We start the day well, with a hearty Spanish hotel breakfast. We are not in such a hurry to leave today, as we don't need to break up the tent. We also 'only' have a 24-kilometer stage to the next campsite planned. We are on the road again at a quarter to nine and walk out of the centre of Huelva. Having walked eastwards from Sagres until here, we now turn south to Tarifa, which is about a good 250 kilometers away. Huelva turned out to be a beautiful city last night. It can be seen that it's an old, prosperous port city. With around 150,000 inhabitants, it's also the largest city we encountered. Besides being a port city, there is also a lot of industry in the south of the city, including steel and chemical industries. This is supplied with water by the canal we walked along for most of yesterday. Today, we walk along this industry for most of the day. In the beginning still along a nicely landscaped boulevard, later along a busy road. The gigantic, old buildings with a jumble of conveyor belts, pipelines and cooling towers of the steel industry are quite ugly, but also have something fascinating about them. All the way to the Rio Tinto bridge, we walk past these buildings. Just before walking onto the bridge, we pass a large monument to Columbus.
It claims Columbus' departure in 1492 from this port to find India via the west. They are now renovating the area around the monument, but Columbus stands stately. The road across the bridge is a large four-lane road with guard rails and a railway line on the other side. It takes some searching, but on the monument side, a narrow strip of 70 centimeters or so has been left free to walk, between the guard rails and fence. At the road signs, I only just fit sideways, with the tent on my backpack. It's the bridge to Spain's largest chemical industrial park. So it's a coming and going of trucks across this bridge. They thunder past us at high speed, less than a meter away. What violence! Arrived safely on the other side of the bridge, we walk onto the chemical site, along long wide roads and past big white silos and gigantic warehouses. This site is a lot newer than the industry on the other side of the bridge and thankfully a lot quieter in terms of traffic.
We walk on the asphalt and where possible on the verge to make it a bit softer on our feet. We pass trucks that are being loaded or unloaded, with the drivers working or chatting near the cars. We feel pretty out of place with our backpacks, among the industry and activity. At the very end of this area is a large port with ferries to the Canary Islands. There we shall leave the industrial estate and walk onto the beach, for the last kilometers through the dunes and across the beach to Mazagón where the campsite is. From a large junction, it's another 5 kilometers along a straight four-lane road, until past the port. On one side there are still giant sheds, on the other a fence. We don't really mind this at first, because behind the fence is a nature reserve and these are often cordoned off with fences. But towards the end, the fences are still there, and cameras are attached every 100 metres, with signs that trespassing in this area can result in a fine of up to €30,000. Aww, that doesn't look good. We hope in vain that a road or path passes by the port, but it is all too well cordoned off. There's no one to be seen at the entrance gates, so after sitting down with our rucksacks for a while, we sling them back on. We walk the 5 kilometers back to the junction and 100 metres inland along a busy road again, this time in the direction of Mazagón. This makes the stage a big 30 kilometers. Mind's off and just put one foot in front of the other... We stop every now and then to have a drink or eat an apple and we are glad when we can finally get off the road, into the dunes. It immediately feels much better for the legs. Amazing how much energy you get from walking through nature, after such a long stretch on tarmac! It's still about 7 kilometers to go, so we take a quick last (and actually first real) break and then 2 more hours of hiking. It's a little after six o'clock when we arrive at the campsite, which turns out to be a real gem! We pitch our tent with an amazing ocean view. During our evening meal, we see the lights of the ships bobbing on the water. A brilliant end to this rather bizarre stage. Tomorrow we'll take a day off...
