28km Santa Croya de Tera to Rionegro del Puente

April 29, 2007

Another long day, and another curve ball to make it longer. The guidebook we're using is quite good overall, but any printed guide will be out of date almost immediately because of changes due to road construction and the like. Such was the case today, and it ended up costing us about an hour. We weren't the only ones to get lost. There's a delegation of the Friends of the Camino from Sevilla, which has published a guide in Spanish that we see around a lot. Even they got lost following their own directions.

We left this morning without a really proper breakfast. In particular, I missed my orange. We'd arrived too late the previous night to make a grocery run. As we left town this morning, we took a slight detour to an 11th century church with a figure of Santiago as Peregrino carved into the portal. It is one of the earliest depictions of St. James as a Pilgrim, and the most recognizeable icon on the route. When we picked up the trail again a few minutes later, a young woman opened her door, stepped out and offered us a bag of oranges. There were too many to carry, so we took four and thanked her repeatedly. A superstitious person might be tempted to read something more into that. We were just grateful to be in the way of a random act of kindness.

The camino took a turn to the west a few days ago. Instead of walking north along the eastern border of Portugal, we are now walking west along Portugal's northern border. We crossed the 700-kilometer mark when we entered Rionegro today.

29km Tabara to Santa Croya de Tera

This should have been a 20km day, but we deviated from the route to avoid some serious mud and ended up adding some serious kilometers.  The albergue is wonderful, though.  The best we've encountered so far.  Family run and exquisitely appointed.  They also made dinner, and I'm hoping breakfast, too.

The family owns a bodega near by, as do most families in the area.  They are carved into the limestone and are completely subterranean.  We went for a visit and a glass of wine, and I've never seen anything like it. Private caves carved into the earth to ferment and store your own personal vintages.

Tomorrow should be a short day.  We need one, especially after adding about 9 unnecessary km to today's walk.  Once again, we had to walk for a few hours in the rain, but the afternoon turned out quite nice.

29km Riego del Camino to Tabara

April 27, 2007

The worst of this weather system seems to be behind us. Today we had to duck under our ponchos for a few brief showers, but all things considered, it was a nice walk. The first half was on dirt farm roads that were still pretty soggy. We were then forced on to a small secondary paved road in order to cross a bridge over the Esla River. There was so little traffic that we decided to follow it to Tabara instead of taking the official route through the still-muddy farm lands. The road probably saved us a few kilometers, but even still it was a long day.

Last night we ate in the only bar in Riego del Camino. We had to advise them ahead of time so that they would stay open for us. Turns out we were the only ones eating last night. All the locals know better, I think. The people were nice enough, and they did their best, but they simply weren't cut out to be restauranteurs. They only survive because they are the only show in town. Just about anybody could show them up. Bar Pepe was run by, presumably, Pepe, and his wife and 2 children. The wife clearly gave the orders and did most of the work. They served dinner at 8pm, way early for most spaniards. By 9:15 we began to see signs that they were done with us. First the senora turned off the space heater. At first I thought it was just because she was warm enough. A few minutes later, she started to clear the table, taking the half-full glasses of wine without asking if we were finished. When she rolled everything else on the table up into the paper tablecloth, it was clear th!
e party was over. She looked like she was asleep on her feet. She was a bit cranky, snapping at Pepe and her daughter. I left her a larger than customary tip, primarily because we were relying on her to make us sandwiches for today's walk. At breakfast this morning, if you can call it that, she was back to her cheery self. And the tortilla sandwiches were quite good.

16km Montamarta to Riego del Camino

Yesterday was a cakewalk compared with today. It wasn't raining when we woke up, but it was much colder with a steady breeze. Being a short day we felt no urgency to leave. Within 15 minutes of leaving town, it started to rain. It rained steadily all day. We took cover in a haybarn for a late lunch and then tackled the last 4 kilometers in a punishing headwind. Within 10 minutes after arriving at the albergue, the rain stopped.

There are seven of us here tonight. All new faces to us. We're all headed to the only bar in town for dinner.

The albergue is the only place in town to stay. Seven seems to be about the average number of people we encounter each night. There are about 60 towns along the route with accomodations, so a snapshot would suggest that there are approximately 430 people on the route
right now.

