CAMINO MOZARABE:Don Benito to Torrefresneda 18th March

25km

The Camino Mozarabe finishes at Merida, another 26km away and I have decided, after much soul searching, that my Camino will also finish there. 

A feeling has been growing recently that this journey is nearing completion and I have tried to know if it’s real. My head has been telling me otherwise- that I’m only half way there- that I’ve only been on the road 3 weeks- that I can’t stop now. 

My destination was always unsure. Having finished two Caminos in Santiago already I knew I wasn’t fixed on going all the way there. I didn’t want to walk again the 250km Sally and I did last year on the Camino Sanabria, the end of the Via de la Plata. And my schedule meant I’d be doing the last 100km during Semanta Santa when it would be crazy busy. 

I had thought about maybe going due north, backwards up a Camino route from Leon to the north coast, but it seemed a bit artificial, and a long way. So my soul searching told me that I was ready to go home. That the Via de la Plata can wait and should be started in Seville. 

It told me mainly that I would rather be with my loved one than walking on my own. 

To complete the Mozarabe from Malaga to Merida is to start at the beginning and finish at the end and I like neat endings. 

It’s pretty spacey being out there in the empty vastness on your own day after day and I’m looking forward to some grounding work in the garden and woods. 

And I’ll have to walk the dogs!

In the meantime I have another 25km to go and I’ll spend a day or two in Merida before getting a train to Madrid where I will soak up art and culture for two days before my flight home. The rambling and blogging will continue. 

Today the way was through flat industrial farmland, alongside busy roads and amongst a lot of strung out housing- not the prettiest of penultimate days. 





I started being a sightseer as well today in the churches and fortress and Roman theatre of Medellin. 





Here’s the video

and here’s the reality 

and the hilltop fortress from the river

then it was back to intensive farming around Santa Amalia



Here’s where your tomato purée comes from



One good thing about the productive land is that it meant that the poor folk in their tiny simple houses can grow a lot of veg on their tiny plots. 



And the weather picked up in the afternoon and I carried on past the town to bivvy out for the last time in the sunshine. I might be in a kind of underground bunker near a noisy road but it’s by the river, the birds are singing and the sky is blue.