The Road from Santiago

  Today is a day of bypassing a lot of places as we head out east. We won’t do them all in detail but you might get a snippet or two. Our first hilltop town is Cuevas de Almunden.  It had a town wall and a still has a Baroque church. Its coat of arms proclaims ‘Liberty, Progress, Administration.’ I think this is a very liberal call to arms.  We will overthrow the tyrants, but let's not get carried away.  Currently 119 people live there. Once several hundred did.  The current council https://www.cuevasdealmuden.es/ seems to be in the hands of the Chunta Argonesista. The party , according to wiki ‘ They co nsider themselves influenced by the experiences of the socialist movement, the movements for social and national emancipation, and ecopacifist , feminist, and humanist currents . They have been vocal in their opposition to any transfer of water from the Ebro Ri v er to other basins. ’  The mayor is Jose Luis Gresa  Juste. Some highlights from the GS...

  For most of today we will be walking along the road, gazing at the fields, and so let us have some more untranslatable Spanish terms. Resol - the reflection of the sun off a surface or the glare of the sun. Recogerse. To go indoors in the evening once the day is over. Estrenar - to wear something for the first time or to break it in. Merendar - going out for a snack, coffee or a small meal. Sobremesa. The conversation at the dinner table after the meal is over. Mezquita de Jarque has much the same History as many places around here. Around 300 souls till the 1960s. Today it has 83. The GSH says ‘ MEZQUITA DE JARQUE: Village with town hall in the province and diocese of Teruel (9 leagues),. It is situated on the left bank of the Mezquita or Jarque stream; with a somewhat cold climate , pleurisy and pneumonia being the most common illnesses. It consists of about 50 houses , including the town hall, distributed along narrow streets and a square; it has a jail, a boys' school atte...

It is a day of the cross country. We will possibly take an old railway line - the broken bridge suggests it.  We will see snow fences by the road and the sharp contrast of green irrigated fields and scrub land.  Apart from that we better look at the date. 30th October. The 30th is a key day in the History of Iberia. A Castilian-Portuguese force defeated the Marinids at the Battle of Salado. The Almohads had been kicked out of Iberia and then fallen to the Berber Banu Marin [aka Marinids] tribe. The Marinids invaded and were brought to battle by the Alfonsos - XI of Castile and IV of Portugal. The home teams won. In 1520 Hernan Cortes wrote his Second Letter of Relation.   He began by saying he was sorry he hadn’t written from some time. He reported the  sinking of the ships to prevent desertions by Velázquez's followers. He describes the riches of the State of Culúa -, whose subjugation to the Spanish Crown is the main objective. He reported on the expedition se...