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Villaharta to Alcaracejos Part 1. about 12 miles undulating hill at end.
This part of the Camino Mozarabe crosses the Sierra Morena an area where there are few villages. We have about 24miles to cross, more than some of us would enjoy in a day so we are staying st the Bar Cafe Mirasierra for two nights walking half to a statue in the middle of nowhere where the camino is only a km from the main road and being fetched from there by Senor Ruis in his car and taken back in the morning. Thus narrowly avoiding taxigrino status. The village church is graced by a storks nest with a baby already active and being fed.
The day is wet low cloud only a few hundred metres overhead, rain falls intermittantly at first and then continuously with varying intensity. We all have our waterproofs, footwear varies. We also have to ford the Rio Guardobarbo not a problem when we get there and probably crossable in sandals at all reasonable levels however the second river tomorrow may be different.
There is a puddle with tadpoles (normal sized) and birds continue to sing unperturbed by the rain, though maybe even more difficult to see. The host of daisys have refused to open but all the usual flowers are still out just wet. The path we tread is a dirt road but the mud is not glutinous and progress is rapid with an occasionsl slide. Few vehicles pass us, one near the end stops and warns us the next river is up. Happily a problem for tomorrow.
We cower under the statue of something by the local sculptor and are very glad that Angel Garcia Ruis proprietor of the Cafe is arriving soon in his maroon Opel and has the heater on full.
Back at Cafe Miasierra it is lunch time and we join the wren feeding her family on the covered patio. Last night we were joined in the flat we occupy by Hans the Austrian who was also staying at the house in Cerro Muriano he is forging ahead and doing our two days in one we don’t envy him. Another welcome guest was the juvenile preying mantis who dropped onto Betsy’s bag annd scuttled off shyly after his photo call.
We stay inside the rest of the day well out of the rain.

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Cerro de Muriano to Villaharta 14miles a little up and down.
A very comfortable night in the house of Juan and Maria, thank you. Hans the hospitalero provided much useful information about the route. On the way into the village for breakfast we pass the local used car lot “Rusticars” honest, really we don’t think the significance in English is realised. Still bigger organisations than this have fallen over muligual misunderstandings.
We bowl out of the town and are repeatedly lapped by squaddies from the huge army base on both sides of the road doing their morning training runs.
The dominant flora is cistus and holm oak although there are large area of damp and at least one that contains numbers of enormous tadpoles presumably the young of some equally enormous local amphibian. We continue warily for the next few km. But the only large beast seen is a very large bird by Ray which lumbers into the air. Possibly a vulture disturbed on its night time roost. There are also lavender, potentillas and the host of daisies and smaller flowers everywhere allong the way with the occasional harvested cork oalk tree.
On the new road traffic flashes past , our route is mainly 20m away on the old road with a fence covered in sweet peas between us and them. The only traffic on our road is a solitary army vehicle possibly doing driver training and a German pilgrim walking back from Merida. Coffee in the half way bar/shop/hardwarestore/museum is very welcome in El Vacar where another large flock of sheep are grazing. Tim is convinced that they are the same sheep we saw yesterday on entering Cerro de Muriano others are less convinced, the sheep they admit could be but the two large dogs are different and there aren’t any goats eating the bushes.
We continue alongside but not on the N 423 to Badajoz. The route takes a delight in seeking out damp herbaceous patches fortunately only a few are damper than needed. At one point the way meets a under road drain pipe , about 2m diameter, the yellow arrow is ambiguous we pass under the road the end is blocked with a fence ,foliage and a swallows nest. Time to reverse.
One of our wayarks as advised by Hans in the house last night is a Feruginous Fuente there are several of these in the area passing though iron rich strata they are loaded with the mineral and leave orange stains across the ground. Ray calls them Irun Bru fountains and claims to have seen them in Scotland. We stop by it for oranges and bicuits before continueing the last mile or so up to Villaharta.

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Cordoba to Cerro de Muriano 11 miles from 110m up to about 500m.
A very nice days walk. Even the exodus gro Cordoba was through the back streets and except for around the major motorway was pleasant and well marked.
There were supposedly two Roman bridges on the route , for both it would probaly be faier to say “a bridge here since roman times” though there may have been a few original bit decernable. The day progresses ad we pass up the stream valley and then climb the ridge between two valleys rising up steadily to over 500m . About halfway up we find a memorial to Senor Vincente Mora Benavente an Amigo of the Camino whose favorate section this was. The flora and fauna change and we see 3 things new on this caminoas well as a plethora of the flowers seen earlier. All are old friends from the Via de la Plata and are part pf the hot heart of Spain. The cork oak joins the Holm oak sd a woodland tree, some had been harvested of their bark in the past, the Cistus through which 4years ago we walked for miles in Estramadura puts in an appearance but by no means as prolific, and the Azure winged magpie the bird that took us a day to identify shows itself coyly from behind various trees just before we enter our destination the town of Cerro de Muriano.
We have largely been walking up one of the Canadas or old drove roads and are only a little surprised to meet just before the first bar a large mixed herd of sheep and goats we there shepherd and large Spanish sheepdog.
Havinhg been well primed by Raphaell the chief of this section yesterday and by messages on posts and trees . This is e easily find the alburgue recommended this is a private house looked owned by a Dutch couple who have caminoed and allow pilgrims to stay. It is very pleasant as is the town.

