May 30 began with several miles on a tarmac road lined with high cypress trees. After a while I almost had the same desperate feeling as when walking in the “Valley of death” a couple of days before. It soon becomes too boring for the brain when a pattern repeats itself for miles and you really can’t see anything else.
Cypress avenue
Later on there were some interesting cliff formations to look at like el Salto del moro, the Moors leap, but otherwise not much to see except pine forest. I entered Puebla de Don Fadrique after six hours and 25 kilometers which was far less than I was accustomed to.
Puebla de Don Fadrique
I had a tapa in the first bar I ran into and asked the bar woman if there was a hotel in the village. There was a motel at the northern outskirts of Puebla de Don Fadrique and they had both room and board for me.
Signpost
This was the last stage of my guide-book and from the day after I had to rely completely on my GPS-device but I also was going to buy a map when I found a good one in order to get the big picture of the country that I was passing through.
A rather straight forward march up unto the high plateau covering as good as all of central Spain. The afternoon involved quite a bit of hard work as I didn’t have my GPS-device set up at a good enough resolution and that resulted in some sliding about on slippery hillsides until finding my way back to the track again.
Community limit
A thunderstorm passed by with a couple of heavy showers that completely got me completely soaked. But I reached El Sabinar a village with 300 souls, two restaurants, and a guest house with a bar. It was raw and chilly and I was a bit concerned that my boots probably shouldn’t dry much over night.I went down the stairs to the guest house bar at around seven o’clock and asked if I could have dinner.
Múrcia
The answer was affirmative but I had to ask to times more before the barman understood that I wanted to eat at once at a, for him, extremely early time for dinner. But as soon as he had understood he swiftly presented a very nice casserole that he held warm on the stove with some bread, a salad, and a glass of Rioja.
