Alcaudete to Baena 30km

I woke up a few times through the night to the steady rhythmic tones of Ken's snoring, but I got back to sleep each time and when it was time to get up I felt quite refreshed. We left at 0640, a bit later than I would have liked given that we were doing nearly 30km today. However, using the camino apps we took a shortcut out of the town (the Buen Camino app is excellent but it does seem to route you past every church in town rather than the most direct route).

The first half of the walk was very good and uneventful, it was mostly on tarmac and always downhill. However, at one point the yellow arrows became very confusing, giving us several options, sometimes the camino shifts and new arrows are painted but normally the old arrows are painted over, but we had several sets pointing in different directions. We decided to follow the camino app instead of the arrows, and before long we found ourselves walking on a vaguely identifiable path that ran parallel to the fence of an enormous solar panel farm. We reached a point where the path became very overgrown, and we could no longer tell by eyesight if we were still on the path, but I continued to follow the gps trail on the app and it led us true.

The trail led us to what should have be a lake and beauty spot, however, it was completely dried up and had grass and shrubs growing in it. There was a picnic spot on the far side of the 'lake' with proper benches and tables and even a roof to shade us from the sun. We took off our backpacks and boots and sat for half an hour, and I ate my pasta salad and some fruit and had some water. José was also there, and we chatted as best we could, though tbf Ken's Spanish is great.

The second half of the walk was much more difficult than the first, it was mostly uphill but not too steep, but it was also on fresh white gravel that caused the sunlight to bounce back up towards us, and it was quite hard to walk on. The landscape never changed hour after hour and we had no sense of advancing anywhere, so it was a great relief when Baena came into view, it gave us hope that we would soon be there.

It was getting into the afternoon and we were getting concerned about arriving in time to go to the shops before they closed. The next day was Sunday and it was very likely that the shops in Castro del Rio would be closed for the day, so we needed to get extra supplies today. I checked google (quite often unreliable for this kind of information) and it showed a Lidl in Baena that, with a slight detour, we could pass on the way to the albergue. We found it no problem and were able to get a good range of supplies for breakfast and snacks for the journey tomorrow, we also got some of the pasta meals that we could keep for dinner if necessary.

The walk to the albergue was torture, it was of course, at the very top of the steepest hill in the town, but it was very beautiful, we had the choice of paying 20€ each for a bunk bed in a dormitory, or 50€ for a twin room with en-suite bathroom and shower. It was a no-brainer, and the room was great.

By the time we had showered and changed and done our washing etc, the kitchen in the restaurant downstairs had closed and so we would have to wait for our dinner, since we were so far up a steep hill that we had no desire to walk down into town to find a bar, we were too tired to walk back up. Dinner would have to wait until the kitchen opened and there was nothing else to do but have a siesta... when in Spain.Läs mer