We
crossed the huge flat plains to Salamanca and on to the border of
Portugal. We discovered the Portugal radio stations play music yeah!
The border between Portugal and Spain is the huge river Douro,
flanked by terraced vineyards covering huge hills, houses perched on
hilltops and villages on ridges and many chestnut trees covered in
spikey nuts.. Lousy road signs made it very hard to navigate,
roundabouts only have signs on entry, not exits so after you've
entered and are busy argueing over which exit is the right one
there's no sign to prove who is correct and you have to go back to
the start again. Luckily roads have mile-stones every so often to
confirm you are on the right roads. We had turned right after the
border and wound through a National Park the centre of which was
pretty blah but the rest was really great. People here hang their
washing on the line in the street, at one point we drove on a very
busy road past a line of a dozen of Grandma's bloomers out to dry
right next to the road.
25th
back in Spain traveling past rivers, huge suspension bridges, lakes
and dams, hills of rock, through a cave riddled gorge and past a herd
of slow moving cows. There are poles by side of these country roads
so we know the snow gets deep here. We were following smaller roads
than usual on our route north and crossed from Castilla y Leon
provence into Principado de Asturias and the sealed road ended
abruptly! Now you must realise when we say abruptly we mean exactly
that! One minute we were driving on a fairly nice sealed road and the
next it ended in a nice neat cut and turned into single lane dirt
road. We assumed the villagers in this provence neglected to pay all
due tithes and offerings to their Lord and Master... The road began
to have potholes and got worse and worse but we are Kiwis after all
and hung in there all the way up to a summit pass and all the way
down a very steep gradient into a very beautiful autumn clad valley
where the by now hugely rutted track ended at the small village of
Rio Aller where it turned into a single lane concrete road. Why
concrete? It was so steep and narrow it they needed a surface they
could score and make good traction for the slide down. It was getting late as we wound up a steep hill and watched as the brilliant red and yellow sun set into the surrounding peaks. We spent the night on top of the pass overlooking villages on both sides and had a lovely bit of nookie.
2ºC
this morning according to sign on pharmacy in Pola de Laviana.
Switzerland is the country of tunnels, Spain is the country of
bridges. 11am, it's 3ºC and foggy on the road between Nava and
Coviella. OMG!!! This spanish radio station is playing a cover of
Dead Kennedys 'Too Drunk to Fuck' and it's uncensored!!!
Crossed
into the Comunidad de Cantabria, Carol's sadly recently deceased boss Ron Main had told her that he had named the Resthome where they
both worked after this region which was beautiful and had a lovely
name. We continued on into the Pico's de Europa a stand of rocky
mountain peaks which used to be mined in the past but are now a haven
for climbers and hikers. Manu had told us about some walks we could
do here but Kent has put on weight and is having trouble fitting his
leg into his socket now so instead we followed his other suggestion
of riding the cablecar up to one of the peaks at Fuente De. We
arrived at Matamarisca before dark to stay with Alfonso the other
half of the pair of Spanish cyclist Carol met in Pakistan. After
asking an old man with dogs and goats we found Alfonzo's house ok in
his village of 37 homes.
To
see our photos http://cjb.pascoe.net.nz/
(click on or copy and paste into browser)
