Day 85

Day 85- Villamajor to Viana - 31 km
Great Dutch style breakfast before heading off on a beautiful morning. Down hill on broad gravelly paths, thru farmland. Cool start but it soon warms up. Undulating landscape then into Los Arcos where we meet the local band making sure last nights revellers are now awake. It's 10am & yesterday they had bull running thru the town. Many are still dressed in the red & white. Leaving Los Arcos we can soon see the next village of Sansol across on a hilltop. It takes an hour to reach it with the last steep climb in full sun. We pass mountains of stacked hay and pass thru vineyards. There are old gnarled olive trees above the path as well as almonds & blackberries which I help myself to on the way by. From Sansol we descend around the hill , across a steam then again climb steeply to the old stone buildings and Knights Templar church of Torres del Rio. We take our lunch before heading off along the hot and dusty trail, winding our way thru hills, past stone cairns, thru pine forests - up & down. Sometimes so steep we have switchbacks one after the other. Finally we reach the Borgia gate and enter Viana. Here we check into the municipal refuge and are assigned a bed. Later we string a line between 2 trees to get somewhere to hang the washing. Dinner is tapas with Shona from South Africa and Isabel from Germany.