In Almaden de la Plata

I'm sitting in a little cultural center where there are eight computers. Seven of them are being used by people under 10, most of whom are playing crazy loud games. I have the eighth one.

So far so good. The last two days have been very nice, one short (16 km), but today long (29 km). I would have preferred two of 23, but I'm not in charge here. The wildflowers are just gorgeous, this path has gone through several huge estates with lots of cork, oak, and olive trees (this will change in a few days). This is bull-raising country, and though I haven't seen any yet, I have seen lots of the estates, all of which display their brand very prominently.

The weather has been very good. Today was chilly, in fact. There was a breeze, which sometimes whipped itself up into a "blow-your-hat-off" wind, but the cool air was very welcome. In fact, my water was chilled by the cold air, which made for nice water breaks.

The one thing that I don't have by not staying in the albergues is the pilgrim wake-up call. Every day at 6 or 6:30, the rustle of plastic bags spreads and wakes everyone up. Or sometimes the ruder among us set loud alarms for whatever time they desire, and then proceed to turn on all the lights while a few people curse them. I miss all that, but as a result today I slept till 7:15! I knew it was going to be a long day, and long days are so much easier with a start no later than 7 am. But I made it fine.

My feet feel fine, I am trying to be very careful. This afternoon, before on short steep ascent, I decided to sit with my feet in a stream for 15 minutes. The water was very cold, and I'm hoping it did good things to my heel. While I was sitting there, a bright yellow bird sat and half sang, half screeched the whole time. It was a beautiful bird, really bright canary yellow, but I am as good at bird identifications as I am at flower identifications.

Tomorrow I'm going to do a short day -- the choices are 16 km or 35 km. Last year I did the 35 km, this year I will be more prudent. The town is Real de la Jara, and there is a nice castle to climb to and a few little streets I haven't explored, so I will be able to fill up my time.

There are lots of Roman and moorish remnants here, in almost every little town. The town where I am today has several prehistoric mines, where some strange mineral was extracted. Unfortunately, there are no visits. So I will have to ice my feet some more.