We said farewell to our Toledo campsite at 9:30am and headed south past fields of dry grass and poppies, with only occasional small hills, or should I say mounds. At Consuegra we pulled off the freeway looking for windmills.
No not those windmills. We were looking for the ones made famous by the writer Cervantes in his book Don Quixote. Two of our guide books pointed to different places, but the molinos at Consuegra were on our route south and the other ones would mean rather a long diversion; so we opted for the ones with the tourist buses already there. The old windmills really are a wonderful sight, not at all like ferocious giants.
It would be a wonderful to see their sails covered in fabrics and turning in the breeze, but sadly they stand silent on the ridge of the hill with an expansive view over the plains of La Mancha.
After a quick chat with some American tourists who were admiring Eileen, we carried on down the freeway, taking a short detour to creep slowly through Valdepeños, a town that was still fast asleep at midday on a Sunday. Our final pull off the freeway was at San Elena, where we bought some water at a tiny shop that was actually still open at 1:15pm on a Sunday afternoon, and then we drove across the road to Camping Despeñapperros. We picked a nice spot under pine trees on a ridge with views over countless olive trees. Hundreds of olive trees, as far as the eye could see! It was Sunday, siesta time, so we decided to do as the Spanish do and relax for the rest of the day.
