(Written somewhere on the path from Santa Amalia to San Pedro de Merida)
A very short update tonight because I want to save my phone batteries. At the start of this journey, I felt that I would want to try sleeping under the stars at some point and this seems to be the opportune moment. It puts me a few km closer to Merida so I’ll try to do that walk tomorrow. Other people would have been able to go all the way from Don Benito in one hop – but I’m too anxious about my foot to do a long walk like that at this point in my journey …
I started late from Don Benito because I was writing this diary. I lost the trail of arrows at some point in the city but it didn’t matter because all routes lead to the same dangerous overpass over the railway. There’s no way around it. A friendly jogger warned me about the bridge with very little hard shoulder and off I went. Fortunately, after the railway, the path was away from the traffic. Not great scenery but pleasant enough – past fields of vegetables and other crops.
At Medellin, I missed the scheduled tours of the archeological sites but climbed up to the castle for a view of the Roman amphitheater and Felipe IVs bridge. Then a walk along good paths to Santa Amalia. I noticed a very extensive network of aqueducts to supply large rice paddies. It felt quite different to the agriculture I knew in Yamanashi, though. The fields there would have “tents” of rice straw on trestles to dry the crop at this time of year.
At Santa Amalia, a few beers and tapas while charging my phone and then I set out to get closer to San Pedro. It’s not an ideal camping spot. I can hear the traffic on the highway that I’ll have to walk along first thing tomorrow. But it feels good. When was the last time I spent a night outdoors. Oh yes, it was a couple of weeks ago. But that was unplanned.