Day 8 of the meseta madness – aargh!!!

The directions for today were just as “straightforward”  as yesterday.

After 80 minutes we came to the first highlight of the day. The path actually veered slightly to the left! Veer is probably too strong, it was a long gentle curve. This caused some excitement and we had to consult the guide book and map. Sure enough the path moved slightly from the straight and narrow.

After another hour we encountered the mid morning rush hour. 3 cars passed in quick succession, ie within 5 minutes of each other. They were all taxis. I think some people were cheating today.

Along the path, about every kilometre there was a concrete bench. On every one of them someone had sprayed “podemos”  which translates to “we can”.

We walked on our own. Not a person visible ahead or behind. You feel quite an invasion of privacy when someone slowly catches up to you. At one stage we felt hemmed in, one person 50 metres ahead and another 50 metres behind.

Then three things happened at once. The path turned right. It dipped down. And it passed under a subway. This was way too much information to process for a brain that had long gone into hibernation. The roading engineers should have made this three separate actions, about 15 minutes apart.

Tomorrow afternoon we will reach Leon and I am sure the largest building in the city will be a hospice for those traumatised from walking nine days across the meseta.

And then, from out of nowhere, a cafe had found us, soothing our thirst as we leaned on the bar. They had foot long chocolate eclairs filled with custard instead of cream. Oh yes! This little village had an Elvis bar. Very popular, specially in the evenings.

We did have trains for company today. About 2 kilometres off to our left was the track for the AVE, Alta Velocidad Espanola, the Spanish high speed train. This train moves like a bullet and from coming over the horizon in front to disappearing behind takes about 15 seconds. It makes no sound. About 2 kilometres off to our right was another track that took freight trains. These trains are extremely long, move just slightly faster than us, and rumble. They seem to be used mainly for transporting cars.

Tonight we are in a gorgeous little hotel (only has 4 rooms) in the beautiful little town of Mansilla de las Mulas. The name is derived from Mano en Silla – hand on the saddle. The addition of de las Mulas (of the mules) refers to the town’s earlier prominence as a livestock market. It has a 12th century fortified wall that today protects it from invading modernity. There is a large bus station here and some people get the bus to Leon to avoid a long tedious walk through its outskirts.

Five of us arrived at the hotel together and we were welcomed  by a lovely man who checked us in and intimated that our bags hadn’t arrived and that sometimes they got lost. He ushered us into the cute little hotel bar and made us coffee, poured some white wine and provided a cheese and ham sandwich. After consuming this he took us to our rooms where of course our bags were waiting for us.

For only the second time we were able to look inside a cemetery. Again it was a few kilometres outside a village and surrounded by high walls.

The soil here is very fertile looking and red. It must require a lot of water though as there are irrigation ditches everywhere. We crossed a large brand new concrete canal that has not yet carried any water. Someone had scratched 19 Mayo 2016 into the last batch of concrete.

Ipod theme song for the day: We gotta get out of this place by The Animals.

We gotta get out of this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place, there’s a better life
Don’t you know, don’t you know