Yet again it’s been a very beautiful day in amongst the mountains.

We set the alarm for 6:40, woke and headed down for breakfast which was included in the price of the room but was awful. The Spanish really do a version of awful that not even Fawlty Towers’ Manuel could imagine.

We should have been prepared by last night’s dinner at the hotel. It started well enough with cabbage soup but we were required to add some very strange pieces of meat to it. ‘Required’ implies some form of coercion and coercion it undoubtedly was.

We were supervised to ensure that we ate everything that we were given. The second course was some vegetable blob held together with egg and covered in a vibrant thick tomato sauce. The third comprised two similarly sized blobs but this time covered in yellowy brown sauce. We managed to negotiate a reprieve by feigning full stomachs but we still had to eat one of the blobs. It turned out to consist of some strange mince of indeterminate origin.

We’d clearly managed to convince the manager that we really had reached our limit and were brought a dessert of nutty cake and cream with two spoons instead of the enormous blob of I’ve no idea what eaten by the table opposite us.

We escaped to our room and lay groaning on the bed for the next hour or so. Such are the travails of the pilgrim.

Today’s route headed fairly steeply upwards for 8km, initially through woodland

and across some bridges

Notice the strategically placed yellow arrow which isn’t actually on mum’s leg but points to where we have to go.

Eventually we arrived at the top of the pass.

Unfortunately, as Newton pointed out, everything that goes up eventually has to come down and it was no different for us. The descent was somewhat precipitous and very hard on the knees.

It’s not possible to see the gradient from this image but it’s a lovely tree n’est pas.

Thankfully, eventually the descent ended and we found ourselves on a lovely wooded path overlooking a forested valley.

Shortly afterwards we passed yet another huge dog, this time very friendly.

Every rural dwelling has at least one dog, usually two, some cats and chickens. The dogs are invariably chained in cramped and unpleasant cages and bark viciously at anyone walking in the path. The cats are thin and malnourished while the chickens are scraggly and small. The rural villages are poor and delapitated. Many out buildings are in the process of disintegrating and those that are still in use are decrepit. Not good.

However, the flowers are beautiful

as are the cows. It’s clearly that time of year for calves

which we’ve seen in a number of places today.

We’d decided to head for a relatively new albergue at a small village called La Mesa.

This turned out to be a great choice. Mum and I were given a 4 bed room to ourselves with en suite bathroom. Dinner was excellent as was the game between Belgium and France. I finally had time to make use of the laptop I’ve been lugging around and completed another Euler problem (it’s my way of relaxing) whilst mum did some more killer sudoku puzzles.

We had Wi-Fi but I couldn’t upload the images so no update yesterday.

Buen Camino