Day 25, 26 and 27 Caceres to Carcaboso

Day 25      Casar de Caceres     to     Canaveral            39kms

Well, that was some day!  I have never in my life walked 39kms with a full backpack.  

  Today was one of those days in which progress got in the way of beauty. This whole area is being refitted with a new highway. Several times we had to walk around road construction. The one beautiful part of the walk today was the damned lake area called Embalse de Alcantara. Just like Lake Pedder in Tasmania, this whole area has been dammed for hydro purposes. There actually is a whole town under the water and in the distance you can see a square tower sticking up. That is the remains of the submerged church tower.

We finally made it Canaveral after 8 hours of walking  (including a 30 minute lunch break) to discover this quaint little stone village. 

 Most of the houses were crudely made of stone.

Found one house that had been renovated using the more traditional style but sadly most of the people that live in these small villages are elderly.

 Hardly any of these little villages have young families. Most of the people we see parading in the evening are elderly. 

We really notice it the further away we get from the big cities. The only time the villages seem to have some life to them is on the weekends when the kids come home to see the old folks. Sunday night is a nice time to be in the square to watch sons or daughters walking arm in arm with their elderly parents. 

Even the older women do house maintenance

Had a bad experience with our accommodations here. Unfortunately,we had to stay at Hostel Malaga because it was the only place in town , everything else was closed, . The hostel, the rooms and the restaurant were incredibly filthy. There was no way we could eat a meal at this place, so we went down the road, had a delicious meal of octopus salad, stewed chicken and homemade cheesecake. When we returned, the rude owner started yelling at us for not dining at his hostel. We were polite and then told him we were leaving at 5am. He said “No.” We weren’t sure if he meant  OMG… that’s early or NO!  Anyways… come 5 am we try to leave, only to find the nasty owner locked us in the hostel. We could not leave and the bar didn’t open up till 8 am. We noticed that the door to the bar was open, so we pushed on it and suddenly all the alarms and sirens started. After a few minutes of horrendous noise, no one came so we grabbed a pile of keys that were left on the bar counter and after 20 minutes of trying the whole ring of keys, we found the right one to let us out. We escaped as fast as we could with  alarms blaring behind us. We took a different route out of town just in case the owner came seeking revenge.

Day 26                               Canaveral to Galisteo                                         28kms

Today was kinda fun. We FINALLY met a group of 5 older Spanish men walking the camino.

 We caught up them as they tend not to walk as fast as us. They were lots of fun, singing like the 7 dwarfs as they walked. It was good to have company because today’s walk was very, very confusing and we got lost. Apparently there is a very disgruntled farmer who doesn’t like pilgrims tramping through his field so he has changed all the arrows to go through a different village. This new path is several kilometers longer. Well… Spencer and I decided that we would stick to the original route and face the angry farmer if he showed up, and all the Spaniards followed us. I think they let us go first like sacrificial lambs. Well, the farmer never showed up but neither did the guiding yellow arrows. In the end we had to tramp though the farmer’s fields to get to our final destination of Galisteo, no wonder he hates pilgrims!

Galisteo turned out to be a nice surprise. It is a walled village, completely intact and well preserved. 

coming into Galisteo

The gate of  Santa Maria

It dates back to the 12^th century when many of the villages here had “The Knights of Santiago” stationed in them, to help protect pilgrims along the way. I guess nowadays they would be called “The Guardia Civil?”  

on the wall looking into Galisteo

 Had a quiet evening here and we were very well treated by a kind hostel owner.

Day 27                      Galisteo to Carcaboso                       only 11kms

 I still haven’t fully recovered from whatever I had, so we thought we should have a real short day. We walked early to another little village 11kms away, found our lovely pilgrim albergue (with another friendly owner) and then took a bus to sight see the city of Plasencia. This city has a pretty glaring cathedral that started out in the Romanesque style in the 12^th century, then changed to Gothic until the 16^th century which then brought in the Renaissance style. The blend is impressive and gaudy, all at the same time.