May 24 - Carcaboso to Arco de Caparra (Jarilla)

Today´s stage is a bit different. The plan is to walk to the famous arch and call the hostal where someone will come, pick us up and take us to it, since it is not on the camino. We will sleep there and tomorrow morning we will take the detour back to the Camino and keep going. We found our yellow arrows and headed out. Finding the arrows is really important, for they can be the only way to navigate yourself throughout the camino. Salvador is my eagle eye. He has called out to me several times where I went right by one and on to a different direction. Without him I would have gotten lost more times that I would have wanted.
Another wonderful walk today. It was all out in the country. That is my favorie part of walking, jsut being away from modern things like asphalt!! The way was grassy, full of trees, many animals. Especially horses right now. Maybe I am just not paying attention to the many pigs and sheep there are. And cows. this one particular horse I fell in love with. His markings and colors are striking. I stopped to talk with him for a little and he got bored and walked away.
The trail is narrow in most places and I try to stay on it. Many times I end up going through the grass,and thanks to my walking stick I do not falter.





We went through another boulder "grove". I wonder why my fascination? Maybe from some past life I lived in caves and played among them.....yeah!!
Today we carried our food. I bought a loaf of bread, and I just love it when I see pilgrims carrying a loaf in their rucksacks, so I had to get a picture of mine. ****
We found a sunny spot, on a rock, because everything else is very very wet, and had our meal. Some Spanish men walked by, we chatted and we will see if we see each other again down the road. The ants found us and we averted them by giving them crumbs which they would carry on their backs to a very far away spot. Once in a while I would say to Salvador, "Salsa, we are somewhere in Spain sitting here and eating, doesn´t it sometimes feel strange that we have this whole life across the ocean?" Really at times I feel like this is my life, which at the moment it is, but it is almost like there is no other life. Strange.
We came to a road and no yellow arrows. It did not seem right to go left or right onto the road so we crossed it and took what looks like the trail We are in Venta Quemada, and in our guidebook it says there is only one house here and the woman is willing to provide water if needed. We did not need any so we went on. And also in the Spanish forum someone said she is tired of pilgrims knocking on her door, since she is a cheesemaker and she cannot leave it at some point or else it will spoil. So I remembered that and just kept on going, allowing providence to guide me. Except that at one point we began to wonder if our sense of direction or intuition was wrong. We had walked way too long and not seen any arrow, any marker, nothing, and so we headed back. To the house in Venta Quemada. Luckily she was outside and I asked her about the camino and said we were on the right one. So back we go. I did take a picture of a sheep skin hanging on her fence. Yeah, wow.
Well we did get lost one other time as we came through a cattle farm.... no more yellow arrows, so we retraced our steps and tried a different way until we found them again. Then it seems we went through a group of homes and the trail opened up and there it was, the famous Arco de Cáparra.
This is the emblem of Extremadura, which by now it seems we have been in it for a very long time. This is the picture seen on the square cement markers that were placed through the camino in Extremadura. To me it was one of those places I had longed to see, a special part of the Via de la Plata. We sat and waited. It started to rain and the wind picked up. I wore my poncho and creeped into it, to avoid the cold, wet wind. A group of French who we had been together with in Casar arrived. We all waited for the drivers to take us to the hostal, which they did and off we went. I had no pains today, my body is adjusting. Thinking back on the hip-leg I started with, it is now gone. YEah
It was nice to be in the hostal and I took a bath in a tub, a little one, but it was warm and soothing. We ate dinner there. And slept. TOTAL 18,5 KILOMETERS PLUS WHAT WE DID WHEN LOST!!