Month: April 2012

30.4 Monday Castilblanco de los Arroyos to Almaden de la Plata.
It’s not raining, just cold and clear when we leave Castilblanco a nice little town with a very average albergue, redeemed by the good cafe/bar opposite (open around 6.30 for breakfast. It is just light after breakfast but we do not see any of the seven pairs of storks nesting on and around the church some of whom we saw changing the guard yesterday.
Our route today starts with a 16km road walk which in fact passes through very pleasant countryside undulating through olive and cork trees. The road is good quality but relatively little used by vehicles so the walk is good and we learn to identify the call of the hoopoe as well as seeing a dead one at the roadside. We also get good views of the bird that yesterday we thought might be a greater spotted cuckoo, it is not! We later identify it as an Azure winged Magpie, they seem quite common here.
We are rising slowly and some clouds form as the sun rises preventing the day from warming up so we bowl along at a good speed and soon reach the entrance to Parque Naturel de Sierra Norte, a good gravel track leads through. In the air above the large area of cork oak and scant pasture we see a stack of over 10 vultures rising on a thermal to look for food. We hope to get out of this area without providing their next meal.
The final route out leads up the very steep slope called in our guide books as Calvary Hill it is steep but not really very long and the views back are excellent. We descend the hill into Almaden which is quiet as it is a holiday.
Good albergue after 28km 6hrs.

Link to where we are on Google Maps

29.4 Domingo. Sunday.
Guillena to Castilblanco de los Arroyos.

A short day. We wake to a reluctant alburgue, it is raining again, a collective sigh and a rustling of water proof nylon and we are off like herons leaving a roost.
We leave an excellent welcoming alburgue. Jacqueline runs a fine place, even when full, turning no one away, even the unfortunate muddy late cycliste with no pilgrim passport because the cathedral office in Seville is closed on Saturday for Ferida.
We race along like yellow arrows for 3km to the cafe/bar at the turn off the road onto the dirt road, and stop for breakfast tostados with honey and cafe con letche. The next few km is unpleasant, though with good views back to Seville over the young catus hedge. The fertile soil of the olive groves and corn fields is also the ground for the dirt track, it clings, the rain though now light, has produced a perfect consistency for scones and it sticks to the bottoms of our boots slowing the going. As we rise, yes a hill for the first time this camino, we enter a natural park area of chaparal and with the shallow rocky soil the going gets much better. This is a lovely walk it’s good even in the rain, we see a hoopo a flight of herons, and a curious black capped cuckoo like bird, the bird book suggests the great spotted cuckoo, available in this area, frequenting olive groves and scrub and a nest predator on magpies, so this seems a possible new bird for us. However in the main the avian fauna is yrying like us to avoid the rain.
After too short a time we join tarmac again to a crack of thunder and a brisk downpour before reaching Castilblanco. The alburgue is well signed and open the lady cleaning is just finishing and we put sacks on beds and repair to the El Algabeno bar opposite the petrol station in front of the alburgue for an excellent meal of the day. The soup in particular impresses Tim, so much with so little (a light chicken stock with italian pasta noodles and occasional chickpeas but served onto a sprig of mint flavouring the whole perfectly).

Link to where we are on Google Maps

28.4 Saturday. Seville to Guillena
We bid farewell to Ray and Anne, both of whom have enjoyed their dip into a Camino. The rain on the roof of the hostal sounds heavy to all except Tim who wonders why there is suddenly no rush to start and is bemused when Tony starts to put on overtrousers. Eventually we all leave into the raindark streets to find after a few turns the trail of yellow arrows past the office of the Amigos de Camino across the river to the west and past Decathalon (about600m off route) where Tim markedly improved his footwear yesterday.
We gradually leave the river and it seems quite soon reach Santiponce where there is a reconditioned monastry and more importantly to us a coffee.
The rain is very slight now, but Betsy discovers her old overtrousers are permeable to water. We pass by the Roman ruins and the mock roman marble carvery and after the large trafficisland ee take to the straight track to the fields. As we approach a pylon topped by a storks nest one flies in, up pops its mate and we witness the changong of the guard and possibly feeding of a small one in the nest, though this we cannot see directly it appears to be what the incoming one is now doing. Later a line of five occupied nests along the power lines and a flight of herons gives an excuse for jokes about stork and butter.
Sauntering on for we have not far to go today, we come to the warned about ford. It looks deep but some strategically placed palettes provide a route across that would become inadequate in wetter weather. And so after another, somewhat smelly stream we enter Guillena.
22k less than 5hrs.
Menu de Dia at the Bar Frances is adequate and cheap by Seville standards we have arrived in Camino Spain! At 1400 the alburge is opened by Jaqueline the french guardienne and we check in gaining a sello and points for carrying our own washing lines.

Link to where we are on Google Maps

A few sample photos

27.4 Friday Seville.
We are based in Triana Backpackers on Rodrigo de Triana, the significance of the name is that he was the man in the crows nest on board the Santa Maria who first sighted America or at least which ever Carribean island was spotted first. From here we explore Seville crossing back over the bridges from Triana to the cathedral.
It is a huge pile of carved stone with a lot of silver inside, we get our sellos (stamps) at the admissions desk and file round. The tomb of Christopher Columbus retrieved from Cuba before the revolution and the enormous height inside. The building is on the site of the previous mosque and the bell tower is two thirds minaret with the orangery also remaining from moorish times. The rest is Gothic and designed by the same man as Rouen cathedral in France.
We have some lunch in an inn it is claimed Lord Byron stayed at and climb to the top of the tower.
Tomorrow Ray and Anne fly home and we start the walk in earnest. Hopefully without too many days like yesterday.

We recover in Triana Backpackers, and head out to see what this Ferida is about.
There is a fun fair but this is the least of it, the main part is to see and be seen, preferably on horseback or in a carriage. There are some beautifully kept animals not only horses but also teams of mules very fine beasts with a long suffering air.
We think there are large tents hired by wealthy locals or organisations to which one is invited and might attend by carrige or parade on horse back, preferably with wife or intended side saddle on a blanket behind the caballero. All very colourful quite apart from the flamenco style dresses.
Just as well we have another day planned in Seville an early start tomorrow would not be on.

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.

Link to where we are on Google Maps

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.

Link to where we are on Google Maps

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.

Link to where we are on Google Maps

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.