Camino Mozarábe, Spain. Part 3: Córdoba to Mérida

Three hundred and seventy plus kilometres from Almería to Córdoba on the fabled Camino Mozarábe. An injury. A rest day in Córdoba. Uncertainty in the air as we set out on the final stage of the journey to Mérida, the old Roman capital.

Córdoba to Mérida (246 km)

A singular woman in a bright red flamenco dress walks home from a late-night gig through the quiet, early morning streets of Córdoba. We catch a suburban bus bustling with Sunday hikers a few kilometres up through the forested hills to Cerro Muriano to lessen the impact of today’s long-distance on Michael’s injured tendon. 

A coffee and tostada at a bar while looking out through a hot oil haze to a churros maker and her drowsy customers. The mournful bugle call of a soldier as we walk out of town past a military base and an avenue of eucalyptus trees. 

White rock roses, red poppies and a profusion of lavender. A gentle climb into the wooded Sierra Morena. The morning sultry with sporadic outbursts of thunder. Following forgotten roads and old ways. Grazing land for the black Iberian pig. A late morning coffee at a bar/general store in El Vacar, busy with the after-mass crowd and a bevy of cyclists.The store stocks the local essentials; knives, hunting gear, milk cans, cooking pots, cured meats and artisan cheeses. An afternoon of troubled skies and building humidity.

Villaharta is high on a mountain range between two rivers. Its waters are reputed to have health-giving properties and its altitude, flora and clear flowing streams create a microclimate that is cooler in summer than nearby towns. We’re staying at the Cafe-Bar Mirasierra where the señora and her two children are all con pelo rubio (redheads); they feel such an affinity with a red-haired stranger that we are welcomed as family. Inexplicably there is a swell of pilgrims at Villaharta; people who started their Caminos in Malaga, Almería, Granada and Córdoba converging in this small village. Paco, our compañero, arrives late in the afternoon after a 40-kilometre walk from Córdoba. Surer of his body, he’ll walk on further than us tomorrow. We share another last supper, although this time we are confident that we’ll meet again, on the way or in Mérida.

Murmuring from inside a dark church as old women kneel in prayer, reciting the rosary. Leaving the village behind and walking higher up into the Sierra Morena. A perfect morning for the mountains. Michael’s injury so relieved by the physiotherapist we doubted in Córdoba that not only is the 36-kilometre walk to Alcaracejos viable, so too is walking all the way to Mérida. A cloud lifts. Our hearts sing. The tinkling of sheep bells. Isolated farms the size of small villages. Winter’s lichen bearding the oak trees. Spring wildflowers bright and abundant. Pastures green and lush. Birds of prey with the wingspan of eagles.

The sky, hazy with dust. The distant boom of weapons from a military base. Farms with sheep, cows and pigs grazing. Icons of medieval saints hung awry on shed walls. Red-legged partridges scurrying across a field. Following old stone-walled lanes and drovers ways. An abundance of lavender. White rock roses giving off the scent of church incense as the day warms. Holm oaks and Mediterranean forests. Across a river, past a granite wayside cross and an Ermita dedicated to a Romany saint. The land flattens out to fields of red-saturated poppies above the whitewashed town of Alcaracejos.

We arrive with enough time to check into the Albergue, shower and have a leisurely lunch at Bar Tic Tac. If you arrive in a village after 3 pm it’s almost impossible to find anything to eat until 8.30 pm, so a meal soon after the end of a day’s walking is cause for celebration. Not planning for it; the future a fiction to the walker. And likewise the past. The shape and detail of it lost. Its wisdom carried lightly.

A stork flying low and close. Pale horses and trees half lost in red-flowering fields. Old folk walking slowly through forsaken villages. A winding, gently undulating earthen track through the Dehesa, an ancient, interdependent system of farming that links production to nature conservation and sustainable rural communities. Oak trees pruned to maximise the growth of acorns to feed the black Iberian pigs that produce the highly-prized jamón ibérico. Cork trees harvested every nine years. Hunting rights sold to wealthy town dwellers, the hunt set up for success. Grazing animals. Mushroom and honey gathering. The rock roses kept in check. A wildlife habitat for the endangered Iberian lynx and the Spanish imperial eagle. The balance between living off the land and the land maintaining its nature is a delicate one. A centuries-old pas de deux.

