Via de la Plata Camino – Day 18 (Villaneuva de Campéan to Zamora). Sunday 8 April 2018. 18 kms.
I have lost all my notes for this week and there are a lot of photos for 8th April so there are few words.
It was early morning when I set off.I was not the first to leave along the Roman road.
The sun rose on my right. It lit up the lush fields on my left as if it was a different time of day there.
This gorgeous light speaks for itself.Right in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere else to do a pee.Just look at the detail!Mini ant mountains all over the path.A traditional skyline on the Via de la Plata camino, Spain.
Calendula (marigolds) and roses in full flower in San Marcial. Red and white cycle path signs reminiscent of the Grande Randonnee in France.
Bird foot prints in the clay. There are also dog (or wolf?) ones on all the paths although I only saw one hound running for miles unattended.
Coming into the city of Zamora (‘The pearl of the 12th century’) along the River Duero, close to the border with Portugal in north-west Spain.
Fragrant Mimosa.
The rainbow colours of the local rock, yesterday seen as pebbles on the path, today making up these walls.Puente de Piedra (Bridge of Stone).
Zamora architecture.
The charming Plaza de San Cipriano, Zamora, Spain.
Zamora Castle, 11th century, Spain.Courtyard at the Cathedral, Zamora, Spain.Zamora Cathedral, Spain.Iglesia de los Remedios, viewed between the columns surrounding the Cathedral, Zamora, Spain.
The albergue.
When I arrived it was fine, sunny weather, and there was a notice on the door explaining that it would not open for 3 hours.The Albergue de Peregrinos is beside San Cipriano Catholic Church where we left our stuff with the nervous woman while we went off to explore.
Later there was a queue of us waiting at the allotted time and, unexpectedly, it hailed hard. There was only a tiny ledge for everyone to huddle under and not enough space for the luggage, so in five minutes the rucksacks, boots, everything was soaked.
The hospitalera was most hospitable (sorry!). She was a fountain of knowledge having worked there for a long time and she was clearly in her dream job – loving chatting and finding out where we were all from. She had great English and knew what we needed. There is a fantastic kitchen and Marie Noelle had been before us, messaging me to say that she had cooked meals for the Seuil men – one vegan for E and the other with meat for the growing lad. I was very lucky that they shared it with me – a veritable feast.
Rams head fountain, Plaza de Viriato, Zamora, Spain.Interlocking trees, Plaza de Viriato, Zamora, Spain.Great graf.Museo Etnografico, Zamora, Spain.Detail from the larger than life-size wall painting Saint Christopher and the Infant Christ, which caught my eye in the Cathedral, Zamora, Spain.Solid silver altar de plata in the Cathedral, Zamora, Spain.Museo Etnografico, Zamora, Spain.
Baltasar Lobo (artist 1910-1993 buried in the Cimetiere du Montparnasse, Paris, France)
His work is in a dedicated gallery (free entry) beside the Castle and also scattered around the grounds nearby.
He was particularly interested in the pregnant form and relationship between mother and child.San Pedro de la Nave with the Cathedral in the background. Zamora, Spain.
I highly recommend Zamora as a tourist destination.
Via de la Plata Camino – Day 17 (Mérida to Ourense). Saturday 7 April 2018. 13 kms.
The 7th April was a day of varied landscapes – some of the previous day’s wide open fields but also smaller agricultural plots, some houses, the ‘iron road’ etc. I was going at a faster pace, partly because it was cold but also as I knew it was a much shorter day. Going to Zamora in one leg was too long, so I was dividing it into two.
After last night’s heavy rain, it was dull but, hooray, dry! I passed out of the village, took a left over the bridge and straight into the country with no road – another big plus. Cocks were crowing and I spotted them at the front door.
A bit blurry because of the zoom. The good thing about hens is that they go up at both ends like two upside down commas joined together
Weirdly there was a digital town clock striking 9am, just as loud as normal bells but with an electronic tone, reminding me of the early days of mobile phones when TV programmes made jokes about huge handsets with ringtones sounding out across the country.
