camino follows a part of the Poet’s Way a path dedicated to Miguel Hernandez.  It sounds idyllic but the road passes through plenty of industry and the terrain seems to be scored through by railway lines and motorways.

Huge Cement works

Huge Cement works

Worse still, I began to notice a foul smell in the breeze which was coming from the north.  As I rounded this cement works, twice crossing the railway line, the stench became chokingly putrid.  Maybe I was unfortunate with the wind direction but the camino skirts, for a good 2 kms a gigantic mountain of rubbish.

Rubbish mountain outside of Alicante on CAmino de Santiago

Rubbish mountain outside of Alicante on Camino de Santiago

The Camino passes very close to this “Recycling Facility” and I was relieved to leave it behind, downwind.  Looking back there were now lovely views and a last glimpse of the Mediterranean.

Evening falling over the Med.

Evening falling over the Med.

On all my Caminos I have found myself far from a hostal at nightfall.  Since it had been raining I looked for some shelter and found a house which had not been used for some time but which had a magnificent covered terrace.  It needed a bit of sweeping but provided a dry and pleasant corner for the night.

First night's floor.

First night’s floor.

 

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Via de La Plata – into Extremadura

Five nights after leaving Seville, I was still adjusting to walking a Camino.  On my second day, after sleeping in a field, I dawdled and even took a long siesta, arriving at my first ever albergue at 9 pm, in the dark.  This was in the village of Castilblanco de los Arroyos.  I was surprised when the hospitalero asked me why I was so late.  The dormitory was half full and not having slept in bunk beds for decades, the little boy in me eagerly selected a top bunk.  I was aware of eyes on me as I tried to heave myself up.  It must have been noisy and I was unaware that pilgrims, especially on these quieter Caminos, go to sleep early. Nor had I thought of the difficulty and disruption of sneaking out for a pee during the night. When I awoke all the other pilgrims had gone.

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The hospitalero had warned me that it was a long way to the next albergue in Almaden. He said that it is common for people to take a taxi for the first part which is by road.  Some of the Camino is by road, but not excessively so and most of the roads are quiet, as was this one.  I walked the 12 kilometres having resolved to walk every inch of the Camino.  When I turned off the road I entered the Parque Natural of the Sierra Norte.

The elegant marker for the Camino in the Sierra del Norte Park.

The elegant marker for the Camino in the Sierra Norte Park.

My spirits were high in spite of the day being damp and I slowly absorbed the silence, the company of the trees and the witness of the boulders. I sat down near some black pigs who were snorting acorns (sp. bellota). These pigs who eat mainly bellota have very low cholesterol fat, so the marketing says.  Certainly the dried hams of these pata negra pigs are wonderfully rich: a single small slice of such jamon has a resounding aroma and resonating effect on the tounge, lifting the spirits of the traveller.  The pilgrim is offered just such a taste in every village in this part of the Camino between Seville and Extremadura with the firmly acclaimed certitude that this is the world’s finest Iberica de Bellota.

Black pigs, the sourse of Bellota Iberica, grazing in the Sierra Norte de Sevilla.

Black pigs, the source of Bellota Iberica, grazing in the Sierra Norte de Sevilla.

Still adjusting to distances and times, and having had my divine instruction to simply enjoy the Camino, I found myself near nightfall a good few kilometres from Almaden and facing a very steep climb over the ridge, called “Calvary” which separated this part of the Sierra from its gentler border with Extremadura.

Just before nightfall in the Sierra Norte

Just before nightfall in the Sierra Norte

Once again I laid out my sleeping mat beside the Camino.  Just after dark, cosily drugged by the pleasantness of lying down in my sleeping bag, I was visited by wild boar.  I know that the wild animals in Spain are harmless if they are not disturbed (apart from the bulls and vipers), but letting this sink in, with the grunts and noisy digging with their noses right next to my prostrate corpus required an act of faith this first night.

The following day I made the short trip to Almadén, had a really good rest and on the fifth day of my Camino I set out for Extremadura via Real de La Jara.  Until this day I had averaged just under 20 km per day. I arrived early at Real de la Jara and in top form after a Mass at mid-day I decided to carry on even though I knew there was no albergue or town before Monesterio, a good 20km further on.

Castillo de las Torres, guarding Extremadura

Castillo de las Torres, guarding Extremadura

Two things happened: I began to develop blisters on both feet and the damp weather threatened to become a downpour. Walking became painful and I was concerned about my ability to continue.  I did not know what to do about blisters and if, in the end, they prevent walking.  I was not at all experienced as a walker, so this thought preoccupied me.  So, too did the darkening skies as I looked for somewhere to shelter for the night.  The Camino passed through a huge and green private finca with no abandoned barns or natural shelter.

Pigs on the Camino

Pigs on the Camino

There were pigs.  I became very tired and aware that a blister had burst.  My rucksack weighed about 14 kgs which now seemed to me to push right through my foot.  There is a degree of discomfort on the Camino which I was happy to accept, like sleeping on the ground or the normal rheumatic aches, but this alarmed me.  So far I had not spoken to any pilgrims because they were always ahead of me, and, moreover, there were few on this Camino in March.  Had I done so I would have been reassured since coping with blisters, and avoiding them, is basic knowledge on the Camino.  My ignorance added to my suffering.

The rain began in earnest as I neared civilization in the form of the motorway which co-incides with much of the Via de La Plata, but I was still five kilometres from Monesterio and had already walked an excessive 25 kms.  I could make out the Monastery of Tentudia at a moment when the rain eased.

Tentudia

Tentudia

With great relief I arrived at a campsite and begged a bit of shelter to sleep the night.  I was given the balcony of an empty cabin.  The heavens opened and I slept only slightly aware of the tremendous storm echoing round the hills, beating on the roof above and flashing light outside my sleeping bag.

The next morning all was clean and the air pure with a smell of gratitude from the parched earth.  The climb up to Monesterio was a mixture of joy and agony.  My left foot was sending a hot spear through itself from the ground with every step.

Fresh morning joy while walking in agony near Monesterio.

Fresh morning joy while walking in agony near Monesterio.

I presented myself at the local Health Centre where I was welcomed and treated with kindness and expertise.  I might well have been the only pilgrim ever to ask for help with a crippling blister by the attention and patience with which the staff attended to me.  Only when I went to the Chemists afterwards to buy a cream I had been recommended did I learn that pilgrims visit the Health centre with the same complaint daily.  I am awestruck by this ability to meet each person as a complete and valued individual.  Moreover the service is offered without charge, even for people from the USA.

 

 

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