This Makes No Sense At All

I forget (block out?),  over time, the more trying aspects of a trip. Unless, of course, it was so terrible that I have a story to tell at appropriate occasions. We have a story to tell for part of this route, that I will hold for another time, or possibly never tell. However.... We are blessed (that word has religious overtones, but I just mean an earlier, intelligent set of voters), with a vast system of regional parks, home to coyotes, foxes, mountain lions, raptors, rattlesnakes, newts, spittle bugs and beetles, to name a few. Berkeley was the scene of radical politics in the 60s, and those matured radicals still have a positive effect on their local environment, though the fuddy-duddys are gaining. I digress. The Ohlone Wilderness Trail has a segment between Del Valle Regional Park and Sunol Regional Park that is about twenty miles long. Starting from Del Valle, at about 750 feet elevation, it is ten miles to Maggie's Half Acre campsite at elevation 3480. This is by any st...

The name was exotic, and southern Spain was unknown and beckoning. We didn't quite throw a dart at a map, but similar. It was a pilgrimage route in Europe, the length was right, we had the time. If we could deal with the heat we could do it, so number one priority was to start early enough in the year. I documented the planning in an earlier blog entry: Camino Mozárabe - Planning - a work in progress    At first we picked April 17 as a start date in Granada. Then I reread James Michener's Iberia  - Easter is a huge deal in Granada, no chance of finding reasonable accommodations at this late date, plus it would be crazy to be there at Easter and then leave without experiencing the whole Easter week. So, we moved the date to April 27th. Got to Málaga saw a few sights, slept, and caught the bus to Granada. Pouring rain on the bus, but just showers by the time we arrived around noon. Into the hotel to drop our stuff and then out. Found where the Camino Mozárabe...

I often find myself photographing the old and broken down, but it requires a number of years of aging to get the proper amount of rust, enough broken windows, or whatever symbolizes the conquest of nature over our small efforts. We are in that cautious hiking stage where a trip is soon enough that we don't have time to heal if we do serious hurt to ourselves through improvident exertions. A couple of weeks ago we did the falls loop on Mt. Diablo and managed to stress Susan's knees, so since then have kept walking, but on flatter terrain. This walk was through Round Valley Preserve, a ranch purchased by an Irish immigrant, Thomas Murphy, in 1873, and finally sold by his grandson in 1988 to the East Bay Regional Park District for open space. Our route kept to the valley floor, just right for healing knees. Here and there as we passed along, were rusty pieces of farm equipment, sitting or fallen in their place of last use. Some examples: There were of course, numerous f...

Feb 2015 update. There is now an excellent pdf guide online: https://www.caminomozarabedesantiago.es/documentos/guia-eng.pdf May 24, 2011 - update. We finished trip early at Córdoba due to knee problems. I did a trip report blog: Camino Mozárabe Images and Moments 2011 . Also, I'll add some comments below as to the reality of the trip. A running chronology of my planning process might help others. I am still doing this, so can't guarantee results. We don't have photos yet, so courtesy of Wikipedia, here is one of Mérida, our end point. This route starts at Granada, and joins the Via de la Plata at Mérida. First step, guide books. We have Alison Raju's Via De La Plata which covers Camino Mozarabe, but it is 2005, so ordered the Confraternity of St. James 2009 guide by Alison. As I check Amazon, I now see that Alison has a 2010 Cicerone Guides for DLP , but too late, I've already ordered the CFSJ Guide. ## we got the Cicerone Guide, and mainly used it, though...

Friday evening, we walked a few yards with friends, sat on a bench, sipped hot beverages from our insulated cups, and watched the sun go down over San Francisco Bay. The still of the evening seemed to mute the city noises, and it was just the flat bay, ducks in the foreground, in the far distance a freighter. For a few moments the peace brought me back to memories of sitting by lagoons in Baja California, seeing whales break the surface, and sometimes hearing their moaning calls. No peace now in Baja, but that's a different subject. The day before, we walked around our neighborhood for an hour, finding new routes, new yard art, and some Christmas displays still out. One I liked gave sincerity to a plastic Jesus. We live in an area formerly serviced by trolleys, trains and street cars, all supplying San Francisco with workers. Houses were up in the hills, transportation down in the canyons, so there were paths, stairways down to to the transport. Many of these are gone now, sinc...