It was right at the fork despite no yellow arrow and I was walking by the railway. The next right was signed. I wondered, why one and not the other?
Walking beside the railway today. Sodden ground made the going slow.
I reflected on last night’s round-the-table conversations: how some people do the whole camino all at one go, others walk one weekend at a time; some start here, some there; and I have been meeting so many folk with injuries.
Plant of the day: once again I do not know the name. It has round burgundy / black pods or fruits that I have not seen before. They were hanging on dead trees and when I trod on one which had fallen on the path, it was full of diarrhoea-coloured mush which looked like wet plaster board.
Who would have thought Spain could be quite so cloyingly muddy with wet sand! There was that cuckoo again – Marie Noelle used to tell me it means she will be rich.
The water in the massive puddles is neon orange – so much brighter than in the photo. In the background are the chemical spraying machines like grounded corpses of fighter planes.
My nose runs and pilgrims behind me sneeze. I notice that cows do stand very, very still sometimes!
I muse: people I know walked here yesterday; or the day before; even 3 years ago. I can follow in their footsteps until it rains, wiping out all trace.
This guy in front was walking with Chaplin knees and his feet turned right out to the sides, indicating that his hips were tight.
The yellow arrows used by the Friends of the Camino to show us the way are not really the best colour given that there are a surprisingly large number of the same hue: yellow lichen beside the arrows on the gate posts, yellow triangles on pylons, and motorway relfectors found at ground level at the edges of the roads where we have to walk. They are all found in the very places we look for the indicators.
Vines at their dead-looking stage, black and twisted, organised in rows. The man I spoke to said they were ‘centenarios‘. Really old, then.
There is a great racket and then I see a flock of sheep being let out of the pen beside a farm, trotting into the field in single file with their new earrings, complaining bitterly.
Looking up I see it is going to become hilly again. The rabbits are too quick for my camera and there are definitely more flowers now, thank goodness. Beautiful purple / pink rocks are embedded in the white / yellow path amongst all the other colours of the irregularly shaped stones.
Cyclops!
I arrived at 11.45am and was second into the hostel. I stopped at the bar for the key and had a quick coffee (every now and then I enjoy a tiny decaff with sugar – something I never have at home).
There was a long road getting into the town, with a ruined monastery on the right which I meant to go back and take photos of in better weather but forgot.The sign is also in Arabic – a reminder that the folk who started at Almeria or Malaga on the Camino Mozarabe joined the Via de la Plata at Mérida rather than starting at Seville. They are now beside us on the way to Compostella.
There are a number of albergues in Villanueva de Campéan, all apparently as low grade as the others, private ones costing the same as the municipal where I slept. I entered the sleeping area through the kitchen which had a microwave but no fridge and was dirty. Not only does the outside door open directly onto the kitchen, but there is a great gap above the wall between that and the dormitory so the cold and noise travels easily between the two and the street, as does the cigarette smoke. Luckily there were loads of us so we were cosy.
Villanueva de Campéan, Spain.
One by one we all settled in the bar for the rest of the day, and what a great band of cosmopolitan trekkers we were. I managed to write three blogs, trying to catch up, and then decided to continue when I got home. It was simply too loud and hilarious (the locals were playing cards and everyone was watching the football). Lots of red wine and menu del dia‘s were consumed and the atmosphere was most convivial.
The two guys from Seuil, the shoulders of the younger looking better after his Shiatsu (which he requested two days before) I thought! There is Carlos behind, with the beard – someone I was to come into contact with every day for the rest of my time in Spain.
In The Pilgrimage to Santiago, Edwin Mullins writes about the history of sending ‘sinners’ on the camino as far back as the 13th century: ‘…there is the case of the parish priest near Chichester [England] who would regularly fornicate, repent, then fornicate again, until in 1283 the Archbishop of Canterbury felt obliged to send him to Santiago as a penitent the first year, to Rome the second and to Cologne the third. What is not on record is whether the cure was successful or whether he thereafter weighted his repentance with the names of three foreign cities in which he had also fornicated.’
Walking without a donkey 