Walking the Mozarabe

LesBrass said:

So I'm just pondering maybe my next big adventure... I can only do a big walk every 2 years and so I'm compiling a sort list... and wondering how the Levante compares to the VdlP?

When I looked at pictures of the VdlP before I walking it, I had a great sense of it being flat with wide wide open spaces. There was a bit of this for sure but lots and lots of bumpy stuff in between. When I look at photos of the Levante I see again lots and lots of flat but I'm wondering if, like the VdlP, the Levante has lots of other stuff too?

p.s. I liked the bumpy bits inbetween

Also there was so much amazing history on the Via and so many towns and cities to discover... is the Levante similiar?

Many thanks in advance for any guidance.

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If you like bumpy you should have a look at the Camino Mozarabe. A tough camino but very satisfying to do, at least for us as we are late sixties.. There is a short video on Youtube we made called "Mozarabe with dumb things". Dumb things is the music accompaniment but it reflects my thoughts about us doing it at the hottest time of the year, But well worth doing - I think only about 3 to 400 hundred a year do it so not a lot of company and you need some Spanish.

We did the Mozarabe in June. Saw no other peregrinos at all and the ones we saw in the Albergue books had been thorugh a couple of weeks before. We had originally planned to do it late April May but we had to delay for family reasons. We made a considered decision to do it in on the basis that if it was too hot we would give it away - which we did in Cordoba.June was very hot, mid to upper 30's a lot of the time and 46 on the day we got to Cordoba. Having said that it was still worth doing and we really enjoyed it retrospectively- we had to adjust with 5.am starts most days to beat the heat. That also made for a bit of a problem in finding Albergues as we would arrive at destinations in that 2.pm to 4.pm siesta time with no one to ask for direction. Only had one day where we went wrong and that was the day we walked to Quentar (I think). It was a long, isolated and difficult stretch.We almost ran out of water and the stage was very strenuous with a difficult cut up path and lots of up and down. I think all up it was about a 10-11 hour day. Overall quality of the Alburgues was good and we only stayed in one private (apart from Grenada) and that was one in the photo. Great location except the town hall clock was close and rang the hour EVERY hour. One thing that it did teach both of us that we are doing now for next trip is to improve our glute muscles for all the up and down otherwise the legs take all the strain. Phsysio tells us that unless you train your glutes to kick in the legs start to take over But that is another topic. Laurie love reading your posts on all the caminos you have done.

peregrina2000 said:

Since there are so few threads on the Mozarabe, I have moved this off LesBrass' Levante thread to make a new one. Great video!

Looks to me like you stayed in some apts, were they Airbnb or what? And how hot was it? Like you, I will always walk in long pants and long sleeve shirts (maybe all of us geezers in our late 60s do that).

I will be, fingers crossed, walking the Mozarabe from Almeria in April, 2018. I was thinking about starting in 2017 in mid May, but people told me that was crazy -- when did you start? I love walking in springtime for the colors, so I'm hoping that an April departure will be the sweet spot.

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It was June for us which was really too late.
We had planned for late April early May but other things got in the way.

No you should be fine. We started late May and went into June and it was getting hot then but apart from a couple of days not overly so. The one leg that we had difficulty with was the day before we got to Granada when we finished at Quentar. That was a long day and no stops or water on the way so you need to be well stocked up for that. Some long and fairly difficult up down stretches and a seriously degraded path in the latter part coming down out of the hills into Quentar. Great little private Alburge in Quentar at the top of the town as you come in.

Dougyharry said:

No you should be fine. We started late May and went into June and it was getting hot then but apart from a couple of days not overly so. The one leg that we had difficulty with was the day before we got to Granada when we finished at Quentar. That was a long day and no stops or water on the way so you need to be well stocked up for that. Some long and fairly difficult up down stretches and a seriously degraded path in the latter part coming down out of the hills into Quentar. Great little private Alburge in Quentar at the top of the town as you come in.

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Oh forgot to say it did get warm about mid-day onwards so we did tend to start out as early as possible say around 6am. Saw Peregrina 2000's post and I still think early mid May ( on our experience) is ok. You just have to adjust your walking and carry plenty of water. I think the only issue with May is no other peregrinos or peregrinas so a fairly lonely walk if you like company. However it is not a heavily travelled camino from what we could see in the guest books so you do have to like the solitary life.