Our generous Albergue host invited us to join him for a delightful breakfast of dry crisp bread, tepid coffee and warm flattened croissants – we can only assume these we’re prepared by him sitting on them whilst reading the morning paper.

It was still dark when we left Zafra, followed closely by the three tuneful German pilgrims who were ( according to Dr John) singing German marching songs.

With the Germans voices ringing in our ears, we began to reminisce and think back on some amusing Camino moments of the past 3 years.
High up on the list were some funny incidents involving Pilgrim Geoff, who sadly could not be with us on this weeks walk.

….just for the record – here is an extract from the Camino Frances blog back in October 2014 where we had another ‘close encounter of the German kind’ instigated by Pilgrim Geoff – since promoted to head of the diplomatic core.

“In the spirit of Camino, we shared a few beers at a local bar overlooking the Castle with our new Peligrino friends Jim (from Ireland) and Christina (from Germany)
On an empty stomach and with two large beers downed in quick succession we were soon all very comfortable debating various ‘Knotty’ topics and building on our strong German – Anglo – Irish alliance.
Geoff (our groups diplomatic leader) chose to kick things off by covering the merits of gas chambers …was it AEG who built them? He asked 
……Hmmmmmm ‘Awkward’

Richard shouted “Pause button Geoff Pause button” pushing his finger on the table at an imaginary button – strangely he thought this would have some effect , but by now Geoff was in full flow and had progressed to the exploits of German fighter pilots and how they recorded the number of British planes shot down in World War Two.
This somewhat lively discussion led by Geoff thankfully did not result in a real diplomatic ‘incident’ but did in fact knock down any cultural barriers that may have remained – with a sledge hammer !”

Back now to today – where we covered another 23 Km of the Via de la Plata .

Arriving early afternoon at Villafranca de los Barrros , we had plenty of time to shop and enjoy some of Richards delicious home cooking whilst listening to Abba.

Richard, having great difficulty lighting the oven , called in Davin (our head of Camino technical support) to assess the situation. As you would expect Davin quickly spotted that it was in fact an electric oven that Richard was attempting to light!

Another early night – off to bed now, time for the rhythmic sounds of pilgrim snoring.