...and back on the way for a week...

After leaving Spain, there were such heavy rains, storms, and floods continuing there and in Portugal that I was quite glad not to be there when occasionally watching related reports! Around February 18, however, according to the weather report, the sun seemed to be shining most of the time; so I dared to set off again, and found myself back in Tarifa on March 3. A beautiful bus ride along the coast, this time even with a view of the iconic rock of Gibraltar. Just in time for sunset, I arrived at the hostel and once again enjoyed the view from the rooftop terrace over the white city, the harbor, and the Moroccan shore - under the light of the lighthouse, the seagulls glisten in silver as they scream loudly while soaring over the rooftops.

At night, there was a heavy thunderstorm - storm warnings and heavy rain were predicted - and it mostly rained the next day as well. Only late in the afternoon and evening did the sun sometimes break through, illuminating the sea in magical light. I walked along the beach in the cold wind for a long time, but unfortunately, I could also verify that despite the dry days that had passed, 'the landscape' remained too wet. And now it was raining again and it was also cold: colder than in Germany at the same time. In the hostel, a young girl from England was working; she complained that if she had known it was warmer and sunnier in England than here in southern Spain, she wouldn’t have come... and at the tourist office, where I unfortunately couldn't learn anything about the condition of the hiking trails, the lady said there was only Scottish weather here instead of Spanish...

Thus, the past week was initially marked by rain and cold. I abandoned my plans to walk 'around Portugal and Spain' along the coast towards France, as the devastation along the coasts seemed to be the worst. Even so, at many places, one can see what the excessive water had wreaked. Instead, I am trying to go relatively directly north to reach higher land via Sevilla, to regions that were less mentioned in the dreadful news.

On this occasion, I am also collecting stamps in my Credencial, the pilgrim's passport (verified for entitlement in pilgrim hostels) just like before, as Tarifa is already located on a 'Camino de Santiago feeder route', the Camino del Estrecho; I am now piloting on the Via Augusta, a Camino that leads from Cadiz to Sevilla following an ancient Roman road.

Apart from a small pilgrim hostel in the even smaller village of Tahivilla - not far from where I gave up at the beginning of February - there are no hostels until Sevilla. The first two days were cold and rainy, resulting in - since the paths were impassable - unplanned 'forced marches' exclusively on asphalt, 26 km on the first day (to the beautiful Medina Sidonia, which is fairy-tale like and white on a hill; even in rainy weather a lovely place full of history reflected in various buildings, there is even a section of original Roman cobblestones in an alley! I could sleep there behind the bars under a sort of awning in front of the largest church at the top of the town) and on the next day rather 35 km, which my legs did not appreciate at all. I had hoped that if I had to walk along the road, I could take a bus or hitchhike for part of the distance, but no bus passed by and no one gave me a ride. So, I managed with difficulty and pain to reach a smaller place before Jerez de la Frontera, got water from a nice family, and asked if there was anywhere to sleep. With the help of 'mobile translators,' we even managed to communicate, and they were very caring, making phone calls and organizing while I could hardly stay upright from exhaustion. Eventually, in the darkness, I was taken to Jerez in an extremely uncomfortable police car by very friendly officers, with loud waving and goodbyes from the family and their neighbors... and was dropped off at the Albergue Municipal, the homeless shelter, in such a narrow alley that the car doors could barely be opened. So, by around half-past nine, I had a (five-bed) room to myself. The next morning, the on-call social worker told me that he had been to Santiago three times. He also confirmed that these facilities can be used by pilgrims as long as they have free places...

To rest my legs, I took a room in a hostel for the second night in Jerez de la Frontera (and since then every further night until now - I can afford this for a while, given the cold nights and my legs needing recovery.)

Fortunately, it is no longer raining, but only dark clouds vary the sky and repeatedly create a beautiful contrast to the many white walls. Today was the first day when 'the sun simply shone from the blue sky,' although it was still only 4 degrees in the morning; during the day, it even got quite warm in the still wind; yesterday, for the first time, I took off my long wool shirt for some time - and I had even pondered whether it was necessary to take the long wool clothes along!..

So much is already blooming; the oranges have almost all fallen, but the trees are already full of white buds; I found a lemon ('windfall') for my water bottle twice; palms, olive, and eucalyptus trees, and of course the slender cypress; rabbits, lizards, birds - there is so much to report.

Yet I still feel uncertain about whether and how I should deal with the unexpectedly large differences between my dreamed expectations and actual reality this year. It is good to have tried again; it is bitter that the weather had made it so different, and now (partly due to this) I don't know if I should burden my still painful leg, despite two days of rest, with luggage and long hikes. Yesterday, I walked cautiously just over 10 km, as there were two towns close to each other; I was glad that the field or meadow paths were passable! What heavenly silence it was between fields and bird songs after the days on roads and in cities, where even in the narrowest alleys, there are still cars and scooters driving around (and even in a bar or in public places, Spaniards do not believe in quiet conversations; it always has to be very loud!). Today, I again found myself covering rather over 20 km as the shortest option; monotonous long gravel paths alongside the railway line and a canal - a swallow tail was fluttering around me today!