14km Zamora to Montemarta

April 25, 2007

What a difference from yesterday. There were times yesterday when Conch was complaining about the heat. The locals even commented on how warm it was. Last night we walked back to our hostal after 11pm without coats.

About 4am I heard rain on the window. It was still raining when we got up at 7:30. In the past stalling over breakfast served us well, so we headed out for churros and a visit to the tourist office, pretty much stalling until checkout time. All for naught. The actual distance today was 19 km, but the first 5 was on the shoulder of the main north-south highway. It would have been bad enough on a nice day, but it would have been perilous in today's wind and rain. We took a bus the first 5 miles to the point where the trail left the highway.

For the next 2 hours we saw nothing taller than knee-high wheat. No trees or buidings. No escape from the rain, or even a mud-free place to take off our packs. At the entrance to the pueblo there was a Bar-Restaurante with rooms upstairs. The parking lot was full of long haul trucks, always a good endorsement for a restaurant. Since it had been too wet to stop and eat the sandwiches we packed, we went in to eat. Although the albergue was reported to be nice, we decided to get a room here instead. We felt like we'd earned a bit of pampering. With the weather the way it was, we didn't want to be cooped up in a dorm with a bunch of other wet pilgrims. Both lunch and the room exceeded our expectations, and at a very fair price.

It looks like more of the same tomorrow.

20km from Villanueva to Zamora

April 24, 2007

 

Today's walk was pleasant but not particularly scenic.  We're still in gently rolling fields of crops, but at least we're walking between the fields instead of on the highways.  Zamora was visible from a long way off, which made navigating fairly easy.  The bar where we ate last night was good enough to store Conchi's leftover pork chop and put it into a tortilla sandwich for my lunch.  The nicest part of today's walk was our picnic out in the fields.

 

The town isn't much to look at from a distance, but is really quite pretty once inside the city walls.  There's no refugio or albergue for peregrinos here, so we gladly checked into a hostal with our own bath.  And without a doubt the nicest bath we've seen in any or our accommodations.  (I just have to take this opportunity to describe the toilet in the parish albergue in El Cubo.  The seat was broken in half. Completely broken in half.  the back part still lifted up, but the front half was resting on the ground next to the toilet.  If you wanted to sit down, you could either balance on the back half of the seat, or try to set the front half on the rim and risk pinching your nether parts.)

 

We got into Zamora early enough to find a church open where we could obtain a stamp for our credentials.  Most of the stamps up to now have been from bars, albergues or hostals, mostly because its nearly impossible to find a church that is open apart from mass time.

 

The previous two entries were made from the pocketmail device.  It worked flawlessly and several times in a row from the phone booth in El Cubo, but today it has failed to connect from at least 5 different phones. So I found Internet access in an arcade parlour.

 

I've walked over 500 kilometers on this trip and I don't think I've lost an ounce.  Short of wiring one's mouth shut, I don't think it is possible to loose weight in Spain.  I know I'm burning more calories, but I'm taking in way too many empty calories with the additional beer and wine that is ever present in the menus.

 

 

 

 

13km El Cubo to Villanueva de Campean

April 23, 2007

 

It turns out that today is a holiday in the region of Castilla-Leon.  Both El Cubo andVillanueva ar tiny two-bar towns.  Neither of the bars in El Cubo opened this morning.  We knew that would be the case, so we made arrangements last night to eat breakfast at the private alebergue.  We spent the night in the competing parish albergue.  When we showed up at Casa Carmen everything was locked up tight.  We rang several times, but she must have decided that if we'd wanted breakfast badly enough we'd have stayed there in the first place.  So we had an orange and a handful of nuts and hit the trail, not knowing what we'd find open in Villanueva.  Fortunately, we had ordered a few sandwiches "to-go" at dinner last night, so we had lunch covered.

 

Villanueva is a 2-bar town with one of the bars permanently closed.  The other is open and will fix dinner and pack a lunch for tomorrow.  Good thing, because there isn't even a store in this pueblo.