Fuente la Lancha, the smallest village in the province of Córdoba and home to the ‘restless’ Virgin of Guía who is celebrated with elaborate rituals and ceremonies on the first of May. Whitewashed houses with grey granite door jambs. Broom, bright yellow in the midday sun. Small top-knot pigeons. Bronze-winged birds of prey. The days are in the low to mid-20s now, the breeze picking up each afternoon and bringing in the red dust from Africa. The church towers of Hinojosa del Duque a haven for storks; the strange clicking and clattering of beaks tell of a mating season in full swing. Enjoying a vermouth in the sun at a plaza bar while children kick footballs to and fro and the town settles into the evening. Two small boys practise for an upcoming religious festival; one boy trying out his toy drum and the other his bright blue cardboard penitent’s hat. We’re the only pilgrims in town, the whereabouts of the others we met two nights ago in Villaharta a mystery. Paco keeps us posted on the state of the waymarking and the condition of the track; he is currently a day’s walk ahead of us.

A wild storm last night. Electrifying lightning, thunder and hail for an hour and then stillness, all fury spent. An early start this morning. The earth’s shadow fading, the waxing moon setting. The twittering of a thousand small birds and the ever-present, far-carrying, onomatopoeic cry of the hoopoe bird. Largely silent out of the breeding season, the male hoopoe sings for long periods in the spring, marking his territory and duelling with rivals.

Country lanes and byways. Rolling plains of wheat giving way to holm and cork oaks. Rocky outcrops and distant hills. The keep of the Belalcázar de la Serena castle visible to the north. The shadow of an eagle passing low over us. Step-stoning across rivers, past the abandoned Zújar railway station, across rail tracks and on to Rio Zújar, the boundary between Andalucía and Extremadura.

Carnival trucks with their gaudy loads on the move. Wildflower verges softening the blow of walking eight kilometres on a tarred road in building heat. The town of Monterrubio de la Serena shuttered for siesta. There’s nobody at all on the streets and all its bars are closed. A 16th-century church, noble houses, Renaissance architecture. We wander and wait. From early evening onwards the Plaza España is lively with old men shuffling cards, young mothers showing their newborns to the village, children playing and elderly señoras with hair as coiffed as a matador’s felt hat drinking vermouth and commenting on all they see. We share a meal with Peter, a Swiss walker and the only other stranger in town. He’s not religious but is passionate about the culture and the traditions of the Camino and considers himself part of an enriching global community of pilgrims.

Into wilder country. Clouds sitting on the mountains to the east and a long day ahead of us. Hilltop villages bright in the morning light. Stone forts and castles on rocky outcrops high above the villages. River flats, waterholes and a bird as bright as a rainbow bee-eater. A hoopoe bird on a wire, the first we’ve actually seen, its distinctive crown of feathers a thrill. The town of Casteura visible from afar then lost to us for what seems like hours. Into town and out again on the Vereda del Camino de Don Benito. Sheep bells and the wind whispering through the broom plants are the afternoon’s music. A track silver with mica. Grazing country. A man out training his hunting dogs. Large whitewashed houses on ridge lines looking out across expanses of ploughed land and rolling fields of wheat. The steppes of Extremadura.

Following the rail line, past Quintana de la Serena station where workers are erecting a marquee for a fiesta this coming May Day long weekend. A mass of yellow and white daisies. Deep mauve wildflowers as tall as the waist-high grasses. A dead eucalypt with tiers of stork nests, all inhabited by nesting birds or mating couples. The clattering of entwined beaks. Then the boom, crash-opera of a granite quarry. An older disused quarry filled with water; a refuge for migratory birds. The town of Companerio, preparing for its own fiesta. Us grateful for a seat in the shade and a cold beer after our 40-kilometre walk.

A message from Paco to say he is at the municipal Albergue on the outskirts of town, just a kilometre away. When we arrive, the Albergue is in consternation. Paco has discovered that due to April fairs and the May Day long weekend, the closest available accommodation tomorrow night is 60 kilometres away, too far to walk in a day for all but the most heroic of pilgrims. After a futile couple of hours trying to find an alternative, we give up, wander back into town and bask in the last warmth of the day. By 10 pm the plaza is buzzing. The fiesta is the biggest cultural event of the year and attracts a throng of smartly turned-out locals and people who grew up here and come back for the weekend. The patron saint, a 16th-century virgin, is paraded through town accompanied by a brass band and hundreds of festive followers. The mayor makes a long speech from the balcony of the town hall. Remarkably the gathering listens attentively to her. At the end, there is applause and cries of Viva! Viva! as fireworks shoot up above the crowd. Later, everyone wanders off to the carnival that is set up next door to our Albergue. There is much eating, drinking, rollercoastering and dancing. The noise dies off around 6 am. By then we are up and readying ourselves for an uncertain day.

