Fuenterroble de Salvatierra to Pedrosilla de las Aires, Via de la Plata

Via de la Plata Camino – Day 12 (Mérida to Ourense). Monday 2 April 2018. 18 kms.

I slept in the upper room of the lovely hostel in Fuenterroble and two others joined us three from the crowded dormitory downstairs during the night to avoid the snoring.

Breakfast was amazing – an Easter Monday special maybe.

It was a flat walk today through holm oak woods. I started with Marie Noelle but we soon parted company to walk alone.

A plane left its noise behind it; there were more pigs. I had decided not to walk a very long way (over 30kms) so I took a right at the Dueño de Abajo when the others went left.

The young cows were orangey-red and they played Grandmothers Footsteps with me: first running away when I walked and then freezing, all in a crowd (about 30 of them), when I turned round.

It was wide open countryside and I spent a great deal of time reviewing my dream of the night before – very powerful.

There was rain coming, judging by the wind and the feel in the air. One becomes attuned to the changes when outside all the time.

The sound of an engine seemed to be connected to the blunt, cut-off tree stumps – also revealing strong orange at the wounds.

Chaffinches with softer apricot-coloured bellys were swooping, and there were some grey cows wandering, activating their sonorous bells.

It was getting cold and wet by the time I arrived at Pedrosilla and I went to the bar, as directed, to indicate the keys to the albergue municipal, the council hostel. It was devoid of any heating, dirty and musty-smelling, so when Benito came along he joined me in the bar where there was wi-fi and warmth.

The family-run bar was excellent. The youngest daughter (of 9!) was there with her mother and various relatives; her sister ran the joint when she was away in Paris working as a TV producer. She cooked a wonderful tortilla for us and chatted away, ‘twenty to the dozen’  as they say, telling us about her life and that of the others. There is no shop in Pedrosilla although there is a mobile one which happened by at the right moment and charged me 6 plus euros for a tub of lettuce, one mandarin and a banana!)

Nuria made a long afternoon/evening, in a village which had no any other entertainment, and where the weather was almost entirely terrible, most enjoyable.

Note: Something has gone wrong with my WordPress making it impossible to load photos using the usual method, so some of these are elongated for some reason, and all smaller than usual. For which I apologise.