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Cordova rest day.
Yesterday on the track a group of 6 female greyhounds loped past us and then were seen in a box on the back of a pickup this is slightly serendipitous as the evening before we learned the Spanish for greyhound. El Galga for female and Galgo male from a sign of a bars name. We await further information re greyhounds in Andalusia. The whippet is galgo ingles or English greyhound. It appears greyhounds may have first been bred in Andalusia during Moorish times.
The cathedral here is open for free between 8.30 and 9.30 so we rapidly breakfast in the youth hostel and wander through the narrow streets to the huge doors and enter the courtyard. This impressive but the interior with its multiple arabic arches and plastework is overwhelming and we generally agree is perhaps more impressive than the Alhambra. After being gently herded out for the morning service we go down the river to try to find the church of Santiago. On the way we see lots of big knockers, common in this town. On the banks of the Guadalquivir that flows on to Seville we see a new, to us, bird. The Penduline Tit, they are flitting around picking insects off the willows. And flying up to a nest on the end of a branch.
We find the church with a few pilgrim bits outside but closed going back following some yellow arrow signs we are acosted by Raphael not the angel or the turtle but the local leader of the Amigos de Santiago who takes us in and provides an enormous amount of very useful information about our route to Merida which he has walked and way marked. There are also more than a few Roman bits around the town though not as many as in Merida. The plan for the rest of the day is lunch wherever is reasonable followed by a lauderette siesta.Lunch was good siesta better.

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Santa Cruz to Cordoba. 17miles a bit undulating.
Jane and Ann are deputed to get to Cordoba by any means and find us lodgeings for two nights. As the A team they take the bus and manage to book into the youth hostel.
The way is less olive groves and much more cereal and sunflowers. We see many bee eater flocks several Stonechats and a whole circle of kites mostly black. The route gets tedious afer a while, a turning undulating dirt track although the thistles whose last years grey wraiths have littered the hedgerows are coming into their brief castelated magnificence and plenty of daisys and tansy are in bloom. We are promised another Roman bridge, even the guidebook says it is hidden and some great bustards. Eventually Tim trips over some rather large apparently shaped stones in the bushes. It is not impressive.
Towards 1400 we descend into the river valley with Cordoba over the river, there is a great bustard flying about, no it is a helicopter inspecting electric pylons. There are still 3km to go till the bridge to the old cathedral converted from a large mosque after the reconquista. The doors at least retain their original moorish shape and we pass by on our way the youth hostel. Ray claims not to be a youf anymore but is told it doesn’t matter any more.
We get out but it is May day holiday the city is rammed with tourists and no normal shops are open. We get royally ripped off for a poor lunch but hey ho its tourist town.

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Yesterday Jane saw our first nesting stork and today Betsy managed a pic of the big green lizard just before he dissappeared into his hole. Here are both her pics

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Mayday Castro del Rio to Santa Cruz
Today is not a big day there are two routes to Cordoba which is 39km away with nothing in between or a stop in Santa Cruz with the small town of Espeja for second breakfasts on the way. The ubiquitous olive groves give a little ground to occasional field of grain and sunflowers. We see Espeja a couple of km away inevitably on a hill and there is a choice of routes, an elderly Spaniard with his turkeys directs us but the first bar is closed we are waved away. Climbing up the hill we reach the second bar fortunayely open and having won the first prize in , as Ray puts it, the cross dressing contest. This stirring memories of yesterdays police station causes others to question whether cross dressing is approved for the Policia in Spain. A little like well dressing and Morris dancers back home.
Either way it is a grand little bar and sets us up for the rest of the day.
The rest of the day passes with multiple sightings of bee eaters another Woodchat shrike and a big green blue lizard on a quick dash across the track in front. On the more permanent sightings a roman bridge down the hill from Espeja which looks its age but still looks like a bridge. A deviation from the route to avoid the wet and mug and we end with a day that is no shorter than normal. We see a restaurant on entering town and with few others on route we break the rule of accommodation first and have a damn good Sunday lunch. This may have been a good decision as the whole population of the area follows us in.

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Not the The Pelican Brief.
On the way past the church we saw the first nesting stork of the trip. Looking on the distribution map for the white stork we noted that there is a 150mile wide strip up the east of the country where they do not migrate. We had been worried that Jane who was particularly keen to be clacked at by a stork on a church would not encounter one before going home from Cordoba

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Baena to Castro del Rio 13.5 miles gentle up and down.
A gentle walk planned today. Over the hill in olive groves and down into a river valley. Mostly metalled road but little used until about 1300hrs when all those working in the olive groves start to head for home lunch and siesta. We pass a man on a caterpillar tractor and harrow whose skill in braking one track at row end to line himself up for the next row of sunflowers is admired by all.
Also heard or seen allong the way are more hoopoes occasional bee eaters a buzzard and a small but alive viper of some description. Plus a new orchid and a good few ducks along the river valley that actually contains a river. .
As we enter the town via a herd of goats holding up trafficis we are directed by a wonderful ex pilgrim lady in rapid Spanish to the alburgue and then the local police station for the keys. She finishes her explanation and her account of her February Camino with the almost ritual ” is there anything you need”. A wonderful welcome.
The police station or local nick, when we find it , identified only by a police car outside is a moorish style courtyard with a cross decorated with red flowers ready for celebrations for Mayday tomorrow.
A fairly easy day and a comfortable quiet bed.

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