39km

I didn’t stop to camp halfway. The walking was too good. Up in the dawn light and into the empty hills on a good path

With just sheep for company

The path took me over the tree clad hills all day and only crossed one road, only passed about a dozen remote houses and I only heard one chain saw and a couple of cars.

It was the kind of Spanish countryside I love. Rounded hills smothered with trees and scrub and wild flowers. Mixed farmland of holm oak and olive grown in grassland grazed by sheep and cows. The fincas were few and far between and mostly abandoned.

I crossed a few real rivers flowing with clean, clear mountain water and full of loudly mating frogs.

I nearly stepped on a basking snake that jumped as quickly as I did and I saw many many signs of snuffling boars. The markers and signs were plentyful

The vistas changed frequently and the scent of the flowers was heavy on the hot still air.

I’m normally a man who is constantly refering to maps and likes to know where he is in the small, medium and large scale but today I didn’t have a clue. I was in a tiny linear slice of Spain devoid of any relation to the “outside” world.

I could have been anywhere. I could have been in Ireland.