Camino of Faith: Las Cabezas de San Juan to Utrera

 "When you walk in nature, you walk with the divine.”

Via Augusta Stage 7

Easter Sunday on Camino

Thankfully, our little apartment was very quiet, and we appreciated a much-needed good night's sleep.  This morning made ourselves instant coffee, packed up, and then headed out to the café around the corner to see if it was open for breakfast. It is Easter Sunday, so we weren't too surprised to find that it was not.  As such, we headed back inside and had the croissants and jam that we purchased from the Dia yesterday.

Last night, we made reservations for accommodations in Utrera, knowing that today’s 34 km stage would leave us less eager to navigate the town in the heat of mid-afternoon. While eating breakfast, we received a text from the hostess of tonight’s accommodation, stating that we needed to arrive before 1:30 PM due to her Easter obligations. Shocked, we replied that we would likely not make it on time given the distance we had to walk - only to receive a curt and unfavourable response.

It was yet another reminder that, unlike the well-trodden Camino Francés or Camino Portugués, the Via Augusta is neither widely known nor well developed for pilgrims as of yet. There are fewer walkers, fewer amenities, and less understanding of the rhythm and pace of long-distance walking. Choosing a less established route may spare one from the crowds, but it also comes with the realities of limited options and support.

Discouraged but still hopeful, we set off, heading back toward the Church of Saint Roch, the starting point for today’s stage, ready to embrace the day’s journey despite the uncertainties ahead.

As we followed the yellow arrows out to the edge of town, we were stopped by a very nice old lady pushing a shopping cart.  She began asking us about the Camino and where we were from, and then earnestly began talking about the Via Augusta and the trail association, adding a tone of reverence as she spoke.  We explained that we didn't understand Spanish, but she continued giving likely very important information anyway.  We thought she said she saw two other pilgrims, but we weren't sure when - as it turned out, it may well have been this morning!

Departing Las Cabezas de San Juan

We continued following the arrows out of town and over an overpass.  They then directed us to turn back the way we had come.  Our (now known to be faulty) GPX tracks suggested that we should be following a track beside the highway, but as we crossed over the roadway, we could see the track beside it was extremely overgrown with grass and thistles, and a few meters past the overpass, it became a completely impassable ditch filled with water. 

The arrows directed us down a country lane that we could see ran back towards Las Cabezas de San Juan.  After following it for about 1 km we decided we needed to change course, as we were clearly heading in the wrong direction.  Today is listed as a 34 + km stage, which meant that we couldn't really afford to mess around too much, getting lost and going in circles.

We looked at Google Maps and decided on a course that we believed would intersect with the 'real' Via Augusta in a few kilometres, even though it would require us to walk a few extra kilometres.  We set off down the paved country lane, which took us out to the train station for Las Cabezas.  The track we had spotted on Google Maps turned out not to really exist. 

However, we were able to follow the edge of a field for a concession to pick up another extremely muddy agricultural route instead.  The field we were skirting the edge of was full of workers, presumably out planting this spring's crops, but no one said anything to us.  Thankfully, on the far side of the field, we picked up the Camino arrows again!

Trekking the Countryside

It was an overcast day, and as we walked across the dead flat, agricultural landscape, we could see the rain showers moving across the fields.  It reminded us a lot of walking across the flat expanse of the Canadian prairies on the Trans Canada Trail, only hopefully less endless.  We were extremely grateful that we seemed to move between the showers, and we sent up a silent prayer of thanks to St. Roch for our good fortune. 

We found ourselves walking beside the train tracks for a while, following a gravel path that ran straight as an arrow.  It was easy going, and progress was fast.  Soon, we found ourselves following an old abandoned road that passed over the busy highway below.  We have seen quite a few of these on this walk - overpasses that presumably would have cost millions of dollars to build, but which now are largely unused except by pedestrians, cyclists, and farm equipment. 

Perhaps these bridges were built to ensure farmers had continued access to their land when the highway was built, but it seems like a huge government investment that would provide very little financial return. 

In any case, as we crossed this pedestrian overpass, we were shocked to see two pilgrims behind us on the trail.  They were wearing very bright clothing and using walking poles.  How very exciting, after a week of walking, to finally spot two other pilgrims!!

Trajano Spain

Shortly after this, we arrived in the tiny community of Trajano, and to our delight, there was an open café located right on the edge of town.  Of course, we immediately stopped and were soon sitting outside on the covered patio with two coffees.  We were soon joined by the other two pilgrims, who turned out to be a lovely couple from France.  They had walked several Camino routes previously, including the Chemin de Arles, Paris to Mont-St-Michel and the Camino Norte.  As it turned out, they too were planning to continue on to Santiago after reaching Seville on the Via de la Plata and Camino Sanabrés.  They told us they had met three other pilgrims since leaving Cadiz, which surprised us.  When we asked if they were enjoying their Camino, they hesitated in a way we could sympathize with, and the husband eventually responded, 'It's a bit flat. Many roads.'  

