Day 10 - Resting in Jerez

Very early this morning we took the decission to rest in Jerez for the day.  One of my blisters had been playing up a lot and I felt it would be impossible to walk on it for what is a fairly long trek to our next destination, El Cuervo (about 18 miles).  We have been treating the blister today and even managed to do a bit of walking around the town.  I feel confident to continue tomorrow.

It has been a very hot 34C day and we expect more of the same tomorrow.  We intend therefore to start at around 6.00 a.m. to try to avoid the midday heat.
Our walk around Jerez today took in the Alcazar, the Cathedral, the Old Town Hall and some of the Sherry "Bodegas".  We even found time for a glass of our favourite dry sherry, "Fino La Ina".

We could stay here forever but fortunately the "Camino" beckons.  It has been interesting to note that at practically every church we visit to have our "credencial" stamped, the local priest knows the Bishop of Gibraltar, Charles Caruana to whom they refer to affectionately as "Don Carlos".  In the Cathedral we found a statue of St James, tucked away in a small chapel.

For the next three to four days we have long treks ahead of up to 20/22 miles.  We will need to carry extra water as it will be very hot so today we forwarded some of our things to the Poste Restante in Seville.  We hope our package is going to be there when we arrive!


Ana Maria and I have been receiving a huge number of emails every day and we apologise to those who have written, for not replying.  We are normally so tired at the end of each day that writing the blog is about all we can manage.  We are carrying a splendid but very small laptop and loading photos is a very time consuming exercise. It also has a very small screen and sometimes it is difficult to see where we have made typing errors. The blog system we are using does not have a spellcheck facility so please excuse our errors!


But please carry on emailing us or leaving comments on the blog.  We find it quite comforting to know that people care and are following our progress. 

Our walking poles cause much hilarity as we walk into small villages in particular.  The children come and say "where did you leave your skis....or.....have you lost your way, there´s no snow here!"  Robert has been heard to swear under his breath once or twice!

Towards the end of each day we have taken to humming military marches, reminding Robert of his military service with the Gibraltar Regiment.  This enables us to stop shuffling our feet and pick up some sort of tempo as we walk our final couple of miles each day.  To anyone seeing or hearing us we must look like two demented fools! (no comments, please!)......escort to the keys, eyes right.....left, left, left right left......