The Railway Children.

by tim 26. April 2012 17:02

26.4 Thursday Utrera to Sevilla.
Ray and Ann are railegrinos to day Anne suffering with a second set of blisters (the sandals are an improvement but 33km on their first outing is asking a lot) so they go by the frequent service between Utrera and Seville. We know all about this service as our route travels close to, along and crosses the track frequently. We are whistled at by most of the trains that pass us when close by the track.
Before we reach the railway we find our way out of town in the dark with reasonable yellow arrows once we rejoin them thanks to Tony's excellent cross town navigation. After crossing the track for the first time we enter an area of sand, pines and olive trees, rabbits abound, nine at once is the record scuttling actoss the track. This is billed in one set of instructions as the nicest walking since Cadiz, we have to agree but all to soon we start our dance with the railway that continues until we reach Dos Hermanoes and a morning coffee. At one point alongside the raiway we spot a bee eater and later another harrier or two in the distance plus a Redbacked Shrike.
We find our way north out of the town and cross the tracks for nearly the last time today. The next section involves a long treck down a road with a diversion into some olive groves for lunch. This section exemplifies the current finincial problems in Spain, all developement has stopped huge cranes are unmoving on the horizon, roads and a huge car park exist to serve nothing, plots are for sale with peeling notices, all has stopped!
As we enter Sevilla we encounter the last rail crossing and the start of the canal, we cross these following a native along the hard shoulder crossing intersections, dodging traffic until a final road and we trip, like the captain of a well known cruise ship, and fall into some chairs arranged on a pavement...... a man brings us beer and olives!
The rest is a blur of tired feet, carriages and (mostly young) ladies in flamenco dresses. Once more Tony's skill with his mobile phone (full of electronic maps and routes) sees us safely to our booked backpacker hostal in Triana, an area over the river from the cathedral.
36km less than 8hours.
Battery problems prevented pictures today except this one taken of the five by one of many young spaniards starting to celebrate the feria in Seville.

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25.4extra.

by tim 25. April 2012 18:43

We are now post siesta, everyone needed that nap, and are sitting in the main square in Utera drinking Manzanilla. We have just found and visited the local church dedicated to Sant Iago with the mutamoros as a painting and a pilgrim statue over the alter. It has a fine dome and bell tower with storks! This is a nice little town with a traditional centre. We have not yet tried Mustachones (the strange things in bags in the service station) and may well not, but this is where they come from.

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Down in the dumps.

by tim 25. April 2012 16:58

25.4.12 Wednesday. Las Cabezas de San Juan to Utrera.
We leave our palacial appartments
opposite the little church of San Roque early having eaten in last night and completed a big wash in a machine by drying clothes on our roof opposite the storks. Every so often Betsy would go missing and be found up there trying for a photo of one standing up on the nest on the bell tower.
A long day is anticipated, headtorches light the streets out of town to the irrigation canal and dawn appears as we march down the canal.
We see occasional cars and vans on the tracks at the side of the canal mostly farmers tending the humming pumping stations sucking water out and over the huge fields. Quite a lot of the blackwinged stilts are on the fields and also to Betsy's delight a hare who races off at high speed when finally he lost his nerve 3m from the track when the last members of the party passed. Three of us had aready passed by without seeing him. We pause briefly for a break under the roadbridge over canal and railway line at Estacion de las Acantarillas. Not so much a station as a passing place on the single line from Seville to Cadiz whose route we have followed more or less from Puerto Real.
It is obviously in the process of a major up grade but no work is seen in progress we presume as a consequence of Spains financial crisis.
Eventually we leave the canal and take to tracks across the fields stopping again for a good self made lunch of ham and cheese boccadillos and olives with the remains of the wine box we failed to finish last night. The pace picks up a little after this as we pass the municipal dump to enter Utera, we are starting to feel a bit like burgalars standing on the dustbin to gain entry to houses and hope this does not become our normal MO for entering towns. Soon after the pace flaggs but we now enter the town through the Jerez gate into old Andalusian style architecture and ask at the well placed (and still open) tourist office for a map and a pension. Shortly after we collapse exhaused in the main square and a man brings us some beer! Result. About seven and a half hours for 33km.

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the feet canna take it Still playing with technology.

by tim 24. April 2012 20:15

	the feet canna take it so we had an easy day and taxied here,we spent a while in the neighbourhood bar where everyobe was known to the barman before climbing the hill to the ancient summit and the wrong bar behind tbe cburch.finally we found the right church and the right bar from the roof of lodgings the stork on the church was camera shy. Photo. the wrong church.

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Avians Along the Ditch.

by tim 24. April 2012 15:50

24.4 Tuesday.
El Cuervo de la Sevilla to Las Cabezas de Dan Juan.
Anne and Ray become taxigrinos for the day. Readers of previous accounts may remember this is a term (sometimes derogatory) for those peregrinos using local taxis to transport luggage or persons to the next place "en camino" without the walking. Annes boots were not kind to her yesterday.
We start start earlier as it was hot yesterday by our finish time and the three
of us are walking as it starts to get light at seven. We find a side road shortly after reaching Lebrija and our morning coffee this leads eventually to our "ditch" a large irrigation canal flowing from the Rio Guadalquivir just south of Seville to water these flat lands for miles on its east side. It is a magnet for birds of all sorts. We see black winged stilts, avocets and pratincoles again, a pair of harriers probably Montagues or Hen harriers and a host of warblers including one with very loud harsh call probably a Grasshopper warbler of some type plus the usual grey wagtails and goldfinches. Betsy finds a snake recently run over on the dirt track at the side of the canal probably a Horseshoe Whipsnake. We leave the canal which is flowing quite strongly into the fields and strike towards Las Cabezas across dirt tracks where our route is indicated by the yellow arrows on rocks and finally enter the town via the local tip.
We strike uphill to the obvious church at the top of town seen from a distance where we have agreed to meet Ray and Anne they are there Anne has bought a pair of sandals that seem more comfortable than her boots. We go to the bar at the back of the church where we hear they do rooms. The beer is very welcome but it is the wrong church! Down the hill again to the parish church of San Roc (he of the bad leg, he must be patron saint of taxigrinos). We find the bar and are shown palatial apartments opposite, there is even a washing machine and cooking facilities worth the 20euros pppn.
29km seven and a half hours.

