Elevation gain 223 m

Elevation loss 351 m

Total distance walked 303 km

The exit from town is short and I’m soon on a quiet road alongside an olive grove. There are oak trees covering the hills in the distance. I’m very soon onto a dirt track alongside a stream. The stone wall enclosures now replace most of the barbed wire – I do love a stone wall.

The path is very rustic and uneven but it’s nevertheless very pretty.

My hands are so cold that I wrap them with my buff neck warmer and the cap that I made last year to try and stave off the dreaded numb fingers.

Well, the rustic path wasn’t meant to be walked on. Ahead see the two guys who were in front of me and another guy coming back in my direction. It’s so lucky that this local Spanish man was out for a walk this morning and could tell us that we were on the wrong path. We had obviously missed a sign and had to go a considerable way back.

The walk is not going in my favour this morning. When I go to look at my Wikiloc recording to see how far this diversion has taken me, I realise I haven’t turned it on. So I wait until I get back to the point of my error and turn it on. maps.me tells me that at this point I am 3 km from Monesterio. I reckon that I’ve walked an additional 1.5 km on my little excursion. Oh well, as a camino friend of mine wrote when she had to return to her Hostal to retrieve her hat “Hey, we’re here to walk”!

I see an innovative way of protecting young saplings from predators – a cage of bed springs – not much goes to waste in Spain.

There’s more livestock on the route today, lots of cows and I’ve just seen my first field of black pigs for many stages.

We’ve had to cross many cattle grids on these caminos – some with gaps much further apart than others. All of them make me anxious, and I have quite big feet – it must be much worse for those with dainty feet.

The scenery finally changes after 8.5 km and the oak trees suddenly disappear and are replaced by rolling landscape – a patchwork of fields in the distance, and mountains far beyond.

I’m glad to say it’s brightened and warmed up considerably. There is a good cover of cloud and a bit of a breeze so it isn’t too hot, which is a very good thing because there’s no shade.

I stop for a break at about 11 km and I’m just pondering the fact that I haven’t seen anyone else since the two guys ahead of me who have long ago sailed over the horizon, but then just as I’m about to get ready to move off a couple walk by – they are the only ones I’ve seen, no one else at all.

Someone asked me if I see any of the birds that I record and I probably see lots of them but I don’t necessarily recognise them. But just as I sit here a bird alights on a bush next to me and starts singing. Quickly I start the app and discover it’s a corn bunting, although it looks rather like a sparrow to me. I’ve also had several occasions when a lark has landed on the path ahead of me and I hope today I managed to take a decent photo of it – which lark it is I have no idea – probably crested as it has a top knot – although comparing it to the image at the end it may well be the Thekla’s lark

The landscape is now back to newly ploughed fields, There are also great swathes of hillside covered in black which I can only assume must be solar farms – I suspect I shall find out soon enough.

There have been a very few wildflowers today, a couple of stretches of daisies and that is it

All three staple crops are growing here: barley – by far the most common, wheat and oats.

At about 17.5 km I pass a pig unit. It’s just bleak, absolutely vile.

I pass several more disgusting pig units before I get to the village of Fuente de Cantos at 21.5 km. I stupidly bypass all the bars in the village and end up without the nice cold drink I’d been looking forward to for a while. This town is the recognised stage end but I’m going to walk on to the next village six and a bit kilometres further so that I have a shorter distance into Zafra tomorrow.

The last stretch is a wide, arrow straight track between crop fields with a lot more vile pig units with the most appalling sickening smell. When I’ve walked in Extremadora previously the pigs I’ve seen have all been happy chappies roaming wild in the acorn groves of the dehesas. I suppose this area is where the cheap jamon comes from.

The last part of this stage has become quite uncomfortable for me. I’ve got a bit of a backache and the sun has fought its way through the clouds and is bearing down quite hard, and there is not one spec of shade – although there is a bit of a breeze, so that helps.

There are vines growing closer to Calzadilla de Los Barros and there are a lot of horses.

Calzadilla is another very quiet town with an albergue and a hostel, one shop, one restaurant and a huge church.

Nina took the bus and is waiting for me at Pensión Los Rodríguez. It’s a rather run down place – clean enough, and cheap at €15 per person, with lashings of hot water. But it would be hard to recommend it.

A lorry driver who was lunching at the pensión came over to chat to us and asked all sorts of questions about the camino. He lives in Sárria so knows all about peregrinos.

Someone asked if I could include a birdsong recording – so here you are together with the birds it recognised.

Other birds recorded today…

Eurasian Blackcap

European Goldfinch

Great Tit

Common Nightingale

European Serin

Cetti’s Warbler

Corn Bunting

Eurasian Blue Tit

Eurasian Collared-Dove

Eurasian Hoopoe

Rock Sparrow

Spanish Sparrow

Eurasian Tree Sparrow (rare)