The sky, a joy. Rolling plains of wheat, an ocean of soft green in the pale, early morning light. White horses grazing on the steppes. Storks out hunting for food. Past the La Mata archaeological site, which is unfortunately closed to visitors on the weekends. Herodotus wrote about a vanished city, Tartessos, that was home to the earliest known civilisation west of the Mediterranean. There’s evidence at La Mata of this city and the kingdom that emerged in the Guadalquivir River valley in the early part of the 9th century BC. It enjoyed a reign of 300 years of splendour before it was inexplicably extinguished.

Past abandoned mine pitheads to the mythical-like village of Magacela. Built high up on the top of a hill, its 16th-century castle and dazzling white houses can be seen from many kilometres away. A place of neolithic dolmen tombs, cave paintings and Roman, Arab and Christian places of worship built on the site of a prehistoric settlement.

Signs cautioning drivers to watch out for the Iberian lynx. Walking at a solid pace through La Haba and on to Don Benito. The tourist office is closed because of the holiday weekend and the long walk through the city to the bus station confirms Paco’s intelligence about the lack of accommodation: it’s a long weekend, there’s a big society wedding on, there’s First Communion, it’s Spain etc. Worse than that, there are no buses due to a strike. We want to walk on to Medellin to see the town where Hernán Cortes was born but Paco wants to catch a taxi to the Albergue in San Pedro de Mérida and we owe him this much.

We arrive to find the Albergue locked and not even the Guardia Civil able to suggest how we might obtain the key. Despondent, we walk to the main road and find a hotel that has vacant rooms and a dining room that serves food all day. We calm ourselves with a drink. The afternoon lengthens, the sky darkens and the dampness in the air turns to rain.   

The sky holding the memory of last night’s rain. Wind blowing across the plains and howling as it hits the highway. Storm light casting our shadows long as we walk through the treeless and abandoned streets of Trujillanos, a wild west town that is a ready-made film set. Paco follows his nose to a street stall selling delicious, sweet, hot churros, perfect journey food for such a bleak day. We buy a bag and as we eat them we are as buoyed as children. The rain holding off. Mérida in our sights.

Past the Roman hippodrome and the aqueduct of San Lazaro and into the old Roman capital, founded in 23 BC and still holding more significant Roman antiquity than any other town in Spain. A Roman Theatre, the impressive National Museum of Roman Art, the spectacular Los Milagros Aqueduct, the Temple of Diana and a graceful 60 arched bridge over the Guadiana River where the Camino Mozarábe meets the Via de la Plata.

Our journey ends here, in an Albergue by the river and close to the Alcazaba, the fortress of the Moors. Bittersweet, like the end of all long walks. For Paco, it’s just a rest stop. He is joining the Via de la Plata tomorrow and walking on to the holy city of Santiago de la Compostela, 753 kilometres to the north.

A drink at a bar in the Plaza de España, the pale sun warming, us wistful because this may be the last time ever that we three gather on a terrace as the day settles. We toast each other and our days on earth together, walking the Camino Mozarábe. Paco tells us in perfect English that he will always hold us in his heart. Before he leaves at dawn the next morning we scramble out of bed, give him a hug and wave until he is out of sight. He has a 40-kilometre day ahead of him. We feel sad and lost. But then we receive a voicemail from Veronica, a Friend of the Camino who we met in Alba, three days into the walk. She congratulates us on finishing the walk, wishes us all that we desire in this life and says that for her we will forever be part of the story of the Camino Mozarábe. Touched by her sincerity and warmth, and grateful for all the Camino has given us, we turn towards the sun and walk into lightness. 

This is the third part of a three-part series on walking the Camino Mozarábe. Click here for Part 1. and here for Part 2.

For more information about this  less-travelled Camino see our article Walking the Camino Mozaraé: 5 things you need to know.