Baena to Castro del Rio 23km

The albergue in Baena was very nice, the only problems with it were that the very heavy metal front door was on a powerful spring and every time someone went in or out they just let it swing shut, which it did with an almighty ban. Then at 0200 the bin lorries arrived with flashing orange lights and beep beep beep reversing alarms .... right outside the window of our room... Ken slept through it.

Leaving the albergue was a lot easier than arriving as it was all downhill. Ken was concerned that we were going in the wrong direction, and it is easy to get disoriented in the towns, there is often a lack of way-markers, and the gps on a mobile sometimes struggles for a signal. However, I trusted the tech and my own sense of direction and we soon found ourselves on the far side of town. On the way we passed The Winery of Jesus of Nazareth, I pictured truckloads of water being changed into truckloads of wine.

According to the guidebook we had three long hills to go up, though they were not very steep, and once we were over the third hill it was downhill almost all the way to Castro del Rio. The walk was pleasant enough there was a fair bit of tarmac and it was hot, my feet were quite sore by the time we got there. It turned out I had another blister, the tread on my shoes has almost worn flat. In a couple of days we will be in Cordóba and I will have the chance to buy a new pair. I wasn't expecting to do that on this trip, hopefully I will get a decent pair though wearing them in whilst on the camino is not going to be fun.

The albergue in Castro turned out to be open, and very, very basic. It looked like it had not been cleaned in a long time. The floors were filthy, the mattresses were all stained, and in our room there were two tall windows, one wouldn't shut because the frame was misaligned, and the other one had broken panes of glass, with large, sharp bits of glass still in the frame. The shower was terrible. On the plus side, it had a washing machine and a good drying area.

The town, of course, was more or less closed because it was a Sunday, but we managed to find a bar where we got a cold drink and the owner gave us directions to a restaurant that was open so we were able to get a meal, and it was good. We also found a tiny grocery store that was open as we were able to get provisions for the next day.

We spent some time talking about the route into Santa Cruz and decided that rather than make our planned detour to a village with a cafe, we would go directly to Santa Cruz as the detour would add another 30+ minutes of walking, plus the time spent in the cafe, and there was every chance we would get there to find it closed anyway. I must admit, I will not be sorry to leave this place.Read more