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Ruta de la Lana, 2023Ruta de la Lana, 2023
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Ruta de la Lana, 2023

May - June 2023
A 38-day adventure by Laurie Read more
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  • Laurie ReynoldsRuta de la Lana, 2023
    1241
    Day 20

    Salmeron to Viana de Mondejar

    May 28, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    I’m writing this in an albergue where we hadn’t planned to stay, having finished a dinner of two cans of tuna and two apricots. Population here is under 20 so there are no shops or restaurants. But a very nice albergue. With a heater in the bedroom!

    Today’s total was about 29 Km with 700 m elevation. All off road. Brilliant. As soon as we left Salmeron, we had about a 300 m ascent on dark red glommy clay mud. I have decided that it makes no sense to stop and take the mud off with my poles because it comes right back and just slows me down. My unscientific observation this morning was that my shoes have a maximum mud-carrying weight and when it gets to that point, big chunks will just fall off.

    From the top we had a long (10 Km?) walk along the top, including a detour to avoid going on the property of the man who bought up the whole abandoned town of Villaescusa de Los Palositos. This issue has been tied up in court for years. Pilgrims and the public should be able to cross his land. He has even barred access to the Romanesque church and the cemetery where the loved ones of many former villagers are buried. There is a protest march to the church every year, and the legal experts say there’s no doubt that his acts are illegal, but he has kept it going in court for years.

    Then the downhill started, with the last few kms into Viana on narrow rocky goat paths. We were not sure whether to carry on for 8 more kms to Trillo or to just stay here. When a local told me that the hike up to the Tetas de Viana would take about an hour each way, I thought the best thing to do would be to drop our packs and then hike up and back. That seemed better than starting out tomorrow with the ascent and then continuing on.

    The walk up to the top of Teta Redonda was about 2.5 kms. At the end there were chains to hold onto and even one steep metal staircase but nothing scary. The association in Cuenca had told us the path was shut because of a rockslide. There was one section where the handrails had been knocked down and a lot of rocky debris made it a bit tricky, but not dangerous. The views from the top were fabulosas, maybe with the exception of the nuclear power plant.

    So here we are in Viana. I have no “cobertura” (cell phone/data) and we’ve had a pretty skimpy dinner, but we’re clean and warm and have had a great day. I took two packs of Ghirardelli hot cocoa from the lounge in Chicago, and had been saving them for something like this!    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsRuta de la Lana, 2023
    113
    Day 21

    Viana de Mondejar to Cifuentes

    May 29, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    What a beautiful walk today. Since we had gone up to the Tetas yesterday, we got straight on the Camino and headed for Trillo. It was very nice, all off road. And Trillo, what a beautiful place to stop. There’s a bar right on the river, which is cascading down over rocks in a picture perfect scene. We also visited the church, where mass was ending. We had a nice chat with the priest, who is from Ruanda, and has been in Spain for about 14 years. He has been in Trillo for four years and is in charge of seven or eight other small towns, where he goes to say mass. Misas relámpagos m, they are called.

    The path from Trillo went through a few towns, through a lot of ag lands, off and on near a river.
    Aman stopped and gave Clare a big bag of unshelled walnuts. I would’ve said no thanks, but Clare dutifully took them and carry them for 3 km into town. She is now sitting outside the albergue on the steps, cracking them with a rock.

    When I got to town, I went straight to the Bar Salmeron, the place where I had been told to go for the keys. Guess what, the bar was closed. As I was trying to figure things out, a Guardia Civil car came by and I flagged it. After a few calls, they got in touch with the Mayor, who told me to go to the Townhall. Once there, after about a 15 minute wait, the woman in charge came with a map to explain how to go pick up the keys—at the Bar Salmeron! It took a few more phone calls to learn that there was supposedly a set of keys on the windowsill of the little building where we are supposed to sleep out at the football field. I am glad I asked for a phone number because when we got here there was no key to be found. The mayor himself came out and showed us where the key was. If anyone had explained it clearly, we could’ve easily found it, but oh well. I was really glad that this mayor had won reelection yesterday, because if he had lost, the new mayor today would not have had a clue!

    4 th night in a row in albergues. This town has a couple of reasonable pensiones but they are all full because of the huge work crews coming to work on the nuclear power plant. According to one hotel owner, every room is booked for 100 Km around. That may be a slight exaggeration, but in any event, there was no room for us in Cifuentes. Thank goodness for the albergue. It’s very basic but has hot water and blankets which are the top two things on my list!

    We have taken a walk through the historic center, which has some very pretty Churches and plazas. We even walked up to the castle and then onto the supermarket. Another really good day, I feel so fortunate.    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsRuta de la Lana, 2023
    5
    112
    Day 22

    Cifuentes to Mandayona

    May 30, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    We knew there was a shortcut today that would save 4 kms for tomorrow and would not go through Mandayona. But it would have meant missing a supposedly beautiful stretch tomorrow. So off to Mandayona we went.

