Day 1 on the Camino Mozarabe. And what a corker!!
I wrote last night that The French and I were looking forward to the challenges of the Camino Mozarabe and anticipated a long hike on Day 1. We got all that and more!
But first, sorry for technical glitch which meant just one photo came through on last night's update. In a bit of hurry for an early night and clicked on the Publish button before checking that the photos had uploaded. At least I thought that was the problem but after another glitch tonight - who knows! Lo siento - sorry. I know the pictures are the most interesting part of my blog - for me, too!
I can't offer many photos from today, either. The French and I took care to charge everything last night - we thought - but something went amiss with my camera. After just a dozen photos this morning, leaving Granada - dead battery. De Nada. And had all sorts of troubles uploading them tonight. No idea why - but this is my third technical glitch in 24 hours, so may be a sign that I should 'disconnect' on this Camino. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
In the meantime, The French sent me some of his photos from later in the day - thanks Domi. But he didn't take many either. It was a long, tough day and, in the heat of the afternoon, we almost lost the will to live - let alone take photos. I'm joking. It was a great day and our spirits are high. It was just a little longer, hotter and tougher than we'd expected.
First, you may be wondering why we chose to walk 35 kms today. On some Caminos, there is not a lot of choice as to how far you walk. It all depends on accommodation. Today we could walk 19 kms to Pinos Puente or a further 16 kms to Moclin. Though we knew the latter village was at the top of a steep 3-4 km climb, walking just to Pinos Puente didn't seem far enough. And in any case, the way the villages 'fall' on the Mozarabe (i.e. there aren't many), we would have an even longer day tomorrow had we not walked on to Moclin tonight.
Already a long day - so a bit of bugger to have an unplanned side trip, which added 3-4 kms and 45 minutes to the day. Leaving a large city via the Camino can be a challenging exercise, and seems even more so with the Mozarabe where waymarking is 'curious' - or you could say intermittent, random. But The French says our experience this morning showed what a good team we are and I think he's right. With my intuition ('this doesn't feel right') and his compass and way finding expertise, once we realised something was amiss, we managed to find our way back to The Way, without too much trouble.
It was funny though. Just the previous night at dinner, I was saying to The French that I wondered if we might get lost today - as we'd had a very amusing experience earlier that evening trying to get information from the Asssociane de Peregrinos in Granada. More on that in a later post. I was reminiscing with The French that, on the Camino Le Puy, I got lost a few times, adding extra kilometres to my day. But it never happened on a short day. Only ever on a long day, making it that much longer.
Even with a few extras kilometres to walk, our spirits remained high. Reaching our lunch stop at Pinos Puente was uneventful, though we noticed the temperature rising. We had a simple but welcome lunch (boccadillo with jambon, queso and tomato and fresh orange juice - yum), we headed into the olive groves and mountains of Sierre Elvira that will be with us for the next few days.
After lunch at Pinos Puente, we had another 16 kms to walk. We started to climb immediately, and so did the temperature. We stopped looking after Domi's watch got to 30 degrees. Little respite for the next few hours. We had both set out with nearly 3 litres of water each and we were mindful of hydration all afternoon. We climbed steadily with olive groves surrounding us. Thankfully they were mature groves, high enough for us to shelter under an olive tree from time to time. I've included some photos of that. You can't imagine what a relief it was from the hot sun.
And then, the final 3 kms. After 35 kms already, a final climb was always going to be difficult. But, after 3,000 kms on various caminos in Spain and France, I think this was the hardest 3 kms I've ever done - and The French felt the same. It was hot, and it was steep, and it came after already having walked 35 - so perhaps it wasn't the most difficult. But it felt that way.
We finally made it to Moclin - you can see the village on one of the photos tonight. It's the one at the top of a very steep track. As we walked into the main square, a lady appeared and offered us a room (a small flat really). It's great - though it wasn't a hard sell - we were always going to take the first thing we found!
We arrived here absolutely exhausted - but so happy with our efforts and excited to be back on The Way. We hadn't seen a pilgrim all day - the Mozarabe is not a frequently walked Camino. But tonight as we enjoyed a well earned vino blanco aperitivo in the (one) bar in the village plaza, we met three other pilgrims who had walked together from Granada today - an Englishman, a Suisse and a German, who, like us, have walked a few caminos before. We were very happy to see them - and on this remote route with limited accommodation options, I'm sure we will see them again.
Time to go - thank you for your emails Joan, Audrey, Maurice and Marian. And happy birthday Marian - hope you have a wonderful day!
Hasta luego from Moclin, Camino Mozarabe
Jenny and The French. Xx
A final photo from the Alhambra - this where I left off in last update.
