Chapter 29: Laguna de Castilla to Filoval

We started our day halfway up the mountain, I’ll be honest with you, that was the best possible move. It was so much easier than going all the way up from the bottom. Can you imagine having to climb 7 kms up at 8 am just because you decided that was how life was gonna be that day? Me either.

As we ascended, the hills kept getting worse, but we were pretty self congratulatory. When we eventually reached the top, we had views that were truly spectacular.

Gary found the hilltop village quite incredible, so we stopped for coffee and began our descent shortly afterwards. That part was stunning. Truly, it was stunning.

The paths were clear, and well paved, and we made our way through to more farm country, past a massive statue of a man caught in a windstorm.

From there we had one last massive hill. Our trusty app told us it was about 3 kms before we could get food, and so this hill surprised us with a restaurant at the top, and…well…chickens.

As it turns out….I hate chickens. I have never been so close to them…and my tolerance for them is minimal. There were a bunch if hens and one rooster…and I hated every second of them being around. They’re huge, they’re jarring and unpredictable, and their movements are sudden and lack purpose. I don’t like them. Gary thought this was hilarious.

From there it was a pretty walk down the mountain. Admittedly, I was happy we were heading downward. The terrain was good, and it seemed to be no more uphill from there.

The last bit of our day was spent arguing between the three of us which of the 7 towns we could see from the top of the hill would be Filoval.

When we finally did arrive in Filloval, we were all wrong. None of us picked correctly and we were all pretty tired. We had a brief moment of panic that Becky might have lost her bag after checking into the Albergue, and then caught a beautiful dinner before heading to bed. It was a long hot day, but dammit, we did well. More to update tomorrow! Thanks for reading!