12.02.2016 17:30
Around 9:30am I headed north to exit the town. I chose a different route than the actual GR7, because that one didn't sound fun at all, while my chosen path took me trough a truly beautiful valley with no cars around at all.
(Sorry for the shitty pictures, the camera still doesn't seem to remember how to focus on things.)
I arrived in Arriate around 1 1/2 hours later and didn't stick around for long because there was actually nothing going on. Still a nice little town tough.
About 3km next to a busy road followed, but there was a surprisingly nice path next to it. Another 2km I had to walk on the road though, which sucked. On the other hand I have never found the different layers of a road so interesting.
The clouds were heavy and didn't look very promising, but there was only a few drops now and then, lucky me!
At some point a so called cañada real (old cattle track) lead away from the main street. The views from there were great, and it was a big shortcut too, but something was totally wrong with the soil. Like clay it stuck to my shoes all the time and I felt like I was walking on pillows, but very heavy ones.
Up and down and left and right the cañada curved through the countryside, until the view opened up and showed a valley bathed in sunlight in the distance. It doesn't show in the pictures obviously, but it was just crazy - everything around me was grey and dark, while this distant place was shining golden from in between all the clouds.
I passed Cuevas de Becerro, which looked much prettier than on the picture, nestled between the mountains around it, houses all in white of course.
Then a rainbow showed up in the distant golden valley, as I was descending on the cañada real onto a paved street. Marvelous.
And a bit later, the sun even came out above me, and it got really hot on my new jacket all of a sudden. The next two hours or so I kept walking downhill, thinking that the village of Serrato would have to appear around the corner just every other second. In fact it only became visible when I stood 30 meters in front of the first house, because it was hidden behind a hill.
In Serrato I asked myself through to the only open bar around, which has wifi though, so I can't complain. It's completely packed with drinking and shouting men, while the rest of the village appeared completely deserted.
I will now fill up my water reservoirs at the village fountain and then continue walking towards Ardales for an hour or so, then look for a place to set up camp. The wired fences have finally disappeared and I'm only at 400 meters of altitude, so I hope to find a nice spot and think it won't get too cold at night. Tomorrow I will hopefully make it until El Chorro, apparently a hotspot for climbers.
20:00
What I didn't take into consideration when planning to "continue walking for an hour or so" was the constant drizzle waiting for me as I left the bar. I had neither put on my rain trousers nor coveted the backpack with the rain poncho, because I'm stupid and thought it wouldn't be that bad after all, but obviously a drizzle can make you wet too if you stay outside long enough.
So what I did was basically run up the road that led uphill and out of town, because the map said there would soon be a track leaving from it, where I hoped to find a spot to camp as soon as possible. Still it seemed to take me forever to climb up that damn road an my trousers were completely wet I course. In the end I figured that I might as well go in a normal speed again because I was all wet already anyway.
Finally I found the track leaving the road and after not too much time I found a decent spot beneath some pine trees. I wasn't really hungry so I didn't cook anything and just had some cheese and nuts inside the tent. I really hope it doesn't rain too much at night because I will have to climb a dirt road tomorrow, which would be a mud slope if it does.
My route today: not too bad I think!
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