Day 8: Chinchilla del Monte Aragón - La Gineta
An easy stage made hard.
The "natural" stage should have finished in Albacete, the most populated town of the whole big region of Castilla La Mancha, after 16 kms. from Chinchilla.
..but i wanted to walk some more, as this morning i was FEELING GOOD under every point of view
("(...)
Scent of the pine you know how I feel
Oh freedom is mine
And I know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good (...)
").
Besides:
-Albacete is possibly the least interesting town to visit in the whole Spain and i didn't need, nor like, to stay in a rather big city, today;
-despite of the size of the town, Albacete misses an Albergue de Peregrinos:
taking that all into account, i left early in the morning, had my first breakfast in my hostal in Chinchilla and a second (light) one 3 hours later, in the first bar i met in Albacete, and then i went through the city in the direction of La Gineta.
I met a very strong and fresh wind all across the day, because the weather was very changeable but i was lucky to be spared from the rain that i saw falling here and there around me by the sparse clouds in the sky.
It must have been a big luck also because this stage could be hard with high T°, as the opportunities to find some shadow are very low.
I also must add that i've never walked against such a strong wind yet, in my 9 years of Caminos: something that made today's stage rather tiring.
During my way i was overtaken by 2 pilgrims on bike: by their accent when we quickly greeted each other i guess they were anglo-saxon-ish...
:-D
The whole stage lacks of shadow, almost completely.
There are 2 black spots between Albacete and La Gineta, where waymarking is not clear:
1) about 11 kms before La Gineta there is a Y-shaped split, where once there was an arrow fastened on a pole, but they fell down and are no more readable; the left branch of the "Y" passes by a farm close by, but us pilgrims have to take the right branch: just 100 mts. after taking that branch we are awarded by small group of low trees that can offer a little shadow in the hottest days ( this spot reminded me the poem "The road not taken" by Robert Frost);
2) afterwards, after a veeeeery broad S-shaped part of the Camino, we get to a X-shaped crossing with no indications: the doubt is wheter going left or straight ahead (the 3rd option takes us visibly back to Albacete): GO STRAIGHT AHEAD!!
I had no problems just because i had the map and the route to follow on my smartphone.
IMPORTANT!
In La Gineta there is a new accomodation for pilgrims (formerly hosted in the polideportivo): it's a small building with 3 rooms, located between the barracks of "Guardia Civil" and a soccer field, in the westernmost and newest part of La Gineta; the rooms are actually the locker rooms of the soccer field but they seem to be used mostly by pilgrims (the soccer field appears to be in bad conditions and hardly used).
Each room has a separate entrance (and different doorkeys...) and its private toilet with a shower; each room can fit up to 2 hosts sleeping on mats put directly on the floor, so we have a total amount of 6 places.
If you plan to sleep in the albergue in La Gineta you'd better get to the local Ayuntamiento (city hall) before 2 P.M. in order to collect the keys: a french pilgrim starting today from Albacete did it while me, coming later because of my long stage, found everything closed (ayuntamiento, local police, polideportivo) and had to ask people in the village on how to get in touch with someone helping me enter the albergue (i didn't know yet there was already the french pilgrim around).
I could solve the problem just calling a private phone number someone in the village gave me (it was the vice-mayor's number) and using my good knowledge of spanish (yes: us italians and spaniards are close cousins!)
Please notice: despite having left behind my formers companions, even tonight i met a new pilgrim!
;-)
"You'll never walk alone" !
(anthem of the supporters of Liverpool football club)