    It was another non-spectacular but very pleasant walk. Especially the part before the meseta. Rolling hills with lots of rocky outcroppings and some green crops, some dead crops. Once we got to the top of the climb, we were on the meseta. Kms and kms of flat flat flat. Just like Illinois. The only things to break the monotony were fields of lavender, a high speed rail line, and a superhighway to cross.

    We’re in a little hostal owned by a young couple who gave up life in the city of Madrid to come out to a place where there are about 50 year round inhabitants. Their eight year old son goes to school with three other kids from the town. The school is kept alive by virtue of the fact that seven or eight kids from surrounding villages are bussed here. He tells me that they are very happy here and would not ever consider moving back to Madrid.

    We had a good menú del día in the local bar and will soon head off to the town supermarket. We just learned that tomorrow is a holiday celebrating the Castilla y la mancha region. Stores and other commerce will be closed, so we will need to stock up on some food. There was a pretty loud thunderstorm that passed through while we were eating, and another storm just came through. We have been really lucky and have not had to walk in the rain, not yet, anyway!    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsRuta de la Lana, 2023
    1
    Day 23

    Mandayona to Siguenza

    May 31, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    Hard to imagine a more perfect camino day, 25 Km and 400 m elevation. We started at 7 and soon entered the Barranco del Rio Dulce, a canyon with the “Sweet River” running through it. Beautiful, shaded, and cool with cliffs towering above. My one (very minor) disappointment was that I only saw one big raptor bird. I was expecting to see them flying all over.

    Leaving the canyon, we stayed close to the river, but now through ag fields. These were the best looking fields we’ve seen, some really verdant green and lots of wild flowers.

    The camino goes through the little town of Pelegrina, with the optional short detour up to the castle (which is totally in ruins). But the views, oh my goodness the views. I took a long boots off rest, enjoying the views in every direction.

    From there to Siguenza was about 8 Km. First a short steep up to the top on rocky narrow paths, then several kms across the plateau on very rocky terrain. The last three kms down to town were all with the castle/parador in view. And the camino went about two minutes from the entrance. So so tempting. In I went and got a decent rate.

    We had an excellent meal in El Atrio. Right across from the cathedral. Then a cathedral visit and that was the end of the day!    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsRuta de la Lana, 2023
    2
    113
    Day 24

    Siguenza to Atienza

    June 1, 2023 in Spain ⋅ 🌧 12 °C

    I had been debating whether to add 6 kms to the 31 Km day, so that I could visit Carabias, with one of the first porticoed Romanesque churches in Spain (at least I think that’s what I remember). The original idea was that Clare would take a cab a few kms out and then we’d go to the church. But there was no cab availability, so she was going to walk the shorter route. So, hmmm, did I want to add those extra kms????

    When I got to the turnoff at Palazuelos I looked at the weather and saw that rain was forecast for 11-2. Since there was no way I’d get to my destination by 11, I decided that since I was going to get wet anyway, I might as well go see the church. I’m very glad I did, it’s beautiful. Locked up tight but beautiful.

    A few kms outside Carabias, my wikiloc stopped working. Oops. And at that point, I wasn’t on the Camino, so there would be no arrows to follow. I pulled up Google maps and in about 4 km it got me back onto the Camino, right at a junction with a humongous salt factory.

    At promptly 11am it began to rain. And it rained for the next few hours —nothing too heavy. I even took a quick rest sitting under a tree and was reasonably well protected.

    At about 5 kms out of town, Atienza appears. The castle on top, dominating the town. After checking in, and doing the normal post-camino things like showering and washing clothes, I headed out to see the sights. Beautiful plaza, very Castilian. And I climbed up to the castle, which had its typically amazing views. Below and in the distance, I saw two bright purple fields that are surely lavender.

    It is raining again, and the hotel restaurant opens in a while, so that's probably what we'll do. Tomorrow a nice short 24 Km!    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsRuta de la Lana, 2023
    1
    12
    Day 25

    Atienza to Retortillo

    June 2, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C

    I was like a little kid on Christmas Eve last night. I lay in bed and I thinking about the crazy little trip I had cooked up for today. When I was a junior in college, studying in Spain in 1970, I took a course on the history of Spanish art. This course entailed weekly visits to the Prado with a tutor and two days a week of lectures with the tremendously esteemed Professor Azcarate. . This is where I learned about Romanesque and about the Camino. The Prado has many of the original frescoes from a tiny Romanesque church, San Baudelio de Berganza. The church is about 30 km from today’s stop in Retortillo. How could I be so close to the church whose paintings were the start of my love of Romanesque? And how I learned about the Camino? So I called a taxi located in a town close to the church to see what it would cost. Since his proposal was less than half of my mental euro limit, I jumped at the opportunity. So today, at 4 o’clock, I will get a chance to see San Baudelio. Never mind that most of the paintings were spirited away by the Prado Museum and several rich Americans. I just want to go inside and see it.

