We woke up later today since the mornings are now much cooler as it we get into late September. The temperatures still get to the low 80’s (26 Celsius) in the afternoons. When it is over 70 degrees my hiking performance deminishs greatly. So starting early has been a must up until now.
We are deep into farm land now. Except for the grape vineyards, all the fields have been harvested, so we don’t know what was planted there previously except for a few random sunflowers. The sunflower fields must have been beautiful at the height of their season. It is beautiful walking through the rolling hills with fields all around us, but our photos are just not doing justice to what our eyes are seeing, so we’ve slowed down on the photo taking.
With 3 km left to go, we began to climb. For nearly a km we walked steeply through vineyards and harvested hay fields. There was very little shade today. At the very top we spotted a few shaded benches and concrete recliners. I know the description doesn’t sound appealing, but those concrete recliners were so comfortable and appeared at the perfect time. Rex even attempted a little nap.
As we walked into the city of Cirueña, we immediately noticed it had very few services. There were a lot of Se Vente (for sale) signed on apartment buildings and it was eerily quiet. Rex thought it felt post apocalyptic. Had something happened in this town that scared off all its residents? Maybe the one employer in town shut down? It was very strange, but we wound our way through overgrown weedy sidewalks and eventually found our albergue. It looks like we’ll be staying in tonight, since there isn’t anything in town to go explore. We have a private room this time, so hopefully we get a good night’s sleep.
