Guillena to Castilblanco de los Arroyos

The night passed fairly good. No, I could not sleep as long and as good as I wanted but enough to collect energy for another day of the Camino. I spent some time in the air-conditioned „living room“ (until 11 PM) of the hostel, thinking in how many albergues that are still in front of us, will we have air-conditioning like we have here? What if they don’t use air-conditioning systems here? Should we take this in consideration and prepare for it? But how? Maybe I should not worry so much about the future?

Before going to sleep, I checked how my laundry was drying in the minute, inner courtyard. Clothes were fairly dried, and by the morning those should be just fine (that was optimistic). As already said, after few hours of sleep, early in the morning, some two hours before dawn, we were getting ready to march again. For the first time we had to put our head LED-lights lamps. Yesterday we still had the help of the city’s lights but today is different as we are departing earlier and we left the big city with its public lights and now we go through the countryside.

Pain in my shoulders was still very present. Andrej strongly claimed that the purpose of the Camino is not to become invalid and if needed I should send my backpack to be transported by others. I understood this, but felt that, beside the present pain, my situation is still not critical and I wanted to continue Camino as genuinely as possible. I will adjust, adapt and continue! One more painkiller and I was ready to march again, it was 6:00 AM.

We were happy that we are in conditions good enough to proceed. At the exit of the village we first had to go though a small industrial zone then toward a hill. After one hour of walking we came on the foot of the Sierra Morena hills and with so leaving behind us the Depresion Betica vale. It was still quite dark when we began to climb and every so often looked back the city lights of Sevilla. Around us, we were able to see just the outlines of the olives groves we were passing through when climbing up the hill. Strength and will were strong and we sang weird march songs to help us hold the pace. Kind of Gethsemane Garden. Exactly at the moment of the magical sunrise, the second one of this Camino, but somehow much stronger than the first one, exactly at that moment when we reached the hill’s plateau – a magnificent view emerged in front of our eyes! Ruins of a castle revealed! Excitement and respect! Andrej claiimed: “Now, that’s a real Camino!“. Pure happiness. We run to take our cameras out to catch this moment.

The path and landscape were now steady and somehow we felt and figured that we will walk through this kind of environment for quite a long time – days and weeks. Later, it came out that that was the case. Sevilla and the valley were not visible any more. Indeed we will spot a glimpse of Sevila again next day, through an narrow notch. It was our farewell to this fabolous city.

After this uphill I had to rest my feets so we stopped for a short break and I took my boots off. At that time I was not aware that something wrong was happening with my right tendon. This to be sadly discovered only days later.

For the first time we entered an enclosure, a ranch. Vast fenced territory. First one of dozens and hundreds of them! The whole western part of Spain is filled with those, one after another. Although I took thousands of photos upon this journey later I felt sorry I haven’t took photos of various types of gates we came across on the way, when entering and exiting those enclosures. Almost every had a different (at least a bit) locking logic, shape and material of which was made of.

Water is essential for our existance. Many times, specially on Via de la Plata water was the only thing we were dreaming of.

At 9:00 we stopped for a short snack. Not long after, we were already passing by Meson La Colina which is located just on the outskirts of our today’s destination village. Much earlier that any other pilgrim we reached Castilblanco de Los Arroyos. No reservation was made and instead of the Albergue Municipal we choose to take accommodation in a private house – Casa Salvadora.

The old lady in black was surprised that guests arrived so early. While we awaited in basement of her traditional house for her to call her daughter (who is obviously in charge here) she kept an eye on us. Waiting together with strangers (us) is aparently safer if you hold a huge knife in your hand, as she in fact did! While waiting, we asked for the Wi-Fi “contraseña” (password in Spanish) and she gave us an extremely long one. Of course, we didn’t get it right at first, and to be honest neither on second or third trial, but eventually we did it. We figuerd out later that, in a number of accomodations, they use for the password the long serial number of the modem. Later, we stopped asking for the password and simply look for the serial number of the modem. Price was 12 Euros.

The beauty of this accommodation was that we will spend the day in a genuinely local house. It was obviously a strongly roman-catholic, traditional house as it was filled with photos of many saints and few big altars. Some photos witnessing Spanish recent and turbulent history found distinct place on walls too. Like in the hostal in Guillena they were not offering hot water. That started now really to annoy me. On the other hand, my shoulder seemed to be better now. The old, small ventilator was buzzing all night long, still giving at least some air, for at least some time, and allowed some sleep. Eventually its propeller simply – flyed way! Few hours later it sadly turned out that that sleep did not provide enough energy for the next day challenges.

All those small villages, especially in that first, southern part, looked very much the same. Few dozens to few hundreds of houses, all lined and connected to form narrow streets which lead to some central square, “by rule” called either Plaza Espana or Plaza Mayor. White and very clean facades with small balconies, with traditional jalousies and sometimes palms placed in front, doors and windows frames painted in lively colors. Almost as the home facade has to show how clean and good the inhabitants are. Boundaries of the village are always sharp! After a certain line urbanisation simply ends. Beside the church and at least one bar it was hard not to notice that every village there had a dental clinic. Why? Still haven’t figured out but it might have something with the nutrition, air, water and lacking of some kind of minerals needed for good teeth health? Or maybe just affordable prices for other Europeans?

