Sunday 15th April 2018

36.4 km (408.8 km)

I left Salamanca this morning hoping that one day I will return. It was a very long day but the feet felt good having had two days off. The day, although long, was mostly on flat comfortabke dirt tracks so I just plugged into Spotify and kept walking – I need to sort Spotify as today I spent a good half hour listening to Christmas songs because it was raining and I didn’t want to get my phone wet changing playlists….

I was supposed to stop at Calzada de Valdunciel today, a quick 16k hop, but on arriving at 11 I wasn’t quite sure what I could do there for the rest of the day so kept going….for another 21km, basically in a straight line with nothing to concentrate on except the dirt track ahead. I walked for a while with an Australian called Steven and because we were chatting we ended up coming off the trusty dirty track that is the VDLP and onto the motorway… The only thing is once you’ve made that error it’s near to impossible to return to the path due to large mesh fences. Eventually I decided to battle with the fence in lieu of being stuck on the motorway. Steven came with me and we managed to climb over and wobble down the 8ft fence, not very pretty buy we made it …a sensible peregrino passed us as we were negotiating the fence and looked just a little smug…the Australian told me he’d been travelling with a large group…why have I seen no one I wonder?

On arrival into El Cubo de la Tierra I chose to go to the first albergue before reading my guide book which says the one at the end of town does wine and tapas and is excellent. There is no one here but me and I did consider leaving and trying the alternative but this is fine and the owners, Berto and Lolo made me a great evening meal with Berto supplying lots of wine. Although, once again, I’m all alone I have the distinct impression that Albergue Torresedores is the best thing going for El Cubo de Vino…