La Cumbracita is a beautiful, but really weird, little Alpine style town in the Cordoban hills. It was founded by a German family in the 1930s, who pretty much made an exact replica of their own home town back in the Alps, right down to the wooden chalets, even bringing their own bratwurst and goulash recipes with them.
We headed off separately with Steve opting for his bike, but being a lazy git and having no bike to ride, I took the bus. Quite fortunate too as it was 90km pure uphill. We arranged to meet at the town´s only camp site so I took the bus journey at a leisurely pace and had myself a nice beer an empanada and an explore before heading to the camp site. Steve had all the camping gear on his bike. By 8pm I started to get a wee bit worried that he wasn´t there yet. By 9pm, it was very dark as a storm had rolled in and I was panicking. He finally got there at around 10pm. I met him at the entrance to the village and got us a room in a weird chalet, staffed by an eccentric old lesbian lady who had lots of cats. The room was beautiful with a lovely big bed and duvet.
Being a wee bit strapped for cash though it was off the camp site the following day. Not much in the way of facilities, only a broken cold shower and a non flushing toilet with a ripped shower curtain instead of a door but it was cheap as chips and had the most amazing view of the hills, right at the top of the mountains.
We walked up to a beautiful water fall in the hills the following day, Steve in his flip flops and me clambering over boulders in a flowery skirt. On the way back we stopped at a chalet for a German style bratwurst and beer. The owner was a friendly chubby lady who was singing along to Wagner at the top of her voice and emerged with a honey and rosemary flavoured whiskey for us to try. Very nice it was too. Left there feeling all was well with the world and fell asleep beside our tent.
