Wow, what a great day. Up for breakfast when it opened - 7am bright eyes and bushy tailed.
In the car and on the road at 8:00am, heading south. We initially started on the motorway but got bored so headed onto smaller and smaller roads till we thought we were on private farm roads, but we weren't.
We could see a big storm coming in over the mountains and it looked a bit ominous so we headed back to the motorway and came down towards our next couple of nights accommodation. We randomly stopped at a look out and meet some lovely folk - Colin and Marilyn from near Newcastle in the UK, they lived in the area for 9 years and were a fountain of information on the birds and other wildlife in the Extramandura. We ran into them again at 'the rock' or Desalto del Gitano - real name in Spanish, where we spend some time learning about the the local birds of prey. We later found out that Colin Sutherland is a world expert on birds of prey, how lucky were we to just start talking to them.
We needed some lunch so travelled the extra 45 Kms to Trujillo for lunch, we were very surprised what was there, had a lovely lunch, and took some photos.
Time to head back and find our accommodation, we are reasonably sure we saw it on our way to Trujillo and we were right. Up a road through a lovely big fence, and about 4-5kms from there we found the beautiful farm house. Carmel met us at the gate and showed us to a very nice room, with our own fire place. The building is quite amazing. Will take pictures in the daylight and show you tomorrow.
A little walk around, a glass of lovely red wine and some home made chorizo and we are starting to relax.
Dinner is not till 8:30pm but with the wine and chorizo and a late lunch we should make it. She has offered us, Tomato Soup, then Venison and rice with homemade icecream for desert... And she is going to lay a fire in the fireplace.
I am sitting here writing this to a chorus of bird calls, sheep, chicken and cow noises and no one car noise to be heard. It is going to be very very dark here at night I think.
After a couple of long days driving we have made up our minds that 6 hours into Lisbon and another 6 or more hours to get back out that we are not going anymore. I cancelled the accommodation there, and booked a nice place in Trujillo - above. To have the time to really look around, long lunch etc, then 2 more nights at Cordoba, on our way to Granada to meet with David and Pam. This will be about 2 hours Trujillo to Cordoba and then again to Granada. A much more suitable plan to encourage some relaxing.