 

The albergue here is one of the nicest we've found.  It is sponsored by the town, and they've put a matron in charge of collecting the donation and keeping an eye on things. The men's shower is something to behold.  There is what looks like a closet door in the bathroom that opens to what looks like a closet with a drain the floor.  No shower pan or threshold to prevent the water from running out.  In fact it appears as though the low point in the floor is somewhere out by the sink.  I saw the problem coming and tried to fashion a dam with a pair of pants I was going to wash.  Even that wasn't enough to stem the tide.  Rather than correcting the problem, they just leave a mop in the bathroom.  we asked the matron about it later, and she told us that it was built that way to comply with the equivalent Spaniards with Disabilities Act.  That was her story and she was sticking to it.  The image of wheelchairs negotiating these trails is something straight from Monte Python (The Paraplegic Pilgrims).  More likely someone will be left in a wheelchair after slipping on the wet tile.

 

Three Germans showed up late yesterday after walking a torturous 34km from Salamanca.  It was their first day on the camino, and it couldn't have been uglier.  They were pretty beat up this morning, so they decided to make this a short day.  The arrived here a little after us.  They must have gotten lost, because they left half an hour ahead of us and we stopped for lunch, too.  They had lunch in the bar, then arranged with the bar owner to give them a lift into Zamora.  Must be on a tight schedule.

20km Valdunciel to El Cubo de la Tierra del Vino

April 22, 2007

Today's walk was awful. Almost entirely on the shoulder of a major highway. A large part of the route has been obliterated by a new freeway that is under construction and parallels the highway. Being Sunday, there was no construction activity, so we walked part of the way on the graded bare dirt of the new freeway. We were happy to get the walk over with.

The old main highway used to pass through the center of this town, but the newer N-630 bypasses it by a kilometer. Though you can hear the highway in the distance, the town itself is almost dead. When the new freeway is completed, there will be even less reason to detour into town. Maybe by then the pilgrim trade will start infusing some serious cash. Tonight there are already 10 pilgrims in town. We've all got to eat somewhere.

16km Salamanca to Calzada de Valdunciel

April 21, 2007

A short day today allowed for a bit more time in Salamanca this morning. We found churros for breakfast, then did some more housekeeping before checking out of the hotel.

We spent 2 nights in Salamanca, partly because we needed a rest day but mostly because we wanted to do some sightseeing. It merits a much longer visit. When I came to Spain to study in 1978, I had to choose between Pamplona, Salamanca or Sevilla. The weather in Pamplona was too similar to Portland, so it was out of the running. It came down to a coin toss between Sevilla and Salamanca, but the weather gave Sevilla the edge. I've wanted to see Salamanca ever since.

Nearly half of today's walk was in city congestion and on busy highways. The other half couldn't have been more different. Dirt farm roads between fields of wheat.

The albergue is quite nice, and we are sharing it with just 2 others. Ansgal and Christoff from Germany. They arrived on bicycles late in the afternoon. I borrowed Ansgal's bike to make a run to the store. It felt like I was moving at lightspeed.

San Pedro de Rozados to Salamanca

April 19, 2007

A few milestones today. First, we crossed the halfway point - 518km behind us and 492km to go. A few days ago we left the province of Caceres and the autonomous region of Extremadura and entered the province of Salamanca and the autonomous region of Castilla-Leon.

Second, today is our 28th wedding anniversary. We passed on the albergue in Salamanca, even though it was by far the nicest we've seen, in favor of a proper hotel. We ran into Alie, the woman from England who we'd met about a week ago. She had gotten a day ahead of us, but was taking a rest day in Salamanca and we caught up. She just happened to be in a hotel on the same street as ours. She joined us for a celebratory bottle of champagne and tapas in the Plaza Mayor. We had a very nice evening.

It has taken 24 walking-days to reach here. I figure it will take 24 more to reach Santiago. We could do it in less time, and most people do, but we're in no hurry.

20km Fuenterroble to San Pedro de Rozados

Today we crossed the Pico de la Dueña, the highest point on the route between Sevilla and Astorga at 1140m.  It was a perfect day and the views were amazing.  There really was no need to take the camino to the peak, though, other than to add a little to the suffering of the peregrinos.  But I guess pigrimages are about suffering, so I got what I asked for.

 

We dropped off the peak into terrain that looked like the Willamette Valley, with many of the same crops under cultivation.  Its hard to imagine being able to walk like this in Oregon, though.  I'm not sure that there is access to lanes between fields like this.  We're hardly ever on pavement, and when we are, they are mostly one-lane farm roads.  Perfect for cycling.

 

Another privately run albergue tonight, and quite nice.  The owner runs the bar next door. We had dinner there, and then breakfast the next morning.

