Day Nine on the Camino Mozárabe, Almería to Mérida, 30 March 2023

Where are the other days? Some are on Facebook. Most nights I’ve been too tired to write. I’ll try to catch up soon., although writing on an iPhone 13 mini is not all that easy.

Another beautiful day on the Camino Mozárabe. On this Thursday 30 March we climbed to the highest point on this Camino, over 1400 meters. total walk about 8.4 miles. We started with a short big up, then a very long smooth down and gentle long climb to the top. Along the way we were buzzed by a helicopter. At the very top we walked through a surreal, blindingly white quarry. The downside, literally and figuratively was a seemingly endless rough, steep, stony track down in the blazing sun on a western slope. My hands look like rotisserie chickens, they are so brown. As we turned onto the highway about a km above the village,our friend Montserrat and Francis passed in a taxi and stopped in the middle of the highway to pick us up. What a coincidence, and much appreciated respite. A short time later we enjoyed a hearty lunch—our first actual meal of the day at the Los Angeles Bar/Cafe in Quentar ( population about 900) as a group of six pilgrims. We were just steps from our hotel, but too busy eating, drinking and chatting and too tired to take pictures, alas. We were Montserrat and Francis from Barcelona, Edgard from Belgium, and Garis from Victoria, Australia. Tomorrow Granada! all of us are in the Hotel Quentar, spanking clean with an elevator to the second (third) floor, where Kent and I have a comfy room with —-a bathtub! What a treat for aching legs and feet. I fell asleep shortly I got out with a little help from Kent!

Author: Linnea Hendrickson

I am a retired librarian who walked my first camino to Santiago de Compostela in 2010, all alone from Le Puy-en-Velay to Finisterre. I've since returned to Spain, France, Portugal, or Italy at least every other year and continued to walk the many ways to Santiago. View all posts by Linnea Hendrickson