Some anti Brexit graffiti adorned the albergue wall today, not scrawled by any of the Russell clan, though we agreed with the sentiment. Today’s walk was just 14 km to the next town. A beautiful walk on this ugly day – the day the UK was meant to leave the EU! We listened to the radio as we hiked through the stunning national park, hearing that May’s deal was to be put to parliament for a third time and realising that if it got through any hope of a second referendum or a revocation of the dreaded article 50 would die a sudden death. The ‘experts’ (bloody experts!) informed us that it could go either way and our trek was marred by the fear that our thin spiderweb of desperate dreams of returning to a world before Brexit would be brutally sliced to oblivion…

We chatted to a friendly father and son duo from Germany. The dad was a rather large fellow who was finding the hike tough but had a cheery disposition and a dogged determination to walk the Camino. On hearing my shoulder was aching from the weight of the rucksack he produced a large bag of pharmaceuticals and passed me a giant tube of horse gel! He said it was good for humans too so I rubbed some of his magic equine gel in and trotted on.

The theme of today was pigs! Herds of cute, brown, hairy pigs roamed the countryside. Obviously used to the odd hiker they foraged contentedly on either side of our path, snorting and grunting away, happy as pigs in, well, a beautiful national park, with lakes to wallow in and forests to roam about. No doubt they were destined for a high class chorizo but they had a lovely life for now. A rogue pig was being guided by his Shepard dog having left his herd, and we spotted herds of handsome goats too.

The walk today was through olive groves, cacti and rolling countryside.

We found some rocks to perch on for a delicious lunch of pre-prepared tuna pasta salad….

We wandered in to town and headed to a guest house we had read had real beds and was just 10 euros a night called Alojiemiento Molina. It was a crazy, creepy place. The bedroom itself, though old fashioned, had three cute beds with 70’s style bedspreads. The whole place was proper loony tunes – photos of the family adorned every surface and the kitchen we could use was clearly their own and in regular use from the family. There were two bathrooms – one of which was full of the family’s gear. It was weird to say the least and we were not really sure about the place….

We ventured in to town to get something to eat as we felt a bit uncomfortable cooking with the owners, who wandered about wearing giant headphones for some reason. We bumped in to the German father and son and they told us they had read about a restaurant in the town which had decent food – Meson la Cochera- a rustic place decorated with various animal carcasses. The 9 euro pilgrim menu was okay, not much to write home about, so I won’t, except the highlight was probably the stewed cabbage soup! We considered a nightcap but the town was asleep by 9pm. It really was a dull place and we felt a sense of sympathy for anyone unfortunate enough to actually live here, particularly under the age of 72. Our German friends, who we now know are called Gerard and Christophe were also staying in our strange house and told us that a couple of pilgrims had wandered in earlier asking for a double room, and were turned away when they could not produce their marriage certifiacte. It didn’t particularly surprise us…. We all crept back in to our spooky dwellings and headed for an early night.