The conversation moved on without further assessment, but their attitude toward the Via Augusta seemed to mimic our own.  It is a nice route; there is more highway walking than we would like, and the majority of it seems to be through flat agricultural regions.  When we look back on our photographs and journals, we realize that despite this initial sense, there has been incredible natural beauty and history along it, but it is of a subtle kind that is easily overlooked if you don't pay attention. 

After our coffee break, we walked through the tiny community of Trajano, which is only about six streets wide and three blocks long.  Based on its name, we thought perhaps it was the birthplace of the Roman Emperor Trajan, but it seems he was born in Italica, a town just outside of modern-day Seville. 

We stopped by the small white church with its tall brick steeple and bell tower, and then followed the orange tree-lined streets to the edge of town.  On the way, we were stopped by a very friendly older Spanish gentleman who talked to us in very rapid Spanish for quite a while.  We didn't under what he was saying, apart from the fact that he had lived in the village for 80 years and never left it.  I kept trying to explain that we didn't understand, but he kept talking, getting louder in case that might help.  We could tell he was being kind, and I very much would have liked to understand what he was saying.

Canals and Railway Tracks

After leaving Trajano, we were immediately back out in the countryside, following the straight line of the canal and railway tracks.  Every so often, a stubby train with only 3-4 cars would shoot past at high speed, but otherwise it was a quiet and uneventful walk through the pancake flat countryside.  In places, the canal was quite overgrown with phragmites, shrubs, and a treed corridor along its banks. 

In these stretches, Glossy Ibises foraged in the nearby fields, most of which were neatly ploughed squares of earth.  We also spotted several Little Egrets, and at one point, a Grey Heron took flight in a great flapping of wings from a hidden spot along the bank.  At one point, we also heard the loud and unmistakable calls of frogs coming from the paved waterway.

Pilgrimage on Faith

Around halfway through the day, our cell phone died. The battery was charged, but the screen became dimmer and dimmer until it went completely black.  We tried restarting it, removing the SIM card, and anything else we could think of, but there was no luck.  For the rest of the day, we simply had to follow the arrows and take things on faith.  This was mostly fine because we were following an arrow-straight path that led straight to Las Cabezas de San Juan, but as the afternoon wore on, we remembered the central challenge of the day.

There were very few places available to stay tonight due to ongoing Easter celebrations, and the owner of the Airbnb we had booked had made it clear that she was very busy today.  Yet it was increasingly evident that we were likely going to be late, perhaps by several hours, and now we had no way of letting her know this, creating a situation that was rather stressful for us.

With little we could do to change what awaited us in town, we focused on embracing the moments along the way. The birds soaring overhead, the lizards that darted among the field rocks.  The telltale rattle of the rail wires that forewarned us just before a train thundered past. 

Much of what remained of today's stage followed alongside the regional high-speed rail line, requiring careful zigzags to cross roads and tracks before we joined a second canal path. Afterward, our route followed broad tracks that led through arable fields toward the town of Utrera. 

This stretch of trail was punctuated by 2.5 km across exposed olive groves and a final 2.8 km along an open gravel road into town.  Yet, despite the heat and exposure, the walk offered its own quiet rhythm, a chance to attune ourselves to the landscape and the subtle life moving through it.

Utrera

When we arrived in Utrera, we followed the Camino arrows through the busy streets of the large and modern town.  It turned out to be several kilometres long and, unfortunately, also uphill.  Without a working phone, we only had our memories to rely on in order to find our accommodations.

As we continued through town and out the other side, we found ourselves walking into an increasingly dodgy-looking area.  When we arrived outside the building where we were supposed to stay, predictably, there was no one outside of it since we were more than an hour late.  

         

We sat down on a bench under a tree to try to figure out what to do next, and noticed that we immediately attracted the attention of a large group of young men loitering nearby.  We watched as a tough guy in baggy jeans and a hoodie bumped into a lady crossing the street, looking like he made an extremely clumsy attempt to pick her pocket.  Soon after, another man stopped to “tie his shoes” right beside my backpack, which he then tried to pick up when he left, only aborting this attempted theft owing to the weight of my hiking gear. At the same time, a group of teenagers were being noisily thrown out of a shop across the street, presumably for shoplifting. 

It was clear that this wasn't a good place to hang around looking lost and confused, so we turned around and headed back into the center of town.  Sometimes you have to make decisions based on little more than gut instinct.  

