Halfway There!!!

Moratinos, Spain
Today's route took us through Terradillos de los Templarios, supposedly the place where the Templars hid the goose that laid the golden eggs, source of their wealth. The goose is obviously long gone, but tributes to the Templars live on. We had an interesting conversation with a local about agriculture in the area. Rather than individual farms, the farms are collectives, explaining the lack of fences demarcating territory. People live in towns or cities since once the wheat is planted it requires little tending. Sometimes about 50% of the homes in villages are vacant, as folks come out for the farming season (migrant farm labor not unique to the USA) and go back to the cities to work in between. Teams with harvesters and all sorts of farm machinery come from as far south as Andalusia during planting and harvesting time. The hand planted groves of fast-growing trees are planted in very moist areas and harvested every 10-12 years to provide pulp for paper as fast growing trees do not provide lumber of the quality from slow growing hardwoods. The fields of sunflowers are government subsidized to encourage crop rotation. The sunflowers are used to make oil but suspect there's not much of a market for that in the land of olive oil. The farmers used to burn the fields, but that's no longer permitted, resulting in an explosion of field mouse populations every 5 years. A village feline demonstrated her mousing skills at a rest stop. She was a momma kitty nursing a litter, so no time for games of cat and mouse. She made short work of a rather plump little critter and moved right along in search of her next morsel. We finished the day in Moratinos, population 58. Moratinos has a large hill/mound into which little caves have been excavated to form bodegas for storing wine, vegetables and whatever. Some date back 500 years. While many have been abandoned, some are still in use and have been known to serve as party central. Trees and rock are in short supply, so bricks of clay and straw seem to be the building material of choice. Oh, and did I mention that from Moratinos it's 376 kilometers to Santiago... we've passed the halfway mark!Read more