Calahorra to Arrubal
Today's step according to the guidebook, had no water for 18 kilometres so I carried three small bottles. It had not been hot that should be enough, but as I had been unable to leave the Albergue yesterday evening I had little food. I found a café for breakfast on the far side of the square, the one with the church of Santiago in it. I still had the town map and knew I was to leave by the road to Murillo. I was lucky, I asked at one large junction as I had got my bearings wrong and would have turned left instead of right. I had to turn left later and at this junction I found and took the road to Murillo, crossed the railway again and this now stayed on my left for some ten kilometres. I think it was at the end of this that I got in a bit of a muddle. I had this idea in my head that I should go under not over the line!
I had to get up onto the big flyover that crossed my path and cross over the line using this then find the camino again on the other side. I was lucky as I asked a passing van driver coming down my stony track in a cloud of dust. I would have been ok if I had gone on further because there were arrows. I had tried to go under using a water channel but it was too muddy and I had given up. The track now undulated and followed the motorway. The views were great with poppies and wild flowers growing in the fields.
I decided to stop for a snack. There was a fence alongside the motorway but just ahead I saw a rest area and as there was nothing on this track of mine to sit down on I climbed the fence and sat at one of the picnic tables. I cut my very hard loaf and filled it with chorizo and a bit of cheese. Well the birds might peck at this bread but I had a lot of trouble with it. Still I might get something in the next town although my guidebook said no albergue there. I came down from the ridge I had been walking on and down into the valley. On the way I passed what I thought must be a small solar electric station under construction.
I came to the village and noticed the arrow went left and bypassed the village so I went down the street of houses opposite my turning. I came to a bar door set in the row of houses, opened it, pushed aside the beads and went in. It was a large dimly lit bar with only a couple of men in it. I asked the barman for my usual white coffee. I heaved off my rucksack and put it on a chair and sat at a table. While he was making the coffee I asked
"Can I eat here?"
"Si hombre".
"You can leave your rucksack by the wall at the end and eat in the restaurant. It will be safe there" he said pointing to the wall and heavy wooden double doors at the end.
He went on to say something else but I never caught what it was as I opened the restaurant doors to look. A great hubbub of sound hit my ears and I was staring into a very packed restaurant that was obviously full up with young male diners! I must have shown my surprise on my face as I closed the doors because he was laughing as he said
"Just wait a while till some come out, it shouldn’t be long."
I can only presume there was a lot of work going on in this sleepy village, maybe the new solar station!
A young woman came out from a door at the restaurant end of the bar and he told her I wanted a table as she grabbed a bottle from the shelf and returned back to the restaurant. I was given my coffee and had just finished it when two men came out and went up to the bar for coffee. A couple, I presume a workman and his partner had come into the bar from the street while I had been sitting. Now the young waitress opened the doors of the restaurant saw the couple and ushered them rapidly in. A few more diners came out before she had time to settle these two at a table by the door. Poor girl was obviously rushed off her feet but there was no panic in her eyes as she looked up and beckoned me in.
The dining room was panelled vertically with rough pine giving it a log cabin look. I presume it was this and the thick walls of the old building that sound proofed the room. My table was over by the far wall and I squeezed past the other tables but once in I had lots of room and sat with my back to the wall. On my left sat a man on his own eating a stew.
To my right towards the corner that was stacked with boxes, a large effigy of a witch with a big hooked nose stood grinning at me wide eyed!
The waitress that I now thought of as the real young witch
asked me what I would like to drink and I asked for the local red house wine as I believed this was a place for good red wine. She brought one and one for the chap sitting at my side. She opened his bottle then he explained this was a much superior wine for a little extra. The girl looked at me and I nodded for her to bring another bottle of the better wine, the (crianza). She did and I toasted my neighbour when the girl poured it. There was no written menu. She reeled off several things and I struggled to understand and remember what they were. When she had finished I was still but a little wiser! The chap to my side saw my puzzled expression and recommended the stew he was eating.I asked the pretty witch what it was called and was told but was still no wiser.
"What meat is it?" I asked.
She obviously struggled with that question so I said
"Toro?" (bull) as the word for beef eluded me, anyway I had an inkling it might possibly be something considered by Spaniards to be good for your manhood! Going by how much the man next to me kept saying how good it was!
"No es toro!" she laughed.
I laughed too, ok I like to try things that I have never eaten before and the orange stew looked appetising enough.
"First the fish soup, and then the stew" I said.
While I waited I took a quick photo of the witch to my right and another of the little one on the table.
The soup was very good and as I finished, up came the stew. No it wasn't beef and the texture was not like meat that I knew. I was hungry and it tasted good so I soon cleared the plate. It dawned on me it might be tripe! But how could I ask that? I would get the waitress to write it down and later look in the dictionary!
She cleared my table and brought me a nice flan. I asked for the bill and asked if she would write down what it was I had eaten and also might I take a photo of the autentico Bruja (real witch). A little embarrassed she let me take her photo. It was a great meal and a real surprise to find such a nice restaurant and charming and friendly service in such a small village. My friend at the table had also finished eating and I went to meet him in the bar and we had an orujo together before I set off on the camino again a little under the weather!
The camino shortly climbed up a hill
and on for a while alone along a lonely track with some fantastic views.
It was marked with a plaque (Nuestra Señora de Aradón). In the book it had mentioned that there might be an alternative route past an ermita Virgen de Anadón. Although spelt differently I could presume this was the same ermita, or at least I hoped I could!! At the bottom of the gully was a railway line. I turned left along the track that ran parallel with it and walked past some impressive reddish grey cliffs on my left with layers of white alabaster running through them. Big eagles were circling high up, or were they vultures waiting for passing peregrinos to drop in for lunch! chuckle!
Later on I had no alternative but to cross the railway line and take a tiny track on the right of it. It was very overgrown and I became quite worried that this might not be camino and would just fizzle out. I was also thinking of finding a campsite for the night as it was getting late. Several places were considered but with rain clouds above, each spot was discarded for one reason or other. I had no food and little water now.
'That's if it is the same railway line that I believe it to be. Oh! I desperately hope that it is!' I thought to myself as I entered the woods again on the other side. The track was muddy but more prominent now, as the farmers must use it to get here in their van. I came to an old derelict looking farm on a rise and passed to the left of it and was happy to see the railway line over to the left again. I was now walking over what looked like moor-land. It looked like there might be a river in trees far to my right now. This tallied with the mud map. The track forked and forked again but all were heading for a distant village I could just see. It was going to be dark soon and I was so tired I could go no further. I cut across the scrub heading for a bush between the tracks and the river, thinking my little tent would not show behind it to anyone using the tracks. The bush was a wild rose and I put up the tent close to it.
END DAY 14 = approx 29.7 km Total = 322.4 km according to book
