Salmerón to Trillo, 30 km

I’m sorry not to have said this earlier, but thanks so much to all who have made comments. It feels like a reunion with old friends after a while apart. It really means a lot to me. 

We leave just before seven and have a long stage today with the threat of rain at 15:00 so we want to make a good start. 

Almost immediately we are trudging up a ridiculously steep hill which gets the lungs working overtime, not to mention the glutes.

We climb ever higher, zigzagging along the path and are soon looking down upon Salmerón.

Yay, I’m finally at the top of that lung-busting hill. 300 meters over 4 km. Better at the beginning of the day than the end!

The path alternates between wide and narrow, from clay to sandy earth, from smooth to rough and stoney, from lined with trees to open views to the valley below, through natural woodland with pines and holm oak. 

At 6 km the track becomes completely flat and very wide and very rutted. I remember it well from last time when it was full of water and very difficult to walk on. Now it’s damp in places and I get I bit of mud building up on my boots but nothing too problematic.

We take a break after 2 hours and we’ve only walked 7.3 km – very slow going but really not surprising with that climb. 

The track takes us through the most gigantic solar farm with panels stretching in every direction as far as the eye can see – it really is massive. 

At around 16 km, once we’ve left the ugly solar panels behind, we commence our descent and the scenery changes. 

This is a lovely section of the track, passing through woodland with shade from the increasingly hot sun and a cooling breeze now and then. There are plenty of wild flowers, blue sky above and easy walking. I’m not sure how long it will last, but I’m certainly making the most of it.

I stopped to take a photo which amused me of a shoe hanging on a camino sign post without actually looking at what this camino signpost instructed.  I did notice an arrow to Viana pointing to the left and glanced in that direction but couldn’t see a discernible track so just blindly followed Nina and Paul who had gone straight ahead. 

Suddenly I was walking through a wide open grassed area which was most unexpected.  Luckily Paul and Nina had stopped up ahead in the shade of a tree to take a brief break and let me catch up. We continued to walk on together when I thought I’d take a look at my track to see the distance remaining to Viana de Mondujar.  I saw that we were way off course and needed to backtrack to where I had taken that photo. 

Luckily the mistake only took us about 800 m out of our way and when I looked properly at the signpost it directed walkers to the left (where I failed to see a track) and cyclists straight on – the way we had initially walked.  

So the correct path leads up the mountainside for a few hundred meters on a steep and narrow track until we came to a pass and then it’s  downhill with a view of the Tetas de Viana right in front of us. 

It’s a very narrow track just a foot wide, barely discernible at times, right on the edge of a steep drop, very twisty made up of loose stones and bordered by very spikey gorse that rips at my legs. 

We emerge at Viana de Mondújar at 13:30 after 22.5 km and beg some water from a local guy then find a bench in the shade to eat from our supplies. We all feel very weary but there’s still some way to reach our destination. 

After we leave the village there’s another 2 km to climb on a very rough winding steep rocky path and then it is all downhill. 

We arrive at Trillo at 16:15 to a town buzzing with activity due to this being Mayday which is celebrated as a national holiday in Spain and when it falls on a Friday all the better. 

We make our way to the accommodation provided by the good people of Trillo which is a building alongside the bullring, intended I presume for the bullfighters to refresh themselves after playing with their four-legged friends.

I’m a little concerned – it being Mayday – that the telephone numbers posted on the door may not be answered, or possibly the people on the other end may have had a few drinks and not be interested in helping some random pilgrims. But the first number I ring is answered immediately and a very charming guy turns up within minutes to let us in.  There are four beds, one blanket and one cushion, and two fabulous showers/cloakrooms.  The accommodation is next to the Rio Tagus with wide grassy banks to either side. It’s full of families picnicking and playing games.

We do our washing and walk to the lovely bar, situated next to the waterfalls, for a cold drink but they are very busy and don’t seem interested in serving us food. So we go in search of an alternative restaurant and come up trumps with Bar Sonova where they serve a variety of dishes from the bbq. They are not cheap but we were three very happy customers, as had been many others looking at the tables that needed clearing. Highly recommended.