Day 30 - Distortions in the space/time continuum

Sun 15th Oct., El Cubo de la Tierra del Vino to Zamora. 31+ klms, 7 hours on our feet, ~ 41-45,000 steps (device dependant)

Today we walked an unplanned 31+ klms. How so, you ask? Well, we had planned a modest stroll to Villanueva del Campeán, but accommodation options there looked lousy, so we decided to press on to Zamora instead. But let me go back in time a bit first.

We had a lovely night last night at El Cubo de la Tierra del Vino. We stayed at the private albergue Albergue Turistico Torre de Sabre, hosted by the gregarious Filiberto. The room we stayed in was a throwback to the 1970s, and reminded Janet nigh of the old Campbell family home in Port Noarlunga. Even the bathroom mirrored that in the old house. The highlight was the evening meal which Filiberto and his wife Loli put on. There were seven of us at the table – Juan who we had spent time with yesterday, an extroverted Italian man who loved his wine, a Spanish couple who were driving north from Sevilla, Lucas from Columbia, and us. Lucas has excellent English, but the vast bulk of the conversation was in Spanish, so we just listened and nodded wisely from time to time.

L to R - the Italian wine lover; Lucas; the Sevillan couple; Juan, us

I asked Lucas to ask Filiberto why El Cubo is so named. The story goes something like this. Many years ago, somewhere in the vicinity, a fortress was built. It was rectangular, a bit like a cube. I’m told that the fortress was built by the Romans, but that may be local mythology. Indeed, even the existence of the fortress may be local mythology. Anyway, surrounding either the fortress or this area, they once were very plentiful grapevines. I’m told that these were ripped out somewhere around the year 2000, I understand to make way for more broad acre agricultural properties. So prior to this happening, the area was known for its cube, and for its wines, hence El Cubo de la Tierra del Vino. Now I have no idea whether any of this is true, but it makes for a great story.

Filiberto, our host, is also a breeder of Arabian/Andalucian horses. An intriguing and multifaceted chap. We saw and chatted to two of his hosses.

The Italian Man was a great wine connoisseur. When Filiberto produced his first wine, the connoisseur sniffed and swirled and declare it to be very young but acceptable. It was a tempranillo of unknown heritage. Some conversation then followed in a mixture of Italian and Spanish, which caused Filiberto to go to his wine cabinet and extract a fresh bottle, which he gave to Senor Connoisseur who, with great aplomb opened it, sniffed and swirled again and declared it to be magnifico. It was indeed a very nice wine, but the theatre was even better than the wine itself.

Wine theatre

The conversation then turned to bull fighting, entirely in Spanish, and therefore apart from the occasional toro, well beyond our comprehension. Lucas later translated for us that the essence of the conversation was that the bulls which are used for bull fighting are uniquely and especially bred, and that were bull fighting to be banned (for that sat at the centre of the conversation), then something would be lost culturally, as these bulls would no longer be bred or needed. As Lucas relayed this to us, he recognised the irony, as, in his words, he said “so they are especially bred and looked after up until they are tortured and murdered in public”. As I said,  his very words.

That was all last night, which brings us to today.

Filiberto and Loli had provided breakfast (self-serve toast, tomatoes, jam, etc), so a little after 7:30 we popped over to the main building from the old house, availed ourselves of the offering, and by 8:15 were on the road.

The walk was broken into a 13 klm stretch, followed by a 5, and then another 13. The first 13 klms were almost entirely in a gentle shroud of moist mist:

Space-time continuum?? When one wanders along for some 8 hours, all sorts of thoughts come and go. It seeped into my consciousness today that we've been on the road for 30 days now; I say "seeped in" because obviously I knew that, but it hadn't really registered as a thing. But here we are, 30 days since we started, and that seems like just yesterday. And then, a 31 klm walk today seemed like nothing. So both space and time seem to have been distorted compared to our "normal" lives and concepts.

We walked much of today with Lucas. He's an impressive young man, studying a PPE degree at Luiss University in Rome. He's from Bogota, Columbia. We discussed many things, including life and work in Columbia and reasons for walking a Camino. I learned a lot.

Our first stop point turned out to be a fizzer, so we took a slight diversion to San Marciál. Excellent bar there

Then a little later a notable selfie spot

The above is the exact spot of the cover of Gerald Kelly's invaluable guide book.

Path only slightly blocked 😀

A little later we came upon this place - El brocal de las Promesas y monolitos de las tres calzadas. I need to research it further, and tonight time is agin me. However from both what Lucas kindly translated, and the sense gained from the second image below, this place talks to tolerance, understanding and acceptance between the three great monotheistic religions, a central theme to An Impossible Dream , and no less important today than 1,000 or 2,000 years ago

Stand by for some more research.

We parted company with Lucas shortly thereafter. To close, here's a few rainy/cloudy shots entering Zamora. More tomorrow.