Cortes de Pallas to Requena – two days rolled into one.

I was sorry to leave Cortes. I’d enjoyed my mini-break there and I’ll remember the town fondly. I had breakfast in the hostel and shook hands with the landlord. He gave me a bottle of locally grown and pressed olive oil and said to take it home to the family. I’d showed him the photos last night. The wind is stronger and colder today, needing three layers plus Auntie Vera’s hat plus Liddy’s scarf. Still got me shorts on though. No surrender on the lower body front. And back. The road dips down towards the lake and runs round the hydroelectricity plant and onto the bridge through a tunnel. No lights.

Crossing the lake it was bitterly cold on the exposed bridge.

Looking the other way Cortes and its river hung over the lakeside.

Looking down from the opposite hillside the road reminds me of when the kids were little. The bridge shunts the motorcyclists along (it’s Sunday and they’re even in the mountains) like a long spoon into the tunnel’s mouth. I fed my dad like that recently when he was in hospital. Out of duty rather than devotion.

I was going to do just 15kms today and stay up in the mountains, trapping down to Requena tomorrow. The road turns to the right of the mountain range to work it’s way up to Venta de Gaeta, a little village with a well known restaurant and a hostel, which wasn’t answering the phone. I turned left. Another road in the opposite direction runs parallel to the lake and then winds up into the mountain range and over. It joins a main road after 30kms and that runs for 19kms into Requena. I’m going to walk 49 kms today and sleep in a cheap hotel in Requena, a fair sized town. I felt fit. The pack was comfortable on my back and my muscles were feeling good. And the hills were cold but looked good.

I made good time, after leaving at 9.30. I reckoned I’d be there by midnight. There were no cars on the mountain roads. None. On the middle slopes were vineyards for the first time in a hundred miles. And higher up almond groves that had been given recent attention. 

I just kept going. I’d bought a big block of chocolate and kept eating bits off it throughout the day and sipping water. On the top of the mountains there was an abandoned village. It looked sad and lonely but there are many like it across Spain I’m sure.

Sunset came and I just kept going. I felt like a machine. A young machine. Makes a change. The day’s R&R had done me good.

As it turned dark I was on the main road but turned on to a lesser used side road that would save me a kilometre. It was now pitch black and nothing but fields and forests and the occasional farm, where dogs would hear the click click of my walking poles and go berserk in the distance. I strapped on my head torch but kept marching. It was now beginning to hurt. The lights of Requena poked through in the distance.

At 8.30 I finally made it to the hotel Maggie had booked earlier. Knackered but happy to see a bed out of the wind. I put my long trousers on – it’s Sunday – went round the corner to a local cafe bar and had local wine with oxtail and chips. The old git did it. 49 kms. Kiss my tomatoes, Christian!

Night night.