20km Calzada de Bejar to Fuenterroble de Salvatierra

Another small town without a bank.  I bailed out a fellow peregrino who hadn't noticed the lack of ATMs at this point on the route.  He had to hitch a ride to a town about 5km away to get to an ATM.  That doesn't sound like very far, but on foot, a 10km round trip and the downtime looking for the bank will easily eat up 2 hours, and that's at a brisk walking pace without stops.

 

The refugio here is connected with the local church.  The priest is very helpful and friendly, but too busy to give much time to the refugio and the hospitalero that runs the place is not doing his job.  Too bad, because it has such potential.

 

Everything was closed when we got to town, so we made a visit to the restored church.  One of its icons is a statue of Christ carved from an Oregon pine.  I mentioned to Don Blas, the priest, that we were from Oregon, and he said, "Oh, in Canada?"  I gave him a brief geography lesson.

 

Here again, we felt fortunate to find a bar opened to feed us.  Turns out the previous night they had decided not to open because of some fiesta, and they are the only bar in town.  For those of you who have never been to Spain, bars are the lifeblood of social life.  They serve as restaurants, coffee shops, public living rooms, and of course, bars. A lot of these towns don't even have restaurants so the bar becomes the lifeline.

13km Baños to Calzada de Bejar

April 16, 2007

 

We sorted out the cash situation and hit the trail by 9:30am.  Quite a bit of elevation gain and loss today.  We left Baños, at 708 meters elevation, and climbed to a pass at 870m.  We gave all that back and then some to cross the Rio Cuerpo de Hombre at 650m, then climbed to Calzada de Bejar at 796m.  The view from the albergue is magnificent.  Nice albergue, too. The owner served us lunch, dinner, breakfast the following morning and made us sandwiches for the trail.  Good thing, too, because this town has only 40 permanent residents and doesn't even have its own store.

 

I'm still not clear on how these different lodgings operate.  There are refugios, albergues, albergues touristicas and albergues privadas.  And on top of that a seemingly endless list of hotel-like accommodations with hostels, pensiones, apartamentos, casa rurales and star-rated hotels.  Some of the refugios and albergues are sponsored by the locale and quality varies widely.  This one is privately owned.

10km Aldeanueva to Baños de Montemayor

April 15, 2007

 

We woke up feeling pretty beat up from yesterday's 38km walk and questioned our original intention to walk the 23km to Calzada de Bejar.  We set out mid-morning having decided to make the call when we reached Baños de Montemayor, the next town.  Once underway and limbered up, we felt pretty good.  By the time we hit Baños, we were torn between pushing on or staying.  Since I was down to 20€, I went to the ATM for cash and it was out of service.  Turns out it was the only ATM in town and it was Sunday afternoon, so we were stuck.  We wouldn't be passing through another town with an ATM until Salamanca four days later.  So the decision to stay put was made for us.  We found a hotel and restaurant that accepted VISA and hunkered down until the bank opened the next morning.  Not a bad place to be stuck, and we got a mess of laundry done.

38km Carcaboso to Aldeanueva del Camino

April 14, 2007

 

We know what our limit is now.  We left at 8am and arrived at 8:30pm, just as the sun was setting.  We even kept the breaks short and to a minimum, and took less than an hour for lunch.  This was a forced march.  There were no towns along the way.  We each carried an extra 1.5 liters of water and we went through it all.

 

The route itself was spectacular, passing at the midpoint through the remains of the Roman settlement of Caparra and under the Triumphal Arch.  Much of the route was on the still recognizable Roman calzada. 

 

http://www.godesalco.com/imagen/plata/caparra_arco

 

Part of the reason it took so long was that the stream beds were full and the trail was boggy from all of the rain recently.  Two of the rivers had risen to the point of covering the stepping stones, requiring us to change into our sandals to wade across.  Fortunately, it was the first day since Tuesday that it hadn't rained at some point.

 

We made it into Aldeanueava and passed up the refugio in favor of a hotel inasmuch as it was Conchi's birthday.  We were exhausted but triumphant.  No major damage to our feet.  Just the expected tiredness.  We went straight to the dining room for Conchi's birthday dinner and then invited the peregrinos at the table next to us to a celebratory brandy.

11km Galisteo to Carcaboso

April 13, 2007

 

Today was the short day between 2 long stages - 28km yesterday and 38km tomorrow.  The weather remains unsettled, with afternoon thundershowers.

