Etapa 4 Alcalá la Real to Alcaudete

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 for nearly an hour, after which the little town of Ventas del Carrizal appeared below. Its one bar was closed, claro, but the old geezers met up there on Sunday morning nevertheless.

The rest of the walk, for about three hours, was gradually and steadily uphill, with very little shade, and today there were no clouds to temper the heat. Even this cactus (a very healthy one of which Oliver has in his yard in Anaheim) said, "It's just too d*mn hot here. I'm out." And behind each hill hid another hill to climb.

Finally, though, it was time for the short descent into Alcaudete, past the Santuario de la Virgen de la Fuensanta where, ironically enough, the fuente had a sign saying, "Agua no controlada sanitariamente." The town is in the midst of its five-day annual feria, so its park is filled with a carnival, which came to life big-time in the evening 

After a siesta, we had a nice evening stroll through the town, and an excellent dinner at Casa Rafa. (Sorry, no food photos; we were too busy eating.)

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