Don Quijote

I left Toledo for Mora, a small town famous for its olive oil and windmills. I soon discovered 'la ruta de Don Quijote', a well sign posted way which for some reason I thought had something to do with the cheese of the region, even though there were only vines growing around me. It turns out Don Quijote was the protagonist of a famous 17th century Spanish novel called The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quijote of La Mancha. The young nobel becomes so obsessed with chivalric novels that he decides to revive the practice of chivalry with the aid of an earthly squire. So not cheese.

The route managed to weave its way in between the high hills which banked up on either side of me and had little Chutty Chutty Bang Bang windmills perched neatly on top of them. I passed through a village where a man looked at me aghast for wearing a tshirt. 'Its so cold!'. It was 18 degrees.

I was welcomed into my pensiones briskly; 'you're doing the camino' 'haha well, no, actually I'm following the route...' 'These are your keys, your rooms on the right, there's no breakfast'. So not everyone finds me particularly interesting. 

It was around this time that I'd discovered the joys of double cream Oreos. So, holed up in a scabby room with the sound of bar brawls on the floor beneath me, I'd hide under the covers and munch my way through a whole packet. I'm writing this now because so that I don't disappoint everyone with my 'summer bod' bikini shots come Cadiz. That double cream is sitting pretty comfy on my hips. No Regrets.

In Consuegra I had dinner with my family over Skype which was cute. In Villarta de San Juan I stayed in a truckers stop where the owner looked like some sort of Germanic human butcher and I had to fill up on petrol station food because it was Sunday and all the shops were closed. In a town 10km away from Mamzanaras, a family invited me to a three course meal, complete with tiramisu, and then dropped me off at my hostel. Don Quijote would be proud.