Seeing Setenil de las Bodegas yesterday was a must for me so I broke the 32k stage into two days. 20k yesterday, a short 15k today (plus to&fro kms). Besides, like my legs, the days here are short and neither are long enough to spend so many hours on the road!

Instead of walking the pavement all the way back to the Camino (Setenil was about 2k off-route) I determined I could take a smaller road at a angle and catch up with it further down the line. Well, you can’t always trust an app telling you a road is actually a road:

I ended up deep in an olive farm, eyes glued to the app, trying to figure out which rut was the “road”. It all came right in the end and I got a sneak peek at today’s destination: Olvera.

A long descent overlooking a patchwork of brown and green fields….

and by 10k & 11a I had arrived at Torre Alháquime and I was ready for my coffee so I stopped a man and his donkey and got directions to a local bar….

Pate seems big here for breakfast. I had a choice of 5 types plus the ubiquitous olive oil & chopped tomatoes. This time the tomatoes were creamed somehow with garlic and it was divine. Very pleasant 1/2 hour watching the fire and eating brunch. Cheap as chips too, €2.50!!!

Just one hour further up to Olvera, another hilltop white village. It, like Jimena, has a castle which was the site of a big battle between the Moors and Christians back in 1327. I wandered up to the top of town to scope out the remaining Tower and the nearby historic district.

For Happy Hour I met up with 2 expats that I made contact with through one of the Facebook groups I follow. Both have recently purchased flats here in Olvera and we met at one of the local bars whose terrace enjoyed all of the last of the afternoon sun. It was great to chat in my mother tongue for a while and to hear the trials and tribulations of moving to a foreign country. Tomorrow onward to Coripe.