Boog's Blog

BSVDLP Villafranca to Almendralejo

The town is not really on the Camino as it was not established until 1527. About 5 kms off, it is a convenient stopping place.

As a new town it has a newer church and streets that are not cobbled.

The walk-in was especially easy as the road was wide, flat and in very good condition for walking.

Met a young German woman and discussed a little bit about her travels and then I asked her about Biden. Similar answer that we have gotten from others. Good that Trump is gone can’t decide yet about Biden.

As we are walking through Wine country I thought I would research the two most popular wines from the restaurant. one line and screenshot follow.

Home

Screenshot of another wine clearly a mixture of grapes. Expensive.

Explaining in Spanish that the room did not have sufficient air-conditioning and that we needed to change rooms because their explanation of heat coming in from the sun did not make sense A challenge but we are now in a slightly cooler and better room with a perfect Euro shower that flooded most of the bathroom.

BSVDLP Zafra to Villafranca de los Barros

Early start, even earlier than we planned. Being Sunday morning most cafés are closed so we tried to start from a café that we thought was open. Ha. Ha. Google info wrong. Google does not know Spain.

So we started walking at 7:30 in the morning without breakfast. QB not a happy QB. Very much missing morning coffee and tostada.

Early morning walk through olives and grapes fields. Road quality kept changing every field. Sometimes gravel, sometimes rocks, sometimes terra cotta color, sometimes dust. Vineyards and haciendas not marked with any brand. We were walking on Ruta de Vino but clearly not branded or suggesting entry for a tasting. Just a guess: cooperatives.

When the heat came up it was really bad. Fortunately we were only an hour away from the town where we are staying. QB could barely make it and I too was worn out.

Stopped at the first bar we saw for beer. Crappy place called Andy’s. Hotel turned out to be nearby and had a fine lunch including a glazed leg of mutton.

After a nap, a walk around town. Nothing, I mean nada, nothing was open other than cafes. Hot, sunny and closed up even well past siesta time. Other than Sevilla we have found only one church open, in Zafra. No hours posted, no masses posted.

Zafra 2

An intentionally quiet day

Taking a real rest day after being on the road for over a week.

Skipped the hotel breakfast and went over to the Parador to have a very overpriced buffet but very good one.

Museo Santa Clara: convent, church, history of nobility (only history there is) in Zafra. This completes all of the recommended tourist attractions in Zafra.

Afternoon tea, literally for the QB. Got to smell the loose tea before ordering it. Not her favorite blend but the best she expected to get.

BSDLP Fuentes to Zafra

Lucky break this morning. When the driver came to pick up our luggage we asked her if she could drive us to a town, Pueblo de Sancho Perez, not too far from Zafra. Makes the walk shorter, avoided some of the worst heat and got to see a small town as well as have time to look around Zafra.

The walk-in to Zafra was not difficult and the walk through town was fun. Away from the acorns and the pig farming and industrial smells.

Nice supermercado.

Wandered into Zafra the wrong way on the Autovia, through the industrial area and then the city. We wanted to stay at the Parador but unfortunately the city is sold out due to an agricultural fair, or the bank holiday, or something that we don’t understand.

One of the highlights is the self-service laundry two doors away from our hotel. Wow wow! Huge excitement! Almost never find self service laundries here and just a few feet away.

After a visit to the tourist office we went to see the suggested highlights.

The main church with retablo. Possibly a Jimmy polychrome on it.

The site that used to be the ancient synagogue and became a church after the Jews were expelled.

The old Muslim home or factory or business that was essentially a Pharmacy la casa del ajimez. Maybe our arabic readers will be able to give us more detail about this term.

Finally over to the Duke‘s palace, the Alcazar. I asked about getting tickets to the special area and she said no tickets; only for the guests. But if we go and buy a beer and show her the ticket she will give us a key to the private room. Spain can be very strange. So we did. Could not get a pic of the tile work as behind glass.

BSVDLP Monestario to Fuente de Cantos

Not an especially interesting day or read for the blog.

Today it was the heat. We finished the walk before it hit the maximum but it sure as hell was hot enough. Two beers and two ice creams later with some rest in the shade and some of us were recovered.

Good walking path but not well Waymarked. Made a wrong turn and took a 20 minute or so detour but found a way back due to technology tools and then crossed a stream straddled with strategically placed stones.

