Camino Mozárabe 2024

In our first full day in Córdoba we were good tourists, visiting the mezquita-catedral and the alcázar.  The mosque was built in the 8th century (through the 10th century), the Moors were driven out of the region in the 13th century, and the major conversion of the building into a cathedral began in the 16th century (through the 19th century). Yung Wha and I joked that the Spaniards recognized the magnificence of the mosque, so instead of changing it they just overwhelmed it with Christianity. So, I've simply categorized the mezquita-catedral photos roughly into Moorish and Christian , with no other particular organization or commentary.  We then went to the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos. The Alcázar contains a remarkably well preserved collection of Roman mosaics and other artifacts from the 2nd and 3rd centuries. We climbed to the top of one of its towers, from which we could view the surrounding grounds . And we enjoyed the gardens in relatively cool temperature unde...

It's almost impossible to get lost in this stage of the camino, 'cause there's essentially only one turn the whole day, so it was no problem walking in the dark starting at 6:30. When the street lights end at the edge of town , there is absolutely no other light, but... there was a full moon , so that provided plenty of light to stay on track till the sun came up, and the camino was on a paved highway for the first 5.5 km. The one turn occurred just about dawn , onto a dirt and gravel road with a short steep ascent. At the top of that climb one can actually see the lights of Córdoba in the far distance , although it's still six hours' walk away.  Almost the entire rest of the walk, for nearly 20 kilometers, was on rough gravel road, which was really bruising to the feet. The countryside here was almost entirely fallow fields of grain, being replowed. The farmers were also setting fires in those fields, presumably to get rid of the last of the dead vegetation. At 9...

Today was another pseudo-etapa; here's the story. Yesterday evening in Castro del Río we bought some fruit for today's walk, then strolled around the town, sat on a bench for a while near the ayuntamiento , walked around the old castillo , looked at the Plaza de la Iglesia and the Plaza de Jesus, and then at some point as we were heading back to the neighborhood of our hostal, I suddenly realized that my wallet was gone(!). I checked and double-checked every pocket of my many-pocketed cargo pants, and then broke the bad news to Yung Wha. She retraced our steps while I ran at top speed, muttering, back to where we had been sitting. No luck there. I asked for directions to the police station, and went there. It was completely dark, but the courtyard was open, and inside with my phone flashlight I found a sign with two contact phone numbers. The first one was just the office number, and when I called it I could hear their phone ringing unanswered inside the building. T...

We were out by a little before 7:00 today, we soon reached the edge of town , and by 7:25 Baena was already far in the distance behind us. For the next 20 minutes we enjoyed the pre-dawn light , and by about 7:45 the sun was up , but was still blocked by the mountains. By about 8:30 the sun was fully up, and we had reached the local highway, on which we walked for a couple of kilometers. There were very few cars, so it wasn't stressful. I got a kick out of the way the sun to our east cast our shadows on the trees . Eventually we reached the Puente de la Mutarra, which took us across the Río Guadajoz. Shortly beyond that we came upon a couple of picnic tables and benches that had been constructed for pilgrims on the Camino Mozárabe. We weren't terribly tired, but we stopped and rested there for a few minutes anyway, just so that the Spanish taxpayers' money would be well spent. From there on, the walk stayed fairly level, 'cause we were pretty much just following the ...

Etapa 5 was a pseudo-etapa because we decided to take the bus to Baena. There were several good reasons to skip walking this stage. The temperature was in the mid nineties (a high of 36°C = 97°F) with no clouds, and the route was reputed to have little in the way of unique visual interest from the previous day, very little shade, and no intermediate town or resting place. No need for 26 kilometers of that. Instead, we got to have a full day in Baena and, as it turned out, two excellent meals.  Baena is a town famous for its olive oil. It even has a museum of olive oil, but with our uncanny luck, the museum is closed on Monday. Nevertheless, we did get to taste some remarkable aceite . Upon our arrival we walked into the center of town from the bus station where, next to the Plaza de España, there is a monument to the olive pickers in front of the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe . We then walked to the ayuntamiento in the Plaza de la Constitución , and from there through the...

Once again, a 7:00 start  was good for walking in the coolest part of the day, but did lead to missing a couple of turns in the dark. In the GPX app I was able to notice those mistakes, so they didn't result in very significant loss of time. Just as the sun's coming up is the best time, when the air is chilly, the light is muted but always brightening, and of course one is full of energy. By 8:00 Alcalá la Real was already far in the distance behind. The first community one encounters is Puertollano, a hamlet with a well-maintained porche-lavadero . Then the camino continues through olive groves where, on a Sunday morning, there were quite a few guys out hunting, almost certainly for rabbits, since that was the only game in evidence and there were lots of those.  The second hour of the stage is walking between mountains rather than climbing them, so there was no need to put on sun hat or sunglasses until after 9:00. After that, there was a pretty steep climb fo...