 

It was quite warm right from the time we left Galisteo. Midway to Carcaboso in Aldeahuela del Jerte, we stopped for a rest and everyone in the main plaza was wearing straw hats.  We asked where we could buy a couple and one of the girls ran to her house and got one for each of us.  We tried to pay for them but she insisted we take them.  They've been part of our attire since then.

 

We got into Carcaboso fairly early and took the opportunity to wash our accumulated laundry and hang it to dry before heading to lunch.  Just as we were starting our dessert, the lights went out and we heard a peal of thunder.  By the time we got to the door, it was pouring.  Fortunately, the señora at the hostal had moved all of our stuff under cover.  She warmed to us as soon as she found out Conchi was from Sevilla.  Turns out she grew up in Sevilla as well, less than a kilometer from where Conchi lived.  We got the royal treatment the rest of our stay.

 

Later that afternoon, we met a Spaniard leading his horse down the street in Carcaboso.  He's from Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, and he and his horse started the pilgrimage in Tarifa, the southernmost tip of Spain.  Later we saw him on the side of the road cutting grass for his horse.  Sometimes its tough for us to find someplace to eat and sleep.  I can't imagine what it would be like with a horse in tow.

Technical Note

I've been using a Pocketmail device to send these entries until recently (see pocketmail.com).  It has been misbehaving recently and I've had to wait until we arrived here in Salamanca andI could find internet access to send in the following updates.

 

Pocketmail was working nicely until we hit Zafra.  While sitting at an outdoor cafe composing that day's recap, Conchi knocked a full glass of red wine onto the device.  I don't think any wine hit the ground.  Between the clean clothes I´d just put on and the pocketmail device, all of it was absorbed.  It kind of shorted out, so I gave it a day to dry.  I was amazed when it fired up the next day, but dismayed when it refused to transmit over the phone.  I borrowed a hair dryer and baked it to the point of deforming some of the plastic casing and it worked again.  But ever since then, it has been finicky.  Over the last week, I've only been able to connect on one in 5 attempts, so I gave up on it.  Here's a recap of events since Galisteo, as best as I can recall.

28 km Canaveral to Galisteo

April 12, 2007

Today's walk was a bit long, though quite nice. It rained hard last night but had stopped by the time we set out at 9 am. At half past noon we stopped for lunch under clear warm skies. By 3 pm wre could hear thunder in the distance. By 4 we had our ponchos on, but the thunder shower missed us and we had about half an hour of light sprinkle.

Dinner at the hostal drew out all of the peregrinos we've met in the past few days. A mini reunion of sorts. For any peregrinos that are behind us on el camino, you'll find great meals at the Bar Los Emigrantes. They also have reasonable, if sparse, rooms.

Galisteo is comletely surrounded by walls with only three arched entries. Photos can be found on the blog. Drill to the interactive map and click on Galisteo.

14 Embalse to Canaveral

April 11, 2007

It was raining when we woke up, so we lingered a little longer over breakfast until things blew over. We did get a few light showers along the way. Not enough to make things unpleasant, though. We made Canaveral before 1pm and had the typical "menu del dia." You get your choice of a first plate, a second plate and dessert, along with bread and a bottle of wine. Prices vary from 5-9 euros. Today's lunch was 7. We both started with soup as our first plate. For the main plate, Conchi had pork cutlets and I had lamb. Alfredo and Nieves got there a bit before us. They had originally planned to stop for the night in Canaveral, but decided to walk 9 km to the next town. We'd only intended to walk as far as Canaveral, and the bottle of wine with lunch only reinforced that decision. Apparently the wine didn't faze them. It turns out the refugio here is a lot nicer than some of the reports had suggested. It is a 3-bedroom sparsely furnished apartment, and we were the first there so!
we got our own room. A German couple, Wolf and Lena, arrived later. The four of us had the run of the place.

20 km Casar to Embalse de Alcantara

Fourteen of the 20 bed in the refugio last night in Casar de Caceres were occupied.  By the time we rolled in (2:30 pm, early for us) all of the lower bunks were already taken.  The refugio itself was pretty nice, as far as refugios go.  Four showers with hot water, a kitchen with microwave, but only one working bathroom.  Better than most we've seen and free, too.  So tonight we're splurging in a little hotel overlooking a reservoir.  Our guide book listed this as closed, but it has been re-opened and re-named.  A bit on the pricey side, but sometimes a private room with a bath is a bargain at any price.  Even still, the room with dinner and breakfast came to 77 euros.  The alberge just down the road is very nice, too, but a dorm arrangement.