At five mile point a rare treat: a bench. First one we have seen since we started.

Farming technology is not part of my New York background. Today we saw automatic seeding on the road with a truck that would spray random seeds across the field

On today’s walk there were no acorn trees and we passed a pig farm. Very smelly and very unpleasant. Not quite a factory farm.

A lot of unpleasant smoking in the cafe. Smoking and loud voices seem to be the norm here.

Nice simple hotel. Again very noisy in the bar. Did some planning for tomorrow to reduce heat exposure.

Afternoon snack of jamon, lomo, cheese took care of dinner needs. Dinner starts at 8:30. Went out to get yogurt and fruit for tomorrow’s walk. No decent fruit to be found anywhere. So far Spain has been a real disappointment for fruit. Even worse than RI in the Spring. Dinner salad and shrimp with garlic.

“Why be that pig followin’”

Where much will be revealed about Jamon…. Some longstanding questions of ours answered……

Turns out we have a rest day in the small town. As mentioned yesterday, no waterfall nearby. However there is a Museo de Jamon.

Breakfast at the gas station included fresh squeezed orange juice, likely Sevilla oranges. Good wherever they were from.

Tourist office visit was fabulous. He helped us find a good spot to start walking tomorrow and even arranged the taxi to take us to that spot. QB wanted a shorter day. But hardly short.

Then a review and walk-through of the Museo de Jamon. Exhibit hall in Spanish but QR codes translated much of it. Good graphics, so we finally understood much of the grading, the labeling and the local pasturing.

We are most definitely in the right area to be sampling the Best of the Iberico pig.

At the museum there was a great film of the area and the Dehesa, the pasture. We were quite lucky to see many free range pigs running around, even approaching us a little bit. The “Dehesa” and its meaning.

It is clear that the Iberico Pig is uniquely adapted to this area; many other types of livestock were found wanting in terms of protein production. Often the Iberico is actually a cross with another pig breed.

Tourist office person told us the best place to get the best sliced Bellota. We went to the second best because of location; named Honky Tonk. Apart from the ham itself, slicing quality is critical.

Served with large croutons and liver pate. The jamon was hand sliced and had an orange tag (see below) which is equivalent to the red tag – designating meeting a certain standard. I asked about the price difference between the red and black tags. Discussion ensued, both the server and the slicer independently researched on the web and reported back. About 10% in THEIR tienda store. Looking into shops there is a wide range even within a standard (think Champagne or other DOP items). Local price about 16 euros per 100gm for the quality we got at Leo and Honky Tonk.

In order of standard for grading (not quality)

Black. (Can be 75-100% Imberico)

Red and Orange (maybe size dependent). (Can be 50-75% Imberico)

Green

White

Other labels such as DOP and colors for diet of pig. Brand names for quality and or price.

Much research needs to be further done as we have just scratched the surface of the pricing and brand names versus labeling. Much eating too. Apparently it is practically a health food.

BSVDLP Real de la Jara to Monesterio

“Arrrh! Ye bilge rats, we be headin’ fer the Bay ‘o’ Biscay to chase the White Whale.”

“Cap’n. That were yer five times Great Uncle Ahab and he be sleepin’ with the Pequod crew in Davy Jones’ locker. The Google sez we be near Sevilla”

“Arrrh! Whar be me sextant ye scurvy dog?”

“Parrot ate it last month, Cap’n.”

“Arrrh! Which way be north?”

“Awwk! Ishmael! Cuckoo!”

A wonderful walk today. Just (not “just”—SD) 9 miles on a wide gravel road with ups and downs that were reasonable. It was nice rolling path through mostly pastureland.

Speaking to the locals is very difficult. A regional accent that is hard to understand let alone with my limited Spanish. On top of that everyone is wearing a mask including me which makes it even harder.

Price is very very low in this region. The hotels we stayed in are in the range of €20 a night maybe €30. Not elegant of course. Two star hostel level. Euro toilets and showers. Ugh.

Breakfast was classic Spanish toast and juice this morning. Basically nothing else available; when we went to the Supermercado it had no refrigerated section so we couldn’t get anything like yogurt or cheese. And we were hungry from last night as we had eaten only a little of the unappealing experimental dinner.

QB suffering from toe that is likely to fall off in the next few days. Wrapping it in bandages only delays process. When it falls off we will glue it back on. No high-quality surgeries for toes. QB pointed out that we do have a stapler but I said it’s pretty small. (Adequate—SD).

