Etapa 8 — Santa Cruz to Córdoba

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 9:30, after three nonstop hours of walking, I reached a pair of government-provided picnic tables, and I was actually grateful for the seating this time, as there had been absolutely no place to sit anywhere up till then. I had packed a fried quail from the previous night's dinner, so I sat myself down and went medieval on that quail. If you had ever told me that at the age of 65 I would find myself tearing up a game bird carcass with my hands and teeth at 9:30 in the morning in the middle of nowhere in southern Spain, well, I would have at least looked at you funny. 

The next couple of hours was a lot of up and down between olive groves and replowed fields, until finally Córdoba was again visible in the distance, although still two hours away. Luckily there was a barn there fairly near the path that cast a shadow, which provided a place to rest behind it for ten minutes or so, to regain strength before the last two hours into Córdoba.

We went into the courtyard of the mezquita-catedral to take the obligatory arrival selfie, and also wandered around town a bit taking in a few of the touristic sights. One of the things I particularly like about Andalusian cities is the narrow streets, and especially the tiled inner courtyards.




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