Andalucia

From Valdepenas I walked through a huge National Park to get to the town of Santa Elena. I left quite late after having a coffee with David so I was walking in the midday heat. Never again. It was so hard, the sun made everything white until I'd go under a bridge or rock and be momentarily blinded in this powerful blue haze. There was some sort of motorcycle rally nearby so there were loads of grease monkeys on the road but it was so beautiful; a really different green to Galicia and with the exposed rock...... I arrived in Santa Elena, had a coke and then went to the only hotel they had which was a sort of hunting lodge, with stags etc. and this sharp young guy manning reception who looked really odd there. I ate tostadas with tinned pate (it tastes better if you don't look at or try and imagine where it's come from) and watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty in bed and was merry. 

Walking to La Carolina was even better, you could describe it as a glen maybe, but I walked and walked through all these trees deep in the valley and it was quite cold. I passed these three guys who were mid cycling up a hill but with great gusto they got off their bikes because they wanted to have a photo with me. Afterwards I felt very happy and listened to Mumford&sons and contemplated making an emotional compilation video of my trip when I'd finished in Almunecar. It would include slide shows, shout outs and the last 1500m of walking I would film myself weeping with joy and pride. I was still stuck on the right music to accompany such a work of narcissism when I realises I'd overshot 

La Carolina by a few kilometers and had to walk back. Then pensiones I found was opened by a woman who was young but hagered looking, with a yellowing complexion and dark eyes, she could have been a corpse bride but she was still in her Mickey Mouse pyjamas. I was shown into my room where every piece of furniture in both the bathroom and bedroom have burn marks on them and my bed sheets were like slices of Swiss cheese, from cigarette shaped holes. I slept and watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty again to cheer myself up and then went out to get food. When I returned I knocked on the woman's door to ask if there was wifi but an old guy answered, and he leaned in heavily as I spoke with eyes like a fat greedy croc. I went to pay in order to get my passport back and was horrified to find it was €25 when I'd seen online that it was €15. The old man said he could give it to me for €15 before lunging at me, which I narrowly managed to avoid. I went back to my room feeling queasy and spent 20 minutes trying to work out how to open my door, there was absolutely no way I was going to ask for help.

Linares was a funny sort of place. There were loads of roller skaters and people dressed smartly and it was kind of what I imagined LA might be like. 5km outside of the city I was wilting in the heat when I guy offered me a lift. He was young and short with a neck tattoo and I made sure I got my valuables out my rucksack before putting it in the boot of his car. When I arrived in the town I beelined towards the nearest cafe where I ate tomatoe on toast and chocolate crepes and felt like a king. Then I found my pensiones which was really nice with a little terrace and I had a bath and forgot it was Sunday so ended up eating a packet of Doritos for dinner and watched enviously as Bear Grills munched his way through a wriggling fresh water Salmon from Alaska. 

From Linares I walked to Bailen and then Andujar where I had to stay in a pretty pricey hotel because the two pensiones I thought I could have stayed in had shut up shop. In the blistering heat all I really wanted was a Maccy D's banana milkshake, and so I walked for twenty minutes like a madman to the outskirts of town. When I got there I had to settle for a strawberry and nana frappe which was disappointing and I watched all the young adolescence sitting outside in their funny, awkward wolf packs which were fraught with sexual tension. Life might get a bit tough sometimes but I am so glad I am not that age anymore; that weird goofy ugly stage, where nobody says what they mean and you just need a drop of alcohol to descend into a weeping heap because nobody understands you. 

Walking to Cordova I lost my path; it literally just stopped, when it had been running alongside the main road quite happily for some time. Between me and the main road was a high fence and on my right the ground sloped sleepily down into an olive grove. Holding onto the fence for support, I traversed precariously along this uneven ground as I knew the path started again in 1500m or so from my mapping app. The gradient went from the sublime to the ridiculous however, and I realized I would need to try and scramble down and walk amongst the olive trees (olive groves are actually really annoying to walk in as the trees aren't grown in lines and the ground is always ploughed awkwardly under foot). At this point however, gravity took holed and I went tumbling down the slope and landed on what looked like it might have been a bonfire. I grabbed at the air to try and get up but my rucksack was holding me down and my chest strap was up round my neck and making my head turn purple. How the mightily fall. I might have contemplated further how my predicament was much like that of the Trex, king of the Jurassic period, impeded by stubby arms, but I looked up and saw the path I wanted and then looked at my arm which was full of thorns and then at my leg which was a bloody, Spartan mess. I think the fall did me good actually, I felt a bit more alive and it also made me feel like I deserved double cream Oreos. And so with the promise of those calorific sandwiches of death at the end of all this suffering, I sped towards my last stop before Cordova and felt hardy.