Boog's Blog

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.

“Cap’n Dick where be we?”

“Arrh! Bay o Biscay, ye sodden bilge rat.”

“Awwk! Pieces ‘o’ pate.”

Early morning start for the first day of the Death March.Packs loaded with drinkable yogurt, tons of water. No rain so no rain gear.

13 mile trek to Hostel Bar Frances. Last several hours in extreme heat. The heat was really the main problem. Mid 90s in the sun and there was no shade for almost the entire walk.

Leaving Camas terrible road with smelly gasoline and trucks and ugly industrial area. Then we got on a road that ran parallel to the autostrada. Basically 11 miles is nothing but exactly the same road with the exact same surface heading north.

Fortunately in the town of SantiPonce before the long track on the boring Road. Visited a 1301 Cistercian monastery being renovated (slowly). Alphonse Guzmán was the original founder.

Then an absolutely fabulous ball of string. Might be worth two balls of string. The Roman city of Italica. Birthplace of two emperors Scopio and Trajan. The ruins of the amphitheater alone well worth the side trip of almost 5 m. We probably could’ve spent half a day there but had to MoveOn. The ruins are from the city of 206 BC

So far we’ve noticed only five other fellow travelers.

Along the long boring 11 mile path we did see some cotton growing and a machine that was picking the cotton. I’ve never seen that before.

Also saw a farmer seeding his field with dozens of white birds following right behind the tractor. Every time the tractor moved, the birds followed to pick up the new fresh seeds, some even trying to anticipate where he was going next.

Simple two star bar for tonight. Outstanding Wi-Fi. We immediately had a beer and an ice cream each.

On further reflection a marginal one star. Toilet does not work. Old weather heater that heat tub grout shower but not sink. No cold water. Overhead light stopped working.

Decent standard Camino food.

They do early dinner at 8pm

Sevilla 4

Rumors of a beached ship on the Guadalquivir. Wood shards. Sounds of drunken brawls.

Last day before the Death March, I mean pilgrimage, commences. Mostly a rest, planning and repacking day planned today.

Excellent gelato at a confituria.

Just love walking the old sections of Euro cities. Low scale, lots of people-watching. That and the gelato place 😀.

A question for our well-informed readers. Cheese. Cheese is the question. If you walk into any supermarket cheese is in the refrigerated section. With the rare exception of parmigiano. Yet all throughout the middle ages people carried cheese and bread on horseback. What cheese did they carry? What keys could the sacking Boogs carry in their backpacks?

Dinner at Bodega Dos de Mayo. Excellent food excellent restaurant. But there was a misunderstanding. We waited a long time for a dish. They kept trying to clear the table.

Finally was clear. They wanted to serve sequentially so nothing got cold. We were sitting outside. We wanted to eat all the food together.

During breakfast we overheard a conversation about pirate sightings. Could not get the details; language was one we are unfamiliar with.

Question for this sacking adventure likely to be “What do you think of President Biden?”

To date:

-Unclear, Afghanistan very complicated

-Anyone better than Trump

Bullfighting still legal and practiced here. Seems to be a controversial topic as some hemming and hawing before answering. Two responses to date: I like it but realize many don’t, it is traditional. I don’t like it but that is just my opinion

After a leisurely hotel breakfast a leisurely stroll along the river to the very large Maria Luisa park. In the interior La Plaza de España constructed for a world’s fair in the 1920’s. Good wandering in the heavily tiled and Venice line canal area. Even caught flamenco dancing and finished with qb having an aperol spritz (they have not heard here that it is passe)

Evening attraction: Metropole Parasole, sunset and architectural experience. Lots of food in the area.

Started with a película of views of the city. Really helpful that we had walked around a lot so we could recognize The buildings and views. Movie included fabulous flamenco dancing. The main attraction of this is to view the sunset; there were many many people here. The sunset was nice but certainly not in the league of Rhode Island

The large sprawling parasol is also called the mushroom. Reminds one of Gaudi.

Traditional dinner. Enjoyed.

Above is a YouTube link to the flamenco dancing at plaza de Espana

It is possible that we are being followed! The marooned crew of the pirate ship Jolly Parrot; they had some tough times. We have a feeling that we will be hearing a lot more about them. Rumor has it that they have had to abandon the sea and are now planning an overland route.

The first few days for us will be in Sevilla, see the town, get used to the heat and change of time zone. The car driver thought today was perfect. 30 C. Not our view of perfect.

As to the Boogs: Smooth if long sailing/flying. Spanish health form completed we boarded Boston to Madrid, then a flight to Sevilla. Unsurprisingly jamon everywhere.

Fine hotel,Red Room like a cruise ship

Tapas at Lobo Lopez

The local pilgrim authorities have alerted us that there may be Pirates in the area. We are advised to take heed and protect our doubloons and especially our snacks as the suspected group is both drunk and hungry.

The alert is based on satellite imagery so it is not yet clear if those viewed are Pirates or just a horde of jamon loving locals heading to a big sale. The cutlasses, well, ,…..

Hopefully only one…..

Yesterday the first blog of the trip was posted but:

1. some did not get it

2. some could not use comments; password issue

Item 1

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Should be resolved with this posting. If you did not get the earlier one just scroll on down to the bottom of this post and it will be there. It explains this camino.

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Item 2

At the bottom of every post there is a comments section. You need to sign in to be registered to use it. Your username is in the email you are now likely reading. Bellow the comments you will find “lost password”. Naturally this is the route .