There are no directions out of the village, but we take what seems like the obvious track. Neither of us have a recollection of the route we took last time that we walked entirely on the road due to the mud, so hopefully that won’t be an issue today, though there is a promise of rain in the weather forecast.

We study all the maps at our disposal and reckon that we can take a path through the campo rather than sticking to the road for 8 km. 

It takes us 3 km to realise this route isn’t going to work and return to a point where we can cross the edge of a barley field to regain the road.  We added about 1.5 km to our stage but hey ho – we’re here to walk. 

So we are now on the CM210 for the rest of the way to the first village – Torralba at 10 km.   Once again the vehicles that whizz past at ridiculous speed give us plenty of space

Our info tells us that there should be a bar and a shop here but there is no sign of either. A short way out of town we are on a track which isn’t clay – yay!  Hopefully it will continue for the rest of the stage – walking on that road was very wearing for me.

I feel the patter of tiny, widely spaced raindrops at about 10:30 but that’s as much as we get, although the forecast predicts a heavy downpour to come later. 

The track we’re on from Torralba is compacted sand and reasonably comfortable to walk on. I’m feeling very weary today, but I don’t think that’s unusual for day two of a camino for me. I made a 25 km walk with my little pooch a couple of days before setting off, so I’m not totally out of practice but still constantly bringing up the rear.

Albalate de las Nogueras is the next town at just over 18 km. We emerge from our track at the entrance to a very welcome bar where I partake of an ice cold Fanta and am given a tortilla tapa.  

We make a detour to the top of the town to admire the old buildings and then we are soon back on a gravel track. And instead of rain we suddenly have very hot sun which we weren’t expecting at all. 

There are rocky hills to our right and at the top we can see entrances to caves. 

There is no shade on this track and I really feel the heat even at this time of year. 

We eventually reach Villaconejos de Trabaque and make our way to the albergue situated in the old caretaker’s house adjacent to the church. When we stayed here back in 2019 we were treated to spectacular  hospitality. I don’t think that happens these days but we are very grateful for the facilities here. If you would like to read about that very special night take a look here. 

The lovely hospitalero Pepe didn’t arrive until about 9 pm to register us – he’d been working hard all day in the campo. He confirmed there are no more evenings out in the caves for pilgrims so we consider ourselves doubly lucky that we had this experience. Earlier we had been to the bar in the village where we took a glass or two (or three) of wine and the very lovely bar lady made us bocadillos to sustain us on the next stage.