Breakfast in the morning in a typical Spanish bar, women sitting at the tables, men standing at the bar, all talking loudly, an occasional shout rising above the cacophony below, the woman behind the bar dashing back and forth, taking my order, putting on the toast, serving someone else a glass of grappa while my coffee poured. How different from an English pub with an old bloke sitting quietly in a corner nursing his pint!
Then out of town, up the hill, forgetting my poles and returning 500m later to pick them up, starting off again, striding out past the bull-fighting arena and a bank of solar panels, past a mass of threatening cacti, and then into the park through heavy gates fastened with sturdy steel bolts that even the most intelligent goat could not unfasten, and on to a farm with chooks in a chookhouse, and sheep in a field, and some porkers the size of small elephants in a pen, as happy as pigs in shit.
Very easy going, until a climb that yesterday would have been a brute, but this morning, although two or three times as long, was only a bugger.
Then it was down into the village, where I bypassed the albergue municipal on the left and found a room to myself in a private albergue on the right. Very nice place with wifi and sheets on the beds.
For lunch, Werner cooked us some hamburgers made from the very pigs we had passed along the way. Delicious! Perhaps the finest hamburgers I have ever eaten.
Our group is consolidating. Jean-Michel le Français has gone ahead, and Frederick the social worker and Tamara have returned to Seville.
I am sad to see them go. Tamara bore a very heavy burden, perhaps laden with make-up. On one occasion, Paul had offered to exchange his lighter pack for hers, but after a call from Frederick to his boss in France, the decision was no. A strict policy, but a shame if she feels a sense of failure after dropping out.
Paul from Leicester, John from Hamilton, Werner from Austria, and Steffen from Germany remain. Regrettably, I cannot always join them at the bar, for I have to walk the next day.
No comments:
Post a Comment