20 February to Sanlucar la Mayor

Another successful day with 26.8 kilometres of walking avoiding main roads. First it was down to the nearby town of Escacena Del Campo where women were busy brushing away the dirt on the pavement outside their houses. Passed various items of outdoor exercise equipment on the way. I have often seen identical equipment in towns and villages across Spain but no-one seems to use them.
Left Escacena on the road heading North East (HU6110) and then turned east onto the Camino de Chichina, a dirt road that went for many kilometres across open and largely flat arable land. This being Saturday there were lots of cyclists out in black lycra and one jogger in luminous green socks.
The highlight of my day was a solar power station. Not only did this have PV cells similar to those on house rooves across the UK, it also generated power thermally using mirrors to focus the sunlight on the top of a tower, a bit like when I was little, using a magnifying glass to burn a hole in some paper, except instead of burning a hole the focused beam of hot sunlight heats up water turning it into steam which drives a steam turbine that generates power. An array of many mirrors is used and they must tilt and turn as the sun moves across the sky to keep its rays focused on the top of the tower. The were two such towers in use. It is not a technique I have seen in use before. (Subsequent reading indicated that the tower in the photo below can generate 20 MW of power, but that the company involved (Abengoa) is filing for bankruptcy; economics of such projects are very dependent on government subsidies which had been reduced)
On approaching Sanlucar le Mayor, my resting place for the night, I crossed a river (Rio Guadiamar) where children and parents were out enjoying the weekend sunshine (it was also a where I crossed an official North-South footpath). Then up a Camino Real into town. These were the royal roads used by the king and also the public provided they kept out of the way of the king's carriage! I stayed at the Hostal San Pedro at the south end of town and had an expensive meal with scallops as a first course, steak for the second at the other end of town and chocolate tart for desert.

Solar Power station, mirrors just visible on the horizon direct sunlight at the top of the tower where I assume a fluid is heated to create steam which will drive a turbine.