Before anyone says anything – yes, I know Olmos de Atapuerca isn’t on the Camino.

It ‘almos’ is though (ha ha ha) and apparently it used to be – the reason the route changed is unclear (to me).

The reason we walked an extra 2.8 Km at the end of the day was entirely due to a communication error.

When you are sat across the kitchen table in Wales, on a wet, dark, cold evening, ‘almost’ can totally sound like ‘Olmos’.

“Will almost by Atapuerca be a good place to stay?” “… yeah sounds fine”

I completely take the blame, and have been suitably punished.

Let’s move on.

The 4 a Day Picture Diary.

Who? Here we are looking happy at the start of a reasonable slog up to almost 1200m.

It was cool enough for a jumper.

What? About 12km of the day was spent walking at about 1100m above sea level.

Just for comparison, Y Wyddfa (Mt. Snowdon), the highest peak in Wales is 1085m.

Lots of the walking was on forest tracks or in a wide fire break between large plantations of Pine trees. There were also plenty of Spanish Oaks.

A nice break from parched fields.

Where? We should have ended up at Atapuerca (near the Atapuerca Mountains).

Spotted on the edge of Atapuerca was a field of standing stones.

Not any sort of Gorsedd Circle or wannabe Stonehenge, but something a bit more interesting.

Atapuerca is the centre of a huge archeological dig looking at the origins of human civilisation.

The stones are part of some experimental archeology the locals get involved in.

From time to time the community raises a stone using ancient techniques.

I so want to have a go at something like this.

“an indestructible bridge between the remote past and the future of our land.”

The Atapuerca stones aren’t just ancient-looking monuments. The inscription on the one above says that it was raised in 1998 in the manner of the prehistoric people of the place — a modern community deliberately recreating an ancient act.

It got me wondering whether Welsh communities might one day want to do the same: raise their own stone, in their own place, by themselves, for their own future.

PS I’m aware there are some already (eg Caerwedros Village Hall, Pembrokeshire) but could we do others?

I can dream…

Bonus pictures first.

Some flowers. These are common all over the pasture land high up.

Apparently the are Colchicum montanum, also known as Snack Catchers, also known as Shepherd Chasers, because they appear in the autumn to signify that Shepherds need to move their animals to lower pastures.

Don’t eat them!

A painting. This was the work of the chap who ran a pop up snack bar out of the back of his car high up in the forest.

Mildly eccentric, but very welcoming and an entertaining break on the walk.

He meets all sorts of Peregrinos (the only people) up there.

And this is his artistic representation:

All very clear stereotypes, including the ‘Zombiegrims’ – people glued to their smartphones.

Why? This is a difficult one to talk about.

I was aware we were going to come to this spot, but it still had a big impact upon me.

It’s the site where 300 people were executed in 1936 for being opponents of Franco.

This is the monument that relatives placed in the 1990s.

I want to say more about it at some point in the future, but two things speak loudly to me: civil war has huge and long lasting impacts and, a mass grave for 104 people is a cruelly small piece of land, nothing like a grand military cemetery.