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Jerez to El Cuervo de Sevilla. 23.4 Monday.

by tim 23. April 2012 17:47

We start from the pension at 8oclock but stop down the road at an open cafe we many regulars for coffee and tostados.
We know today we follow the Amigos yellow arrows but also that lunch is likely at a motorway services with several km of motoway on each side.
First we have to find the motorway, suggestions by some to follow the planes (it is near the airport) are treated with contempt. But somehow we miss an arrow and wander arround an industrial estate with a divergence of map from reality occurring. Another cafe is open we have more coffee and ask where the road is that we have a name for from the downloaded Amigos intructions. A puzzeled local points about 40m down the road on the other side. All is now clear we pick up the arrows again and are soon trundleing along a dirt track about 50m from the motorway we are screened by trees from it and the km fly by! (Well it was alot better than it might have been.)
We stop at the services (entered by the loose bit of fence at the back and have a beer and bocadillo each. There are also available large packs of moustaces (we have various suggestions as to what these are) but on reading ingredients on the back we think some form of biscuit, a speciallity of a town we may pass later.
When we leave, out the back there is a small pool and Tim spots pratinicoles, birds previously seen in Portugal on the last Camino.
Passing on we go under the motorway pausing briefly in welcome shade and pass up the side of a sizeable vinyard devoted we think to sherry production.
And thence into En Cuervo and landfall at Hostall Santa Anna which looks good so far, more than can be said for Anne's feet which are giving problems.
However a day up the motorway that could have been much worse.
27km about seven and a half hours.

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ray 22/04/2012

by tim 22. April 2012 20:04

	Experimenting with technology! A glass of tio pepe in jerez is the reward for our first day on the camino surrounded by crumbling over decorated churchs and handsome mansions. no vines. but large bodegas, all closed cos its sunday, domecq,harveys bristol cream,the walk was good too.

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The old salt pans out.

by tim 22. April 2012 18:07

22.4 Sunday Domingo.
Our augmented party of five are fed (magdelanas and orange juice) and readyfor off at 0800hrs. We set off briskly down the street from our lodging in Puerto Royal to the University of Cadiz site just over the main route and railway. From here our route has been marked by the amigos de Cadiz with the conventional yellow arrows and while not as prolifically signed as on other routes it is perfectly adequate. We stroll through the Park Natural of the salt pans and marsh. For the first kilometer or so plants are labelled with photos and Spanish and Latin names quite educational (well it is a university). Further on we see more smaller waders such as Ringed Plover and a Curlew and have coffee in a visitor centre for the saltpans with a couple of nice modern steel sculptures of sea birds and proceed up the main road at the edge of El Puerto de Santa Maria. Readers may remember the names of the three ships that "sailed the ocean blue in 1492" with Colombus from this port. Santa Maria, La Nina, and La Pinta. Halfway round the main road we meet La Nina stranded on a roundabout. We can well understand why the old salt Columbus was faced with mutiny some weeks out as it is tiny (if indeed a reasonable replica).
We pass eventally into open country and then again along the old road aside the main road into Jerez following the yellow arrows till we collapse in a nearly closed bar (it is Sunday afternoon) for a well earned beer. We find lodgings in the pension of the Hotel Sanvi clean and ok, and go out immediately for lunch at 1500. This included Cuban rice (with fried egg and fresh tomato sauce) and Gallo Fritas (which should have been fried cockerel) but in fact was deliciously marinaded fish bits fried in batter.
A wander round the various churchs and the castle (much very old carved stonework) completed our afternoon, unfortunately as predicted on a Sunday all the Bodegas are shut.

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A wade around the saltmarsh.

by tim 21. April 2012 20:56

21.4.12 Saturday.
Today we are due to meet Ray and Anne, who have just flown out from England, in Puerto Real a bit further round the bay of Cadiz. The bay consists of a mix of salt marsh and Atlantic Ocean with the spit of land leading to Cadiz along the south of the bay and the saltmarsh with its salinas (salt pans) to the west. We set off northish out of town and into fields and soon come across the only remaining part of the 60km aqueduct that carried water to Gades in Roman times.
A little later after minor route dificulties we see at the top of a slight rise two men apparently fishing, as we get closer it becomes apparent that they have no rods and later no water! We then notice the small birds in cages on the top of poles arranged in a wide circle around each man. The birds sing loudly, and we have no idea what was going on!
Soon after we reach the edge of the salt marsh and walk round the edge spotting waders. As well as the previously spotted blackwinged stilts we see avocets and a pair of redshanks, the avocets were also spotted by Ray and Anne from the train on the way to Cadiz.
Due to the marvels of modern tecnology we make contact and meet them off the train from Cadiz a little before 1600.
Result.
In the late afternoon we sit in the sun at a bar in the main square dodging the balls of the local small kids playing nearby.

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