Changing Accommodations

We had checked earlier, and all the hostels, AirBnBs, and hotels we had found were fully booked.  However, we needed somewhere to stay, so we walked into the lobby of the first hotel we passed by and asked if they had a room.  It was like walking into a cool, dark sanctuary, with an elegant desk in one corner, a tiled fountain in the center, and a few tables and chairs scattered around the periphery.  To our delight, they did have a room, and after checking in, we gratefully sank into a comfortable chair in the corner and cooled off with a cold drink. 

Feeling terrible about not showing up at the accommodations we had booked, we finally managed to get through to the hostess, who had left us many, many messages.  We had expected her to be understandably angry with us, but in the end, she was incredibly understanding about the situation and our made-up excuses of “not being able to reach town”, which we took to be a small gift.  Regardless of the extra cost of not entering what appeared to be dodgy accommodations and then paying for another lodging, we were glad that the day worked out. 

Warnings and Odd Moments 

Eventually, we made our way upstairs to an extremely fancy room, which made us feel a little like we were staying in a monastery or a castle.  Once inside our suite, we took long showers, hand-washed our clothes, and relaxed.  

After cleaning and hanging our clothes to dry, we set back out into town to get something for dinner.  As we went to step out the door of the hotel...somewhat surprisingly....the front desk staff warned us, in English, to be careful and to watch our possessions in the city.  An odd comment in Spain, and one that stood out to us.  

   

As we set out to explore and photograph things once again began to feel off once again.  Wandering to the church to look and photograph the building we would invariably be "pushed off" every information sign or plaque by local people who seemingly had to be there right then.  Older men would physically shuffle to stand in between us and a sign, or stand in front of the camera … at least until we walked away.  At which point they would wander off too.  Whether they were curious or nosy, it nonetheless became a recurring theme in our time in Utrera.

Walking around town, we continued to have similar experiences in the Plaza Mayor and at the church of Santiago.  Someone was always there, and always pushing to be in front of us...until we walked away. 

As we strolled around, not just to photograph but also to find food and supplies, we were frustrated by the fact that almost everything was predictably closed for Easter.  The lone exception was a 24-hour market that was part tobacco store, part convenience store.  Though this too was to be an odd experience. 

As we sought to enter, 4-5 people stood across the doorway – either texting or lounging. As such, it became clear that both of us could not squeeze past, and so I went in as Sean stood outside. 

In the end, it would take me 20 minutes to get two cans of iced tea and a bag of chips amid a flurry of teenagers clearly stuffing their pockets and jackets with the contents of the shelves.  The owner was aware of this and sought to limit people leaving the shop without being checked out ...as well as being searched.   

I later found out that Sean, standing outside with his camera backpack on, would have a similar experience as a young lady – seemingly at the direction of her boyfriend or husband in a nearby car – would repeatedly walk past him, unsubtly jamming her hands into his pockets and attempting to grab his camera, which was locked onto the straps of his backpack.  After several attempts, she walked back over to the man in the car, calling out: “Para nada”, or no, not at all. 

The thieves and pickpockets in this town are clearly both unsubtle and unskilled. A fact reiterated by my own experiences in the shop where the owner was continually navigating thefts and attempts to con him.  

With a bag of crisps and a couple of drinks in hand, we departed, deciding that the warnings from the front desk at our hotel and our own gut instinct were right.  This town was simply not for wandering and not for us.  As such, we returned to our accommodations for the evening only to find that the hotel had a sealed security door.  To re-enter, we had to reconfirm our identities and reconfirm that we had a room – yet another indicator that something is rough in this community. 

Reflecting on the Via Augusta 

With the loss of the phone partway through the day, we had no choice but to take this Camino on faith.  Maybe our reluctance, or inability, to do this from the beginning has been our biggest challenge.  When we left home in Canada, we were both in a very dark place mentally, feeling completely overwhelmed by a seemingly endless stream of possible 'what if' and 'what's next' scenarios for the next stage in our lives, while only being able to see the negative sides of every possibility.  It has felt a little like we are still walking that path on this Camino - each day we must choose whether to follow the GPX tracks we have from home, which sometimes follow the marked path and sometimes don't. 

At the same time, the GPX tracks from the Via Augusta Association, which also don't always match the markers, or the arrows themselves, which often disappear in the rural areas.  Without GPX tracks that follow the markers, when the arrows disappear, we are left to choose our own trail, hoping we don't get stuck on the wrong side of a freeway, train track or canal.  

On days when the trail itself doesn't present a challenge, we find ourselves struggling with logistics, left with the choice of walking a ridiculously short stage or an uncomfortably long one to find a place to stay.  When we do arrive, we often struggle to find food or have to navigate local challenges.  The result is that this Camino feels more like a hike, where logistical challenges are an expected component of the experience instead of a pilgrimage where you are given the space to escape the minutiae of life and focus on questions or problems that otherwise get set aside.  Perhaps the lesson today is that we need to take things more on faith.

See you on the Way!