At 5:30 PM we went to bar Reina to drink a beer. It was so hot that local cats had their siesta too. As kitchens here don’t open before 8:30 PM we went to a grocery store to buy something for tomorrow’s branch, for 9.10 Euros. Two underage sisters were working in this grocery shop and they were, maybe just 16 and 11 years old. This was not uncommon here yet I was still note sure if this was alloed by law? We met again that lady from Berlin, she stayed in the public hostel at the village entrance and apparently the had hot water. Later, we went for a diner. Meat meal was superb and the price for this meal with a large beer was 14 Euros.

*For hundreds of year the most important things for pilgrims to bring with them on the Camino were: a stick to help him in his walk and to protect from wild animals, a bottle to water his thirst and a coat to protect from bad weather. His daily need was to find a safe and affordable accommodation and shelter. But something significantly changed just in those last few years. We witnessed and lived it – the need to be globally and instantly connected. Upon arrival on any destination, was it accommodation at the end of the daily stage, refreshment at a bar along the daily route, or just coming to a village on the way, our first question was „Do you have Wi-Fi?“.

*Where will the global economy be in five to ten years? Will we need to have own gardens, to be food self sufficient? I Pax Americana ending? China and organic food? Will a new global network, parallel to The Internet emerge? Completely wireless? Are new currencies coming on stage?

Castilblanco de los Arroyos to Almaden de la Plata

We had to get up early and to be honest we couldn’t wait to depart as soon as possible, so we departed at 5:00. Hopefully we didn’t wake up anyone in the house, specially the old lady with that big knife. At the very exit of this village we saw a car completely covered in plastic foil and

a nice, traditional watering place.

For the first time some thirty kilometers were ahead of us for a daily stage. I never ever walked more than twenty four kilometers in one day and that day was – just the day before yesterday. Still, I was confident that, as we departed extremely early and with a good pace we would do it just fine. The night sky was full of shining stars. First sixteen kilometers were on the paved road and we walked over the major part of it before sunrise. It was mainly uphill and our legs were affected by the march on the solid asphalt superfice, even if we hadn’t noticed it at that time. A walk through a preserved wildlife park (Parque natural Sierra Norte) with it’s cork forest was still giving us the feeling that nothing dramatically harmful is taking place.

Fatigue was accumulating for some time now but those eight or so kilometers seemed bearable.

We had to rest three times as Andrej’s legs capillaries were on the edge! Once we stopped for half hour! A pattern of “erupted” blood vessels covered the whole skin. My Achilles tendon was not good either. That was the time when I realized how important is to collocate strength. We knew that there is an ascent waiting for us, we knew even the name: Cerro del Calvario (Calvary Hill) but we didn’t expect it to be so difficult! Just before this ascent a cross marked a place where a pilgrim ended his days on this Earth. We left two smal stones on the site.

We had no idea that we were approaching maybe the most dangerous part of our Camino! After we finally reached that top I just had to desecrate somehow that sign that was marking this hill top. Well, the view was genuinely wonderful and I took a moment to zoom in distance the southern horizon… to realize that now valleys and hills are behind us already. I began to convince myself I was already a real “walker”! In one sense that was true.

After the peak a downhill was not so easy neither. Like as the climb was not enough itself! On the way down we passed by this interesting construction.

At the end of forces, midday, with the extremely hot air we entered Almaden de la Plata – yet another traditional, southern pueblo. Looked very deserted at that time of the day.

After a short search, we found Hostal Restaurante Casa Concha. A small, but very clean room with air-conditioning! The place had a sweet traditional inner court and an original Winchester rifle exposed on a wall, behind a glass, in the restaurant which also belonged to Casa Concha. This exhibit only enhanced this “spaghetti western” atmosphere that we kept feeling around us all the time. First time on Camino we were offered „Menu del Dia“ (typical, and we can say – standardized daily meal menu for pilgrims) and immediately denied a standard drink (a large beer or half a bottle of wine) and desert which standardly goes into “Menu del Dia”. This made us very disapponited and quite angry. Some two months later I wrote them a letter complaining about that. At that time Spain and Croatia were playing first match on the European Basketball Championship. An old French couple came to our table to remind us to stand up for the Croatian anathem tham was playing. Wtf?! Resolutely and sharply we “showed them their place”. Saint James temper.

After lunch it was time for a siesta sleep. That was my second day of siesta sleep in the afternoon. I liked it! Couldn’t remember when I slept for two afternoons in a row and my memories couldn’t find any record before… my early childhood. In the room, every free space was used to hang and dry the laundry.

A short and slow walk in the village. Lovely place with a distinct church and tower (so North African).

A gentile walk in sandals felt so relaxing but then I started to feel a very strong pain in my foots. My right Achilles tendon was rapidly getting worse and at the moment I wasn’t able to realize the whole extent of this situation. Next day we will have, for the first time, the option of choosing the stage’s ending point! At El Real de la Jara after some eighteen kilometers or at Monasterio after some thrity kilometers? By unanimous decision we concluded the optimal way would be to depart early and then upon arrival in El Real de la Jara to assess the situation again!