Day 11 - Almaden de las Plata to Monesterio (22 miles)

The next possible stop is El Real de la Jarra but it is less than nine miles away so today I decide to make for the town after, Monesterio, a further thirteen miles on. I rise early, dress in unlit silence in the small shared room and while everyone else is still asleep I step out into the dark. I walk through the empty streets, pass the small and aging plaza de toros on the village outskirts - only its white walls making it visible in the morning gloom - and enter the surrounding countryside.

I enjoy walking at night. It feels comfortable and there is a sense of peace. Nothing stirs. The only noise is your tread, contained in your own personal bubble of sound, surrounded and hemmed in by the silence.  Once your eyes adjust you can see perfectly well to walk by in that monochrome world before dawn, everything a stripped back version of itself; no details but the shape and form of things is clear. And today the white track of my route stands out clearly in the starlight. The miles also seem to slide by easily, probably because of the need to focus more on footing than on progress and because the extent of my world is far more limited.

An hour later and the first hint of dawn fills in all the detail on everything around me: the individual leaves of trees, the gnarled bark, every little rut and crease on the track. But the world still remains shades of grey and washed of colour. And my personal bubble of sound is burst by the dawn chorus. Later in the day, even in areas with no outside noise, the bird song can somehow be lost in the background but here and now that transition from silence to sound is stark.

By the time I make El Real de la Jarra everything is brightly lit and full of colour and I have been walking for three hours in terrain similar to yesterday afternoon so I do not feel I missed anything for the two hours in the dark; after all I have some seven weeks of walking in which to make memories of the landscape. I grab coffee at the bar of an almost empty cafe 

Real de la Jura

then spend over two hours walking along a track through sparse woodland of small gnarly oaks, some laden with lichen, and harvested for acorns to feed Ibérico pigs. Shrub - which I read consists of rosemary and thyme and other names I recognise from my kitchen - and bunches of wild flowers, yellow and blue, are also dotted around. I stop to chat with the occasional cyclist and walker coming the other way, otherwise this world is mine.

I am now in the municipal hostel in Monesterio - more town than village - and it is blessedly peaceful after the last two days with only a handful of people overnighting. The final few miles to get here were unfortunately alongside road, albeit mostly quiet, and required a fair bit of height gain to make the town, hard work in the afternoon sun. But I am now rested and ready to head into the streets to eat prior to catching up on some sleep.