We set out in a fog so thick it collected on our hair and glasses.  By noon we stripped to t-shirts.  Rain had been forecast, but we got lucky.

We've melded into a new cohort of peregrinos and met a lot of new people already.  It is interesting that we haven't met any other "camino virgins" and we haven't met any other North Americans.  Roughly 20-25% are from Spain and the rest from central europe.  Many have done multiple pilgrimages.  Today we walked with a couple from Pamplona, Alfredo and Nieves, who walked this route about 15 years ago as part of a larger group who re-blazed the the Via de la Plata after a few centuries of non-use.  Now they are re-walking the route in stages, but from Granada instead of Sevilla.  In previous years they completed the section from Granada to Merida, and this year they resumed in Merida.  They intend to walk till the end of this week and then finish sometime after Nieves retires in July.

11 Caceres to Casar de Caceres

We're back on the trail after an 8-day break feeling healed and rested. We were in Portugal for 6 nights. Three of those at the county house of friends in the Arrabida National Park near Azetao. The weather was nice and we logged some bench-time in the sun. On Thursday we relocated to a hostal in the heart of Setubal. We spent one rather hectic afternoon playing "tourista" in Lisbon. That night from our balcony we watched the Good Friday procession. Not quite like Semana Santa in Sevilla, but you couldn't beat the seats. The next day was nice enough to spend the afternoon at the beach. Yesterday, Easter Sunday, was a travel day back to Caceres and the gracious hospitality of Bea and Boni for dinner and a place to sleep.

Since today was a short walk, we lingered over breakfast and did some shopping in Caceres before setting out. It feels good to be on the move again, but every day has its surprises. We arrived in Casar just after 2 PM with the idea of spending the rest of the afternoon over a large lunch and bottle of wine. Surprise! Today is the feast day of the town and EVERYTHING is closed. Bars included. Everone is at the "Romeria" 9 km out of town. We found one tiny store open and got a tin of sardines, a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine and had our own little party on the steps of the refugio. We'll be having leftovers for dinner. Luckily, it was a very nice wine.

28 km Alcuescar to Valdesalor

The original plan for Saturday was to walk 17 km to Aldea del Cano and spend the night. When we arrived, we were told the refugio was undergoing renovation and only 4 of the 8 beds were in use. The 4 people we had blithely allowed to pass us at lunch had already claimed them. We checked at the only hotel in town and it, too, was full. This was the first day of holy week, and everything within miles of Caceres was booked. We had an offer from friends in Caceres to stay at their house, but we hadn't anticipated arriving until the next day. Plus, it would have meant walking an additional 23 km. We decided to walk the 11 km to Valdesalor and take our chances with the refugio there. About 5km away from Valdesalor, we got a call on our cell phone from Boni, our friend in Caceres, checking on our progress. We explaied our situation and he insisted on driving the 12 km out to Valdesor to bring us back to his house. We didn't try to talk him out of it. The trail crossed into Valdes!
alor over a Roman bridge and we arranged to meet there. When we were about half a kilometer from the bridge, with the car in sight, the sky opened up gave us our first drenching. We scrambled into our ponchos just as it really started comng down, and walked to the car and our rescue.

Boni is the son-in-law of Nieves, a good friend of Conchi's. Those of you who live in Portland may have heard of the Spanish restaurant Patanegra, which is owned by Nieves' son, Ricardo Segura. Boni and Nieves' daughter, Beatrice, took us in for 2 nights and spoiled us rotten. They live in the "casco viejo", the old part of town, just a few minutes walk to all of the historic sites in Caceres.

All of the stars were aligned for a break from el camino. Lodging would be scarce for the rest of holy week up to Easter Sunday; the weather wasn't expected to improve until mid week; we were just a bus ride away from some other friends in Portugal who we wanted to visit; and we needed several days to allow our various foot ailments to heal. So today, Monday, April 2, we're on a bus to Setubal, just south of Lisbon, until Easter, at which point we'll return to Caceres and resume the perigrinaje.