Enjoying a long day of walking

My GPS registered 42.8 km when I walked into the hostal where I am going to spend the night, in the dusty little town of Santa Cruz. There was a method to my madness. First, I just don’t enjoy 19 km days to towns with nothing to do. Second, I could have walked a shorter stage today and a longer one tomorrow but that would have taken away from my precious time to visit Córdoba. So it all made sense to me.

I was surprised to see that it took me about 9 hours, which included one short and one long break, a detour to avoid flooding, and one stream crossing where I had to take off my shoes and walk carefully. But I am in my little 23€ hostal room, having finished a decent lunch. How lucky was I that the kitchen stayed open till 4pm!

The first part of the walk had one thing on offer — olives. After the little town of Espejo, with its pretty privately owned castle on top, the scenery got more varied. Lots of wildflowers and lots of huge fields of brilliant green grain. Tomorrow will be only 26 into Cordoba and I don’t think the terrain is too challenging. So happy to have all this time alone to clear the cobwebs of my brain!Read more