Don Benito to San Pedro de Merida

After a good night's sleep we left the hostal at 0600, it was 18° and by 10am it was 27°, we found our way out of town without too much bother. I used the Gronze app rather than the yellow arrows, they seemed to want us to go on a longer route through the town. Once we were off the tarmac we got onto a wide flat sandy/gravel path that went in almost a straight line all the way to Medellín. In the distance we could see what looked like a castle on a hilltop. With every step it got closer and larger on the horizon.

When we reached the town we stopped at the first cafe we saw and had an excellent breakfast of our standard coffee and tostada. since we planned to get a taxi from Yelbes we had a leisurely stroll through the town and had a look around. It turns out that Medellín is the birthplace of the conquistador Hernán Cortés, and there is a very beautiful square dedicated to him. Of course to the Spanish he is a hero of their past, he brought colonial glory and great wealth to Spain, leading the first phase of the Spanish colonisation of the Americas, principally in what is now Mexico, which saw the collapse of the Aztec empire. He is less revered among the indigenous people who died in their millions by violence and diseases common in europe but for which they had no immunity. The plaza in his honour is very beautiful but it is a lie that masks the horrors he visited on indigenous people in his lust for power, glory and wealth.

On the way out of town we crossed the lovely Felipe IV bridge and the beautiful gardens around it, but not before we stopped at the cafe for more refreshments - camino rules: never pass a cafe.

After crossing the bridge, we found ourselves on a tarmac road, which, as the owner of the Hostal Galicia had said, had very little traffic. It also went in virtually a straight line to the town of Yelbes just over 6km away. It was more a village than a town but very beautiful, and there was a cafe/bar open, so we went in for some lunch, which was quite good, a sandwich with grilled pork, cheese and bacon, and the barman phoned for a taxi for us, and it arrived 10 minutes later. The driver was a soldier who taxied when he was off duty, it seems that many people in Spain have two or more jobs. He had absolutely amazing tattoos on his arms of intricate Japanese scenes, and he spoke good English, which is very unusual for this part of Spain. Within 20 minutes we were checking into the hostal in San Pedro de Merída. It was basically the last truck stop before Merída, and seemed to be quite a popular spot. The room was modern and nice, with a good toilet/shower room, and the shower was great. As is often the case in hostals, we couldn't get any washing done, but tomorrow we would be in Merída and knew that the albergue had a washing machine and a drying line outside.

The hostal had a big restaurant and it was really very busy, but the service was quite prompt and the food was very good, but despite the short taxi ride, it had been a long day, and the walk had been quite tiring in the heat so we were glad to get to bed.

I was not looking forward to tomorrow, for it would be our last day on the camino together. Ken is my best friend, and without him I would never have discovered the camino in the first place, but Merída is his last stop. We had planned to finally do a full camino together, all the way to Santiago, but he has to go home. I have really enjoyed his company on this camino, and I hope that we get the chance to do another one together in the future.Leia mais