Camino Via de la Plata 2022

It was difficult to get to sleep last night, it was unbearably hot, at 1am it was still 29° but felt hotter in the dormitory, very sweaty, I think future archeologists will look at my bedsheet as a peregrino version of the Turin shroud. Thank God for Sudocream!

I was up and away before 0630 it was still dark but I knew the way out past the Roman viaduct, by the time I was out of the city it was light enough to see the yellow arrows. I was walking on my own which was a bit lonely but it gave me time to think about my life choices.

It was 6 km to the embalse but it was quick as it was all on a cycle/pedestrian path to the side of the road. I paused at the embalse for a few pictures and some refreshments, no cafes open though. After the embalse I continued on another very quiet road for a further 4 km before going off road onto a sandy path marked by bike tyre tracks. A couple of km from Aljucén I stopped for a coffee, as I was finishing I saw a young German guy called Lucas and so we walked the rest of the way to Aljucén together. His English was excellent, and we had a very enjoyable chat until we parted ways at Aljucén (17 km from Mérida) where I had planned to stay at the albergue.

I found the albergue but it was closed, I translated the message on the door telling me to get the key from the bar, so I went then but it was all closed up with no sign of any activity. I went over the church were a lady was sweeping the path and asked when the bar would be open - tomorrow she said. Apparently the owner was away at a family celebration.

This was a bit of a problem because I now had nowhere to stay and the only bar in town was closed, I really had no option but to go on to Alcuéscar but that was a further 20 km away and I had already walked 17 km and the temperature was now about 30° I was feeling a lot better about walking longer distances, and I felt that I was getting my 'camino legs', but 37+ km was pushing beyond my limits. Lacking other options I spoke to the lady in the shop who very kindly phoned for a taxi to take me to the albergue in Alcuéscar. It was not ideal and I hated skipping a stage but I really felt it was the most sensible option, the memory of heat exhaustion the previous week was still very fresh. The taxi arrived within 20 minutes and before long I found myself standing at the gate of the monastery in Alcuéscar.

The monastery was very beautiful, and filled with Roman Catholic statues and imagery, on a catholicity scale of 1-10 it was an 11. It was a working monastery and so the albergue, which was donitivo, was on the top floor, in what turned out to be two large rooms separated by a movable wall, by late afternoon they had to open both rooms. The number of pilgrims was greater than is normal for this particular camino, there were almost 40 of us in the albergue that night. I think there were two main reasons for this. Firstly, due to covid lockdowns people had not been able to walk the camino for two years and this was the first opportunity for many of them who had postponed their trips Secondly, also due to covid lockdowns, this year had been declared a Holy Year, and so more religiously devout Roman Catholics were walking - this is probably there were also more Spanish pilgrims than usual. So, the albergues were filling up.

The monastery was a lovely building but the albergue facilities were not. Almost 40 pilgrims had to vie for just 4 plug sockets to charge phones and tablets, and the shower / toilet block was terrible. I went for a shower, and discovered that when you shut the cubicle door you were in near darkness because the lights didn't work. As I turned the shower on the tap handle came off in my hand. So there I was in this tiny cubicle, butt naked with cold water spraying on me trying to work out how to put the tap back on in the dark...not the best shower I've ever had.

The worst thing about the albergue was the lack of airflow, there were a few very small windows, so from a covid infection point of view it was a bit of a nightmare, and to make matters even worse, the room was like a furnace, you could hardly breathe, the air was so hot, I think it was over 30° until the early hours of the morning. Lucas took his sleeping bag and went downstairs to the cooler part of the building and slept on the cold floor tiles, smart boy.

I had an experience in the monastery that I can't explain, I had asked a very shocked hospitalero if there was a quiet place I could go to pray and so he took me into a small side chapel and said I could stay as long as I wanted. I sat down on one of the pews and got out my journal, ready to think deep thoughts and journal them for the benefit of mankind, but I never wrote a word. Very suddenly and without any warning, I had what might be described as a mystical experience. I lack the language to describe it, all I can say is that I was there a long time and I left changed by the experience. As St Augustine said, if you can explain it, it's not from God.Read more