Sevilla - Guillena 23 km

After one aborted attempt to walk the Via de la Plata in 2018 and five years of planning, today I finally set off to begin that journey again, this blog is simply a record of that journey.

The day did not start very well. I woke up having slept only a couple of hours, and headed off to the airport saying goodbye to Barbara, this trip would be the longest we have been apart in 35 years. I had arrived at the airport too early, and the Ryanair baggage drop was not yet open and so I had to wait nearly an hour before depositing my backpack. On a positive note I got through security in no time at all, and made my way to the departure gate, excited and a bit nervous too. The flight was only notable for the rude guy in the aisle opposite me who kept taking his mask off and the fact that the landing in Sevilla was the hardest landing I have ever experienced in over 40 years of flying, it was emergency stop level braking.

Given the popularity of Sevilla as a holiday destination, the airport is surprisingly small, and despite many, many hours online trying to work out the Spanish entry requirements re: covid, no one even asked to see my digital covid vaccine passport. Another example of stressing over nothing.

Once out of the airport, instead of spending a couple of days in the city, I got into a taxi to take me to Santiponce, about 10-12 km outside Sevilla and I put on my (too heavy) backpack (mochila) and started walking. I had walked the road from Sevilla to Santiponce before and apart from the fact that the walk is unremarkable, I wanted to reach Guillena and lacked the time to start from the city. From the comfort of my sofa at home this seemed like a good idea but turned out to be a colossal mistake (more on that later).

It's only about 13 km from the gates of Italica in Santiponce to Guillena but I found it more difficult than I had expected, the heat was a shock to the system, and the path seemed to have more hills than I remembered from my ill-fated walk in 2018. When I got to the river it was impassable (by mid June it will have all but dried up) but the local Friends of the Camino had laid an iron girder across it, and that saved me having to double back on a longer detour.

Not long after crossing the river I noticed a fitness tracker lying on the path, upon checking it I noted the number of steps and the distance and I guessed that it belonged to another peregrino, so I pocketed it in the hope they were probably heading to an albergue in Guillena.

By the time I arrived in Guillena I was feeling quite wobbly, my legs were ok but the rest of me wasn't. I checked into the Albergue Luz del Camino, it was the first one listed in Gerard Kelly's guidebook. I wasn't too impressed. The showers were not great, the water was not particularly hot and the hook for the shower attachment was broken and so I had to hold the shower head (this would be a feature of many albergues still to come). Just as I was about to go into the shower I began to shiver uncontrollably and had to sit on the chair in the shower room for 15 mins before it passed. Afterwards I went for a lie down on my bunk.

There was a restaurant just along the street and a number of pilgrims seemed to be eating there, so I went there for dinner. The owner of the restaurant did not speak any English at all, this would also be a feature of almost every village and town I would go through or stay in. Many of the Spanish people I met (mostly in albergues, shops, cafes and bars) seemed to speak some French and/or Italian but no English. So my first top tip for any would-be peregrino, is to learn the basics of Spanish, even if your grammar and pronunciation are terrible, the goal is communication and locals seem to appreciate it when you make the effort. I was very grateful for Google Translate and my friend Ken who had spent a lot of time and effort teaching me the basics of Spanish. I managed to reserve beds, order meals, and pay for rooms without accidentally asking anyone to marry me or sell me their horse.

The food was excellent, and as the place filled up with more peregrinos I asked if anyone had lost a fitness tracker, and an older French lady very excitedly said yes, and sure enough it was hers. she was delighted to get it back.

The room in the albergue was small with 3 sets of bunk beds, the heat in the room, with no fan or air con, was stifling, and to make things worse, it was right on the main road, I ought to have slept soundly as I was so tired but I was kept awake by the traffic roaring past the window ALL night.

I was glad to leave in the morning, which I did quite early, while it was still dark, using my head-torch and Google Maps to guide me out of town, onto the camino towards Castilblanco de los Arroyos.Read more