After a day's rest, we're ready for five more stages to Mérida. The highlight of Monesterio turned out to be a viewpoint a few hundred meters outside the village, but otherwise it remained pretty quiet on Sunday. We stayed in a neat, new apartment complex and we enjoyed it. Today's stage is not a very long one, but we're out and about by dawn. A few village streets further and we can already turn right past sports fields into nature. The villages always have pretty little squares with palms or ficus, and the streets often have orange trees on which oranges are now hanging, but the villages are mostly very built-up and white. The houses are white, the pavements are usually white tiled and the streets are often narrow to provide as much shade as possible and keep out the heat in summer. But as soon as you walk out of the villages, you are immediately in nature. Just like today. After the last houses and a hotel, we soon walk along a stream with green grass and croaking frogs. Over dusty wide paths between stone walls, with old oaks on the hills and green grass in the meadows, with horses and foals, cows with calves and black pigs. The hoopoe and the cuckoo seem to fly along with us again. It's a golden morning.
We walk through the last foothills of sierra Morena. The landscape is still hilly here, but will soon flatten as we enter the southern side of 'Meseta Central' or the 'central plateau'. After walking for about 5 kilometers through this beautiful green landscape, the meadows quickly turn more yellow and dry. We are on the last hill before the plain and the ground here is bone dry. Beautiful how even here, flowers among the yellow grass still find the strength to 'shine'. The purple and blue of the plantain snakeweed stands out among the sandy colours. In some places, it looks almost desert-like. After 10 kilometers, we take a break on the final slope, with a magnificent view over the plain. The meadows of the formerly green hills give way to patches of land with grain, young sunflowers and ploughed fields. Farmers are busy at work. From here, 10 kilometers further, we can already clearly see the village where we'll sleep tonight. And very far away, against the hills on the other side of this plain, we can already see the town where we will arrive tomorrow, another 25 kilometers away. Nice overview ;-)
Walking along the farmlands after the break, we see big differences between the fields. Some are quite green, others are pitch-dry. On large stretches, you cannot imagine that anything is still growing, while a little further on, the cows are grazing on fresh green grass again. This huge contrast can sometimes even be seen between the left and right sides of the road. An old man sits on a stone along the path, leaning on a walking stick, with a border collie next to him and 9 sheep in front, looking for some green grass. It looks wonderfully easy. That's how simple life can be. We feast our eyes here on the plain. Ideally, we would like to stop every ten meters to take pictures, but it's also nice to arrive on time in Fuente de Cantos. The place name means 'singing fountain', perhaps we will find it this afternoon. The stage runs quickly and we arrive in the village around half past one. The hotel is all the way on the other side, but we get there in 15 minutes, so if there is a fountain, we'll find it soon. The hotel is very nice though. Having already slept in a castle and a monumental town house this trip, tomight we're staying in a former factory. Classically furnished with machines and old ornaments, and the complex contains a disco, a cinema and a restaurant. What a great place. We go have a quick lunch and then look for the fountain!
