Jeff: walking in Spain

So the first thing we noticed on the Friday night on the edge of the Los Picos Europa national park was it was colder here, due to the mountainous landscape. We had to put the heating on overnight as it was in the single figures which is the first time that has happened since we left the UK in September.

After a cosy night in the van (we set the heating a little too high for the night so we need to adjust this for the next night) we drove into the park and as we drove we got higher into the mountains it got icier then snowy until we got to the location we were set to walk from. We decided not to let a few inches of snow (which was continuing to fall) put us off and we wrapped up warm and set off. The hike was supposed to be 20km and take us up a mountain but there was limited phone reception and due to the snow we didn’t see the turn off so we eneded up on a different (and flat) walk to the next village. On the walk we managed to see more animals than people which was nice, even if some of them were big and a little scary (big bulls giving the stink eye or large dogs barking to protect their flock) but most were just scared of us.

We managed to get to the town (without slipping in the snow) in about 2.5 hours which wasn’t bad for the 10km it took and then had some breakfast of overnight oats in a church yard where there was some shelter to allow us to sit somewhere not in the snow before we headed back. Once back we jumped in jeff and made ourselves some hot drinks before heading off to drive to the location of the walk we planned for tomorrow (which also happens to be lower in the valley so should be warmer). The drive was due to only be an hour and a half but not long into it the sat nav tried to take us down a mountain road, which had a sign saying snow chains were needed in winter. We drove down the road a short section and decided that actually this probably isn’t worth it given we only have all terrain tyres so we tried to see if there was anywhere to turn around. We got to a corner and saw a tow truck reversing so we started doing the same thing and Rich did great and managed to reverse the 1km we had driven down the road with the tow truck in-front of us. Once at the end we re-routed and it added another hour to the drive which was hard going given the walking we had already done and the difficult driving conditions but we eventually made it to the stop for the night and settled in ready for an early morning the next day

Rich had set the alarm to get us up nice and early as today we had the ruta del cares walk planned which is a 12km (each way) walk planned and this is supposed to be one of the most beautiful walks in spain. First we had to drive a bit closer (although still 1km from the start) and headed off all wrapped up. We soon realised how much warmer it was down at this lower altitude so ended up with lots of layers in our backpacks, especially after we completed the first couple of km which were just up hill climbs. These first kms are the hardest and the rest of the walk was fairly flat but we didn’t speed through it as there was so much to see, from mountain goats and birds of prey, to waterfalls and cliff edges. We were also quickly taught that even though this is a popular route there are still dangers of these types of walks as we were not far into the walk when there was a little landslip above us and rocks came tumbling down. We were just out of the way but it did keep us alert and during the whole walk we saw another 2 landslides but luckily they were further away from us. The walk was mostly through a valley with a rapid canal of water next to the path and ended in a range of tunnels to get to the end point. We had to cross the river, at the bottom of the valley several times, including using a bridge which had two permanent signs up that stated the handrails were not to be leaned on as they were in poor condition and were next to be repaired (given that they had two signs for this – one at either side of the bridge – you would think it would have been easier to fix the handles rather than install the signs). After about 3.5 hours we reached the halfway point which was the village of Cares (which was very small) where we received a lovely warm welcome from a group of cats and a dog. They were very interested in us, more so when we sat down to eat and they thought there could be food for them (I think they would be disappointed with overnight oats, which is what we were eating again). After a short break back we headed for the 13km (12km walk plus the 1km back to the car) second section. We managed to get back a little quicker than it took to get there and we were soo glad to get back into the van. We drove back to the stop we had parked at for the Saturday night and as there was a laundrette there we did some washing and relaxed for the evening as we were really tired after the two walks.

The next morning we got up and had a bit of a lazy morning as it was raining and was due to rain all day so we thought we would have a little bit of an admin day. After chatting with some other British motorhomers who were also at the stop we headed north to a town called Torreleavega where we managed to sort out all the camper van stuff like water and toilet, as we hadn’t done it in a few days and get some shopping in before heading to Santillana del Mar which is an old town which is very pretty to walk around. However the rain continued so we decided to stay near the town and relax for the evening with a film and explore to town tomorrow.