Artieda to Ruesta

I slept reasonably well, despite being unused to the comings and going of staying in an albergue. Self service breakfast which I shared with a couple who had arrived late last night from Germany was pretty good, with as much instant coffee with real milk as you wanted.
A short distance today, to Ruesta, only about 12k. I’m finding that these undemanding distances are more tiring than some of the longer ones, I think because when I travel very slowly I don’t generate much energy. I stopped frequently endeavouring to catch a glimpse of a bee eater, I could hear them most of the morning.
I reached the abandoned village of Ruesta around midday and was delighted to find a bar open where I had much desired café con leche. The bar (and associated recently closed albergue)is just one of two functioning buildings. The second belongs to a trade union, anarcho-syndiclist in outlook, apparently, and they are endeavouring to create a fully functioning community in the former village. I’m not sure where the albergue fits in to this plan.
Elena, my taxi driver who returned me to Artieda said that before the area was evacuated in the 1920s to make way for the controversial Yesa reservoir the village had been one of the richest and most successful in the region. Currently there are plans underway to raise the level of the water subsuming more land and communities, there are posters and murals everywhere expressing opposition in strong terms.
The delightful, allegedly anarchist activist, in the bar explained how I could get down to the waterside. I spent a wonderful two hours there having lunch – almost the last of the mixed nuts from Lidl, 6 chocolate peanuts, a pear from breakfast and 2 of the lemon emergency biscuits. In the densely vegetated area where the rió regal meets the reservoir I disturbed what I’m 90% certain must have been a male purple heron, quite a spectacle, and more than made up for the absence of a desman earlier in the Camino.
Another sociable pilgrim meal beckons. I think the menu remains the same since most people are only here for a night – cold vegetable soup swirled with olive oil, chicken with a prune and apricot (both singular), rice pudding, and local wine. An extra glass is €2. And people back home ask why I don’t walk more in the Uk.