After leaving Montanchez, we enjoyed a long descent on a cobblestone road, which might have been Roman. There was no signposting and no one around to ask. There were many wildflowers and occasional stone walls.
We crossed the main road and continued down, passing a solitary dog walker. Trees shaded the track, unusual from what we've seen. We saw some cows, the first of many today.
In Albalá we stopped for second breakfast in a bar. We furthered our Spanish music education by listening to the music channel on the large TV screen and had a brief chat to the old men who were settling in at the next table.
We were then on a quiet road for a bit, noting the dehesa again, large granite boulders and many more cows. There were dams and swamps too, but no shoveler ducks - we looked. We did find a large picnic area with tables, playground and even a chapel, so we rested our legs before continuing.
After a while we turned off the road onto a grassy track - softer on our feet, more scenic but we did have to keep pulling the grass seeds out of our socks. It led us to a very pretty Roman bridge and into Torremocha.
In Torremocha, we followed the noise until we came to the main square, where the annual town festival was taking place. We had lunch at a bar, then located a historic stone engraving of a pilgrim shell above a doorway. On the outskirts of town, the storks had taken over the roof of a silo.
We followed dirt and grassy tracks to our next town, Torrequemada. When we entered the bar, we were recognised by the bartender who'd been at the same restaurant in Merida on Tuesday - quite a coincidence!
Hydrated, we walked the last few kilometres on a designated bike track. We saw no bikes, but we did see small farms with horses, sheep, goats, pigs and chooks.
It seems appropriate to finish this post in our hotel's bar, the fourth for the day. Does that count as a bar crawl?
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| Cows - some of the many we saw today |
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| Leaving Montanchez this morning |
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| We followed a historic and scenic path down from Montanchez |
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| A very pleasant country path took us on to Albalá |
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| Approaching the bar in Albalá where we stopped for our second breakfast |
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| Ermita de San Joaquín y Santa Ana - welcome picnic tables in the shade for passing long-distance walkers |
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| On to Torremocha |
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| The famous Roman bridge at Torremocha |
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| Torremocha - festival day, and historic pilgrim shell statue (concha del peregrino) |
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| Stork hotel, Torremocha, with a hopeful raptor circling overhead |
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| On from Torremocha to Torrequemada |
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| The bar in Torrequemada - a welcome stop and a chance encounter |
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| Flowers |
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| Farm animals |
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| Cows |
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| Birds |
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| Day 33 - Map |
Day: 33
Distance: 25.38 km
Walking time: 5 hrs 23 mins
Elevation gain: 241 meters
Cumulative distance: 600.9 km
Black Kite, Mallard?, White Stork, perhaps Northern Wheatear, White Stork, Crested Lark
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