We have up-ended our plans to go to Leon today based on a weather forecast predicting rain Friday in the National Park: Picos de Europa. I have wanted to spend two days in this park. To do so, I will have to take a gloomy day first followed by the prospect of a fully sunny one.
We get a late morning start to Picos de Europa. We are headed to the town of Cain (“Ky-een” to Ana). It is the beginning of a trail that runs through a gorge for 12 km; it is reputed to be quite special and does not require a major ascent. A walk in the park, and beautiful one, I have read.
To go there, we head out of Prioro and immediately ascend a mountain crossing a 4,000 foot pass and descend with continuous turns on what may be kindly described as a dangerous mountain road. Six miles will take 30 minutes and seem like an hour. Right after the pass we get an wonderful view to Picos de Europa. The mountain range ahead of us is so extraordinary it looks like an exaggerated painting. We have been in wonderful mountainous country, but now, things will become exceptional.
We will drive more than another hour. The roads will twist and turn and through green valleys with cows and horses grazing. Few homes will be seen, except in tiny, ancient towns with sand colored stone houses crammed together in a disorganized way. These are charming hamlets often viewed first from above on a narrow road snaking down the mountain. The main road through town can be two cows wide. Mostly, only old people appear. They walk in the streets with self-created impunity. They look at the cars passing through with a sort of distain, but not much real interest. We wind through a number of these, dropping down from the sky with improbable twists and turns. One conjectures roads were created by cows and sheep finding their way home to be fed. The cows still wander about and are a lovely color in the greenery that surrounds them.
We come to a pull-off at the top of a pass. I have never stood in a more striking place. We face the mountain range and it is spectacular. Rocky summits reach skyward like fireworks exploding. These are not the gentle mountains of the US, but knives of stone spearing the sky. It is an amazing vista.
Again we wind downward, roof tops of hamlets below. The road gets narrower and less probable. It is a one-way street being used in two directions. One side is deadly escarpments, the other rockwall. Pull-offs of three extra feet occur not nearly enough. One prays not to encounter a camper or a bus. We pass a bicyclist coming up the mountain road. There is hardly enough room for us both to pass. We are finally making it to Cain. A mile or so to go. The road turns so sharply one can not predict whether another car is coming ten feet away. We are lucky to pass none going against us as we fall twisting and turning into town. The forest gives way to homes and the street become cobble stone. I do not think there is another road going out of Cain. We creep between the houses bumping on the stony surface at walking speed. On one side of the street there is a pasture with cars in it, and a man standing at its gate. We can see ahead and the road leads toward some restaurants and shops. The is no seeming urgency to move forward. Ana gets out of the car and speaks to the man, who is chatting with others who are more or less standing in the road.
He is selling parking spots in his pasture, I can see one or two left among 30 cars. Three euros for a space. Maybe you can find one further a head, maybe not? He says. I don’t hesitate.
We have our hiking gear on and are ready to go. We ask the parking man where to find the river trail. We have one trail, he laughs and points ahead toward the center of town. (and that trail is an industry, he should have added.) There are some decent looking restaurants with guest quarters above. A market and some gift shops specializing in hiking sticks. Umbrellas to eat outside, large dining rooms inside. As it is cloudy and cool, few people are outside. Those who are look like hikers.
Daily menus are posted on chalk boards along the road. We decide to go in and ask if the restaurant serves at 4. In Spain, most restaurants are closed 4-8 pm. These are the same. We decide it is better to eat a two o’clock lunch than eat nothing at 4. The restaurant, unlike American national park eateries, is not serving fast food. There will be a heavy first course of soup or stew and a heavy second course, as well. My soup with be garlic soup, which is a traditional poor peoples soup, basically a broth with soaked stale bread. I don’t love it, but it is authentic. Ana will get a bean soup with dried lima beans. Hers is sweeter, mine saltier. We’ll switch bowls half way through the course. I will eat sliced pork with a cheese sauce. Ana orders a stewed beef in gravy. We both will also get homemade french fries. There will be a choice of dessert or coffee and of course red and white wine. This is not my idea of a fast start before a hike. The Spanish don’t eat much for breakfast; it is obvious from their approach to lunch. Oh well, when in Spain…
After lunch, we begin to hike and I am thankful we will not be going uphill much. We are starting a path that follows a stream down hill into a gorge. After a short distance, the gorge becomes striking. Rock walls on both sides rise hundreds of feet above us. The rock is varied in color and texture. The stream below is a steely green, cool an clean looking, as it splashes white over rocks in the water.
After several hundred yards, our path stays mildly downhill while the stream drops hundreds of feet below. The path we are on is five feet wide. There is go guard rail and one could plung 200 or 300 feet to a certain death with one false (or frankly stupid) move. One does not get too close to the edge to look over it. When the outside of our path is not rock walls rising hundreds of feet upward and ending in strikingly sharp peaks, it is over hung by a rock ceiling half a tunnel with an abiss on the other side. Sometimes the path becomes a complete tunnel and one must slow to let his eyes adjust to walking in the blackness. I have a camera and can not stop shooting. The photo possibilities are endless and it is a blessing that images are free now days. We pass people walking toward us from the other direction. There are others moving quicker than us, who we give way to, stepping against the wall so they will have room to avoid the edge. The presence of other hikers is constant but not oppressive. Everyone is polite. This will not be a lonely nature walk, but it will not be ruined by a crowd either.
We decide that given the time of day and our condition, it will be wise to walk only an hour one way and then back. A two hour hike. We set an alarm on our phone. When it rings we add another half hour. This experience is too good to quit before we must.
At one point a woman a head of us is looking straight up taking photos with her phone. She is taking more time to do it than most. As we approach, we see she is taking a picture of a goat looking down at her from 12 feet above. We shoot the goat too, and realize we are in a herd of goats, some above us some below and some ahead on the trail. Some how they will make there way down the side of the cliff to the water below. We will not try this ourselves.
The goats descend down the mountain walls across our trail and down the cliff to the river below.
Once back to Cain, we enjoy a beer and begin the drive home. The turns are so tight I find myself blowing the horn at many to warn any oncoming driver. Thankfully there are only a few.
This has been an another exceptional day in another exceptional place. Tomorrow I hope to go into the peaks of Pico de Europa!
European Trip 2019 