Sunday, May 12, 2019

Day 32

La Virgen del Camino to Villar de Mazarife - 14.5 kms
12 May 2019

A perfect spring day, a perfect for walking. It was so good to be in contact with everyone at home - a perfect Mother's Day. Today we passed through areas of scrub land then back through cropping land - good to be out in the countryside again. We stopped for a lengthy morning tea break at Chozas de Anajo where we enjoyed the company of three people from Norway, Germany and the Netherlands. We had a lively conversation about walks in Germany and the Netherlands and about the Norwegian chap's childhood and his acting career.
Villar de Mazarife is another country village. It has three albergues, a small grocery store and a busy cafe which is popular with the locals as well as the pilgrims - several local men were playing cards and drinking. The cards were the Spanish ones which look intriguing. It's obviously a gambling game.

Update:
We found many tiny black bugs in our albergue room. We're not sure if they were bed bugs or not but it didn't feel good and the albergue manager asked us to leave so they could fumigate the room. He actually accused us of bringing them into the albergue! So here we are back in La Virgen del Camino where we set off from this morning. We taxied back here - retracing the route we had walked today, it feels very odd. We'll return to Villar de Mazarife by taxi in the morning and continue walking from there. Now we're off to find a bar for a Mother's Day dinner.
Update: the bugs were some other kind of bugs, not bed bugs.

Leaving La Virgen del Camino this morning





Oncina de la Valdoncina



On the path again




Chozas de Abajo




Mother's Day morning tea 


No explanation needed

Between Chozas de Abajo and Villar de Mazarife



The hills in the distance. We're getting closer to them!




Villar de Mazarife in the distance


Pappy has plenty of ground for a garden and there's an irrigation system already in place but he'll have to put some windows in.



In Villar de Mazarife




Our albergue Teo Pepe


Less than 300 kms




The storks were making a click-click-click sound with their beaks

The view from albergue our room

...and our washing hanging in the courtyard


St James in the plaza in front of our albergue.

The grocery store in Villar de Mazarife


A cute house back in La Virgen del Camino 

6 comments:

  1. Must be odd to be back where you started the day

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  2. Little black bug, that's something to add to your Camino experience. Looked like a really good day otherwise xx

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    1. It was such a lovely day till the bug issue but we were able to get ourselves out if it ok.

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  3. Did you take close ups of the bugs for identification? Or did you scamper as quickly as possible? Lovely day here too but we only walked 7kms. Would have been lovely to catch up with family.

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    1. We plastic-bagged some to show the manager. We're not convinced they were bed bugs but they weren't pleasant. Yes was lovely talking to our families. Hope you had a lovely Mother's Day.

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