Tonight we are saying in the second of two Leo’s. Each a 24 hour gas station and many other services including a truckstop where you can wash your truck but not your clothes.

The two nights at the gas station are due to an error by the booking company. It pointed out an attraction that we wanted to see. Turns out it should not have been on the website as it is more than 80 km away. Oops.

We are in the Iberico jamon region. Ham everywhere and some of the best, they claim. Tomorrow we will visit the Museo de Jamon which has a well reviewed tour (meaning too much detail to absorb).

Cap’n Dick: “what kinda cod be these? Be they nitrated or chloride salted? Air cured or brined first, smoked first, salted first or cured first. Ain’t boiled.

Walked out of town on a dangerous section of steep rocky road carved out of the hillside to avoid some farmers land. Not fun.

Afterwards, many very pleasant sections punctuated by very dangerous, very steep, slippery sections both up and down. Surprised we could do them – but then we had no choice.

Massive wildlife, bicycles, sheep, goats, pigs horses, pigeons, stork nests, short-horned beef cattle. Possibly black iberian pigs.

Stopped for lunch

Bread, cheese, nuts, yogurt. Not middle ages fare.

At about the 10 km point we found a straight up, really up, section and some especially dangerous downhills.

After the endless descent we got onto a road and and looking back we could see that we crossed above the cell tower heights.

Overall we climbed more than 2000 ft and descended about 1200 ft. Roughly a 12 mile day. Horrible.

Dinner in Real de la Jara.

A physical world separation affect, at least for KB, is taking hold. An inveterate news and inter-tubes junky barely noticed the oil spill in SoCal or the Pandora Papers, a major Guardian study. Have no desire to read more than the headlines and I suspect even that may soon fade.

“I’ll have the lobster bisque ‘n oysters.”

“Que? No tenemos lobster.”

“Tis” the Bay “o” Biscay. Gimme some ‘o’ that fish “n” grog, blast ye.”

“Cap’n be a complete addle. Again. We ain’t even crossed a puddle in 3 days.”

“Awwk! Pieces’o’ bait!”

Fabulous hospitality at the small hotel. A rather large breakfast of ham and tostada juice and coffee

The walk apart from the final ascent and descent was literally a walk in the park. Parque naturale Sierra Norte. Excellent path. Many trees stripped of bark and then painted with some type of red preservative we are guessing.

Much shorter walk today; QB interjected as I was doing this pointing out that it was all uphill. Not quite, only gained about 150 m but we were going up and down a great deal. The final ascent was a very steep climb and then a very steep descent. Both somewhat dangerous.

At the big ascent/descent it started to pour at the top and therefore made it very slippery especially as we got close to the town where some idiot paved the place with stones that are especially slippery in the rain.

A numbers of jamon factories in this town.

Café lunch should have been excellent but had so much salt in the mushrooms and in the homemade gazpacho that it was inedible even for QB who salts all food. Very likely from everything made with Jamon in some form or shape or other. Gazpachos even had bits of ham in it and apple. We ate only the good salad.

The temperature at the end of the walk was 30° cooler today than yesterday.

A short walk around town shows that once again every town in this area has nothing but white houses for obvious reasons.

A twelve mile day but what a day! Mostly uphill, unrelenting gradual climb into searing heat, all on very uneven terrain where poles were required. QB on the edge of hear exhaustion. Her thermo-regulator is not currently working and has not been for a while. I too was very hot.

The day started off well with a nice walk out of town onto an enjoyable (the kind that sucks walkers in) rural road that morphed into the above, some kind of hunting preserve. Well, at least was a very good cardio day!

Lots of spandex clad mountain cyclists riding the challenging terrain. Maybe little else to do here.

Andy, fellow walker from Ireland: Biden question, “I did not like Trump at all” Had no opinion about Biden’s actions other than a sister he does not believe, one that hates Biden.

Hotel a very pleasant 2-star, real one this time. Walked in and before asking about a room two beers, a large bottle of water and two ice cream bars were consumed. Decent shower and great balcony. Dinner at a restaurant nearby but we will get a lift, possibly because he thinks, correctly, we are a bit fatigued.

Dinner. Cannot get fed until 9 PM (a “difficulty” at the restaurant). Means we have to miss our weekly call with SMCG. Ah,Spain.