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| futuristic albergue at Embalse de Alcantara |
It was a pretty good day's walk today. The morning was...dark. I left at 6:45am as I knew I had a long day ahead and the start out of town would be lit by streetlights; then it was a straight shot on the highway for several kms so it'd be daylight by the time I had to start looking for arrows.
It was a balmy 6 degrees celsius this morning but I was still glad for my new knit cap I bought at the €2 Shop in Caceres (I regret not getting the leggings as well as mornings temps are forecast to be zero degrees further north!). Although the sun was shining in clear skies, I still had my fleece on till noon; it warmed up rapidly from there.
The scenery improved with the temperature: from the blah-thank-goodness-its-dark roadway, to quite striking: barren moor-like grazing fields populated with cows, sheep, huge boulders and the occasional farm building. The dry stone hedgerows that separated the farms also lined my country dirt road but it was accented with by raggedy bushes of lavender and white & yellow broom. Then, as I came over a rise, it magically changed to sparse scrubby forest with more of these lichen-covered boulders. I also walked past 2 clusters of roman miliarios - large ancient stonecolumns about 4-5' high that marked off distance for those ancient marching soldiers, as well as a short section where the actual paving stones of the old roman road were still visible (the Via Plata actually dates back to the 3-4th C., the pilgrimage route just followed the same way).
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| What caused that? |
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| "Let me out!" Not!! |
Just as the day got hot I reached the highway and had 6kms of hard tarmac left to walk around the edge of the shrunken lake Alcántara before reaching the futuristic albergue, pictured at top.
I was thankful to arrive, more so when I saw Anna (young Swedish girl and part of the Group of Seven who I last saw in Aljucen), then Iris & Philomena showed up about an hour later! And best of all, the hospitalera washed all my laundry in a MACHINE, for free!! I threw everything in!!!
This albergue is fantastic: clean, modern with split level bedrooms so one accesses the top bunks by stairs up to a 2nd floor; sheets, duvets & blankets(!); there's no kitchen available to us but there's a bar that sells all liquids + lasagna/pizza/tortillas(Spanish style omelets), snacks, etc.; and, best of all, a gorgeous view where we can watch the sun set over the lake and see nothing but trees and water and hear nothing but birds. Very relaxing after a hard day's work.
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| Anna, me and Pepe enjoying the sun and lake view |
Thanks, Allison
Sent from my iPhone
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