    Today’s walk was on the short side, and very enjoyable. We are clearly in a part of the country that has been less impacted by the drought. There were tons of wildflowers, including some that I think were lupines. The walk really had three different parts. First an ascent up to a pine forest that extended for several kilometers. Then a descent and a long stretch on flat open fields. And then third, the rocky steep ascent to the border between Castilla y La Mancha and Castilla y León. No rain, some clouds, beautiful views.

    I spent a lot of my walk today thinking back to that year in Madrid. That was more than 50 years ago! I remember our cute little apartment on Galileo 82, second floor. It’s now a very gentrified part of Madrid, but when I lived there, it was a pretty normal neighborhood. A few cows down the street in a little shed, and tons of little shops. My roommates were Gail, daughter of an army colonel who was a surgeon in Vietnam, and Nicole, daughter of the Senegalese ambassador to Italy. You can imagine that we had a lot of fun. Our biggest challenge was to figure out how to get to the end of the month on our small budgets. It usually meant that the last few nights our dinners consisted of fried onions and popcorn. An unusual aspect about living in Madrid at that time was the”sereno,” This was a man, usually inebriated, who wandered the streets of the neighborhood all night, with a huge ring of keys that opened every front door of every apartment building. When you needed to get in, you just stood on your doorstep and clapped, and he would eventually show up. Oh, the memories.    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsRuta de la Lana, 2023
    21
    Day 25

    San Baudelio de Berlanga

    June 2, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    Promptly at 4 pm, Berlanga de Duero’s only taxista showed up at the Hostal Muralla. It was about a half an hour to the church, through some pretty amazing landscape. Very barren and very rocky. We were the only ones at the church, and it gave me goose bumps. I could see the outlines of the frescoes that had been removed, and there were good pictures that re-created the inside of the chapel. Lots of horseshoe arches, a second floor private oratory, and an altar. There is also an entrance to a cave , where a hermit possibly lived. When this church was built, 10th or 11th century, it was right on the Christian-Muslim border.

    Apparently the church was part of a small (long disappeared) monastery complex. When it was all abandoned, ownership passed to private hands. Then in the 20s, when US treasure hunters were lusting after Romanesque, and the churches in Catalunya wouldn’t part with their treasures, they descended on Soria. The private owners apparently were happy to sell and after a five-year court battle, the Supreme Court approved the sale. There are now pieces in Indianapolis and Cincinnati. Though I don’t understand how it happened, Spain was apparently able to recover a lot of the frescoes (a trade made with the Cloisters, perhaps?) and those are now in the Prado, where they introduced me to the beauty of Romanesque in 1970.

    After our long visit, the taxista offered to take us through her town, Berlanga de Duero (though the Duero River is about 8 Km away). The castle is pretty amazing, and we also went to the interpretive center of San Baudelio. It explained the process of removing frescoes and then replacing them on different walls but I couldn’t understand it. The technique is called “strappo.”

    Clare snd I will be sticking quite close tomorrow. The first part of our walk is off Camino, and the second part goes through a canyon which may have a few tricky parts. Weather looks good!    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsRuta de la Lana, 2023
    1
    Day 26

    Retortillo to Caracena via the GR 86

    June 3, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    There are two halves to today’s walk. Retortillo to Tarancueña and Tarancueña to Caracena. The camino puts you on the highway for the first half. But there is a GR alternative of about twice that distance. Since the second half is only about 8 or 9, we decided to go for the off-road 24-25 Km option.

    What a day. Lots of having to check the GPS, especially during the first half of the walk. That first part had lots of squishy ground, lots of meadows with high grasses, sometimes even having to cross cultivated fields. We saw tons of structures built against the rock face. According to one very nice man in Valvedenizo, those structures were used for animals. He also showed us the beautiful mushrooms he had just harvested and was going to use to make a revuelto (scrambled eggs) for him and his 100 year old mother. Those two constituted one of two families in the town.

    The last part of the walk, from Tarancueña, was through a canyon. It was a little bit tricky in places but nothing beyond our meager abilities. There were some rocky places where we had to ascend 4 or 5 feet but there were always little crevices or protrusions for our feet to grab. We had several stream crossings, and once I planted a foot in about 6” of water but nothing too bad. We saw some huge birds of prey circling over the canyon. Cool.

