Cue Simon and Garfunkel…. “I’m sitting in the railway station got a ticket for my destination….” But in this scenario, it’s a bus station and we pay the driver direct. It’s day 7 of our trek to Tarifa. My feet have been at war with my shoes over the last 29 miles and the shoes won out.  Five blisters and my feet surrender. Today’s 15 mile walk has turned into 2 buses and 45 minutes. These things happen, flexibility and a good attitude are the key to contentment…. So, I write you from the bus station. We’ll pick up the baton tomorrow and carry on to the tune of 10 miles. Armed with moleskin, band-aids and Leukotape my feet will mount a resistance for the day.

The second half of our journey has been comprised of cork, storks, a castle stay, blisters and views of the Rock of Gibraltar and Africa!

Day 5 we left Jimena de la Frontera traipsing through the Alcornocales National Park. This region of Andalucia has made many of its riches on cork. Every time you open a bottle of wine raise a toast to southern Spain! I’ll write a separate post on cork trees, but here a few highlights: they can live to 500 years, cork can be harvested multiple times from one tree, they look a bit like they lost their pants or skirt once they’ve been harvested! We walked through endless kilometers of cork trees.

The Castle stay….

We arrived at Castillo de Castellar – a Castle atop a prominence. The fortress walls protect this tiny enclave with the original buildings intact (highly renovated of course!). The Castle itself a hotel and the cottages nightly rentals. I got to be a princess and Mike my knight. HA!

I am doing my best princess pose

This is something that is defining Spain for me: it’s history. I muse about the effect of growing up surrounded by century old buildings, living in houses where your mother, grandmother and great, great grandmother raised families, and walking streets with cobble stones. How do Spaniards view the world differently than, I seeing their long history a part of daily life?

These questions drive my interest in mastering my Spanish so I can ask and learn.

We joke that likely the folks who lived in the cottages were servants and peasants, not knights and royalty, but we won’t check the history on that one. These cottages are for sure the oldest building we have stayed in.

Cottage bedroom – the roof hand hewn beams
A street within the castle walls

Day 6 we saw Storks, Storks, Storks! Easily a hundred storks, nesting in trees, nesting on top of pylons, nesting on powerline towers, looking like stork hotels with nests stacked atop one another. Storks are beautiful BIG birds, that majestically depart the nest with their wide black rimmed wings framing white bodies. Thiers is a distinctive chatter of clacking, a telltale sound. These regal birds have taken residence along the highway between Castellar and San Roque, a true gift as one clomps along on pavement for many kilometers.

As the day wound down, cresting the last ridge before town, through the haze, we were greeted with a view of the Rock of Gibraltar and across the straight to Africa! Something is impressed upon one when seen with your own eyes. It could be a famous place, art, building, mountain… the Images and feelings conjured from a book or story suddenly take shape in real form. It feels as if being inducted into a fraternal order of some kind.

A hazey day – The Rock of Gibraltar with the city of Gibraltar below. That is the Mediterranean Sea.

And then Day 7…. you arrive at the place we started…”I’m sitting in the bus station cause I got blisters on my vacation…..”