Etapa 7 — Castro del Río to Santa Cruz

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. The second one was apparently a mobile number for a policeman on duty, but every time I called that number I was told that that phone was out of range of the service area. So, with no other options at that time, I gave up for the evening.

All I could hypothesize was a) I had been pickpocketed, which seemed unlikely for several reasons, b) it fell out of my pocket at the bench, and someone found it before I could, or c) I dropped it at the frutería right after our purchase, failing to put it back in my pocket correctly. But that store was closed down tight for the evening, so I couldn't check there. Fortunately, the cartera only contained my California ID, 70€, one credit card, and a Madrid bus card. We canceled the credit card and figured that the loss wasn't all that terrible. We had dinner and called it a night. 

This morning as soon as it was light, which is to say almost 8:00 a.m. in this region, I went out to retrace my steps again and try to talk to someone at the police station. The frutería didn't open till 9:00, so I went on to the ayuntamiento. The police station was still darkish but there was a woman mopping the floors of the courtyard,  and once I told her why I was there, she guided me to an office where two young bureaucrats were sitting. As I was answering their questions (where did you lose it? how did you lose it? when did you come to town? etc.), a senior-looking officer came in and immediately said, "A wallet? One of those was found and turned in last night. I took it to my house for safe keeping." Without hesitation, he got in his car and drove off. Within just a few minutes, he was back with my wallet. It had everything in it, including the cash(!). For their report, they insisted on making an itemized list of its contents, all my personal information, etc., and I was all to happy to wait while they did that. Whew! A most unexpected happy ending to a stressful evening the night before. And a credit to the town, that it had not been option a, and that the person who found it was 100% honest and very efficient. What started as a bad feeling ended as a good feeling. I think I had only myself to blame.  My wallet pocket has both a zipper and a flap (two new words I added to my Spanish vocabulary), and I'm usually very fastidious about putting my wallet way while traveling, so I must have been quite distracted to have messed up like that. I'll go back now to being my fastidious self. 

Anyway, as a result of all of those shenanigans, I had lost more than two hours of prime walking time, and the day was promising to be hot and cloudless. The trek directly to Córdoba was already kind of ridiculous-sounding, 39 kilometers, and now with such a late start that would be rough. So, we decided to take a bus to the intermediate town of Santa Cruz, which would still leave 26 km for the final stage to Córdoba tomorrow.

That's what we did. Santa Cruz appears to be mostly another olive oil producing town, with not a whole lot else going on, but we found a hostal right on the camino, and their menú del día was pretty darn good. 

¡Mañana,  Córdoba!

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