    We have a place to stay in Caracena. Rodrigo, the son of the bar owner, who used to allow pilgrims to stay in his house but then moved away, is back. He has taken over the bar/restaurant and is converting a house into a Casa rural. He has also gone to culinary school and his menu is quite upscale. We have eaten a very yummy meal — lamb and mushroom ravioli, some fancy rice snd pork dish, and I had cuajada for dessert, which is one of my favorite foods on earth.

    The casa where we’re staying is still a workbench progress. But it is finished enough for us to stay — comfy beds, good shower, washing machine — what more could we want?!    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsRuta de la Lana, 2023
    2
    1
    Day 27

    Caracena to San Esteban de Gormaz

    June 4, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Today’s walk was a little longer than the last few days. My GPS showed almost 34 km, but that’s also because I took a few detours to visit a church and to go to a grocery store.

    If I didn’t have a day like this one, it would not be a Camino for me. This was a day when I sort of went on auto pilot in my own little bubble. The rhythm of my steps as replicated by my hiking poles and the pat pat of my feet was all that I could hear . So there I was, just me and my thoughts — no spectacular landscape, no outstanding historical or cultural monuments, just putting one foot in front of the other. No earth-shattering thoughts either, just thinking about whatever came my way. My mom’s birthday is in a few days, so I thought about her a lot.

    There were a few distractions — an 8 inch green lizard, an apple orchard with dark netting all across the top, a few small towns, and a few tractors out in the fields. This was the first time, really, that I had seen farm vehicles. Though the drought is still very much in effect here, I think they have a bit more optimistic forecast for at least some of their crops.

    Today I crossed the Douro/Duero on arrival into San Esteban de Gormaz. I went quickly to see if I could find an open supermarket (it’s Sunday). We are very low on food supplies, and tomorrow we will be sleeping in a town with absolutely no services. We’ve been carrying canned tuna and instant soup in our packs for a few days, but I was hoping to find some fruit and yogurt.

    I found an open store, went inside, and asked about fruit. No fruit in the store, the owner told me. But there is another store about 600 m away, which is also open till 2pm, and which sells fruit. The wife of the owner volunteered to take me in her car to their competitor to buy my supplies. She invited me to their house for lunch (I declined) and also took me on a tour of the town. Finally, she took me up to the place where we were staying and insisted that she had to take off her house slippers when I took her picture. A really special woman.

    Clare and I had a decent menú del día in a crowded restaurant, where a family was celebrating the 94th birthday of their patriarch. He started to cry when they sang happy birthday. It made me think of my own parents and brought a few tears to my eyes too.

    After lunch, I headed up to the castle, or should I say, what used to be the castle. Lining the ascent, there are hundreds of bodegas (small wine, cellars built into the hills), which is not surprising since we are in Ribera del Duero territory. Two beautiful Romanesque churches here, both locked up but both with typical Romanesque capitals.

    I am expecting that tomorrow will be similar to today. Maybe a little longer and with a little more ascent, but basically a very similar terrain.    Read more

  • Laurie ReynoldsRuta de la Lana, 2023
    1
    Day 28

    San Esteban de Gormaz to Quintanarraya

    June 5, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    Having been able to stock up on some fruit, my pack was heavy for the walk to Quintanarraya. It had rained last night (don’t ask me how I know, but it has to do with the skylight window snd was a real mess), so I was prepared for mud. But we were pleasantly surprised.

    Many would call this a “boring” or “dull” stage, and it is true that again today there wasn’t much going on, either scenically or historically. Crop lands mainly (many actually looking pretty good), some ups and downs through scrub oak forests. But if you’ve walked any camino, you probably have experienced the centering and peaceful monotony that come from this kind of day out in the wide open spaces. It’s hard to explain, but it’s great.

    A few kms outside the village of Villavaro, there’s a tiny Romanesque chapel. It used to be the parish church for a now disappeared village. The camino has been re-routed to go right by it, and that means 4 or 5 kms more on dirt tracks rather than on the road, so it was a win-win re-routing.

    In Alcubilla we saw the 16th C palace that had been a hotel restaurante till the man with the concession died suddenly. It’s municipally owned and they have been unsuccessful finding someone new. That meant that Clare and I had to walk on 10 more kms to the tiny hamlet of Quintanarraya, where there is a basic 5 bed albergue in the old school. Toilet and shower, hot water, clean. The mayor checked us in.

    During the last 3 or 4 kms of today’s walk, , I could see very dark skies and rain to our north. About a half hour after arrival, it rained, then stopped, then rained. There is now thunder and lightening all around us. We are hoping it moves on by tomorrow morning.

    We have feasted on canned tuna and powdered soup. A couple pieces of fruit and some dark chocolate. Tomorrow our packs will be lighter!

    Tuesday a.m update. At the suggestion of a helpful local man, I have found a little bit of cell phone coverage on the way out of town near the bodegas.(caves in the hill, where people stored and made their wine.).    Read more

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