Alcaracejos to Hinojosa del Duque. 14 miles pretty flat.
We know it will be a wet day, the Norwegians have said so. Regrettably the Met Office back them up and looking a various Spanish weather forecasts on the television in various bars it is raining nearly every where in Spain unlike in the UK where they seem to be talking about heatwaves. We get the usual breakfast except for Betsy who, fortifying herself for the day has chocolate and churros. Hoping that there may be another churros burros on the way.
Our route is across flat dehesa that overlays a lot of granite. This produces the large boulder piles in the fields, much of pasture but some growing peas and cereals. The Holm Oaks dot the landscape some obviously of great age. The advantage to us is the course grit sand of our path, giving a good grip and little of the glutinous clay that bedevilled us on previous wet days. The villages we pass through have names relating to the mining past and the take over of the area by a higher Dukedom leading to the Duque suffix. It is wet, it rains continuously but we see no ducks or amphibians, a damp hoopoo a few goldfinches and a azure winged magpie are really all we see of note. Apart from statues to the areas mining past.
We met again the Italian walker who does quite long distances in Alcarahejos he was intending to cover 50km today but the rain has put him off and he is here in the alburgue courtesy of Hinjosa del Duque. It was a pleasant walk through the modified dehesa even in the rain and there were as always some parts where the floets would have been stunning. Very mixed farming small dairy herds some sheep and arable of various kinds.
Our bar in Alcarahejos we returned to for breakfast gives us some cake to take with us and we eat it at the usual orange stop in the rain in the middle of nowhere. Later we stop for some biscuits and share a large covered outdoor picnic and entertainment area with two middle aged Spaniards sporting hi tec catapults and a sporting dog. Not a bad walk all things considered. And a good Alburgue at the back of the police station, without bars on the windows.