Day 2 - Smelling The Roses

Sunday 17th Sept. Guillena to Castilblanco de los Arroyos

Those of you who have some familiarity with my past blog posts will know that the blog title isn't pre-planned: as I wander along a theme comes into my head. "Smelling The Roses" is a bit of an extension of yesterday's theme - that is, make time to see what's going on around you, rather than just focussing on an end-point.

Today I could have chosen at least two others - "what goes up must ... well, continue to go up" and "los dos días y semanas ". More of that later.

Today was an "easy" day. Ha!!! I told myself that a mere 18klms was the sort of thing I do before breakfast (which it isn't, by the way, that's no more than a misguided metaphor). Because of that little bit of self-talk I was not mentally prepared for a rather more challenging day. We left Bar Frances at a very respectable 9:20 am (remember, this was an easy day, no need to get up and charge off early). We misplaced the flechas amarillas , and we knew we needed to ford the river, so we headed away from the bridge to do so. Not the wisest choice, in hindsight. No harm done, we wandered off slightly track until we found ourselves and in the process executed a very squelchy river crossing (we should have just stayed on the main road, crossed the bridge, turned right, and voila!!). But in the process of going slightly around in circles we did manage to find an open panaderia, and picked up two much needed wholemeal pans for a later lunch.

Anyway, below is Bar Frances followed by some disinterested observers, and the squelchy crossing

And then we were off ...

Stopped at a servo to get some queso to go with the pan, and then onwards and upwards. You know "what goes up must come down"? Not today. Ever so up, up, up, all day. It was mostly a pretty walk, but the rough terrain, the humidity (we got some light rain on a couple of occasions) and the endless up made it a bit of a challenge. Not helped, I suspect, by the fact that we had told ourselves that today was going to be "easy". Some shots along the way:

A ruined"castle". Didn't bother to go explore.

Early-ish in the day we met Anca from Romania, and apart from a few whizzing-by cyclists (in the other direction), our sole human contact for the day. She also started from Sevilla yesterday, and hopes to make it to Santiago. We chatted briefly, but she's walking a little slower than us, so we pressed on. But in this interconnected world one of the first things she said to us was "you're Janet aren't you?, I read your (my) blog this morning". So we'll no doubt see her along the way.

Smelling the roses? Found these lovely flowers. Very pretty. And some acorns ...

And now for a couple of flechas shots, one of doubtful motivational value ;-) ...

Yeah, sure. As if we're going to stop. We can barely go ...

Some nice person had left some water for thirsty walkers, and also a surfing book if one wanted to take a slightly longer break!!!

Los dos días y semanas?? Well, it's day 2 of the walk, and surprisingly 2 weeks since we hopped on a bus in little old Dunsborough to start our journey. Surprising because it doesn't seem that long, and yet we've crammed an awful lot into those two weeks.

As we entered town we were pleased to see a special marker erected to welcome Janet ...

Which brings us to now, and here. We're in Castilblanco de los Arroyos, a pretty little town. Some shots ...

It seems my mate Cervantes had a connection here also

The above was my "feliz cumpleanos" photo to Kerri Daniels ...

Now tomorrow will be a hard day. 28klms. No towns in between. Will need to carry food and around 5/6 litres of water. We're expecting at least an 8-hour day. We're planning a weight jettisoning session at El Correos before we leave en la manana.

Oh, and I have to say that there's been a number of buen caminos sent our way from not just the older senores y senoras, but also from the cyclists and occasionally from a car window. Maybe they can see the pain!!