El Tobos in Los Picos

After the Basque Country, as you travel west along the north coast of Spain, the first port of call after a few dolphins and a couple of lovely sails with 20 knot winds over the beam and indeed stern quarter (see previous posts), is Asturia. Where Basque has wine, Asturia has cider. Cider means apples and apples grow in temperate climates. Asturia is home to the Picos de Europa (up to 2650m, about 20km inland), which were often spotted from the crows nest as the first sign of Europe for the transatlantic Spanish galleons returning from raping the Americas after they had been pestered, ravaged and pillaged by the superior British fleets under Drake, Raleigh and Blackbeard. The Picos are limestone mountains formed from fossilised pre-historic sea creatures (wow!).
The Picos are not only the first things seen by dilapidated returning Spanish fleets, but also the first thing seen by the warm weather fronts after their drift across the Atlantic from the sunny Caribbean, these fronts see the Picos, drift skywards, cool and dump their humidity on the happy apple trees and less happy visiting tourists below. In other words a tendency to rain, especially in the mountains (sorry Professor Higgins!). Drinking the cider is an interesting experience, as the waiter pours a couple of mouthfuls of cider from the bottle into your glass at full arms length for maximum height into the waiting glass held at about knee high. All this adds air and flavour to the cider, which must be downed in one and at €6 per 75cl bottle, we tried this a few times (hic)

Undeterred, we dug out the hiking boots and the wet weather gear, rented a car, locked up the boat and set off for Cangas de Onis, a small town on the edge of the Picos National Park, with a roman bridge, some great views and a nice place for lunch. Next morning, map in hand, we started on the famous (at least around here) Cares route into the mountains; a well trodden path (Hemingway was probably here, before he wrote ‘Old Man and the Sea’), which started with a 850ft (260m) climb, which warmed us up, followed by about 10km of gentle walk through really spectacular gorges with glimpses of snow covered peaks and vertical drops to the river 1000ft below. Just under 3 hours each way with a ‘spag bol’ and an ice cream for lunch and total distance of 23kms; 35,660 steps and 210 flights of stairs celebrated in joyous fashion by Nicky’s fit-bit, which started writhing on her arm like a banshee. No mean feat….actually by the end of the day Nicky had extremely mean feet with angry looking blisters!!!!
The trek on the second mountain day was therefore shorter and we ended up in a mountain lodge for lunch; stupidly without enough cash … not to worry, the owner just asked us where we were staying and asked us to leave the payment for lunch at the hotel when we got back. I love the old fashioned honesty and trust here. Its as if globalisation and McDonalds somehow missed this bit of the world, just like the Moors in the 8th century who conquered the rest of Spain. This is such a different place to Southern Spain … highly recommended. Toby likes it so much he has applied for a Spanish passport and changed his name to El Tobos to ensure freedom of movement.

Back to sea on Monday and the fishing line which has been dangling limp off the back of the boat since La Rochelle suddenly had something on the end of it. It must have been a 15lb (8Kg) tuna … at least … maybe more!! Excitement all around!! All the commotion attracted interest from the air, as our floundering dinner on the end of the line, 50m off the back of the boat caught the attention of seagulls and so just like The Old Man and the Sea, the success of the catch was trumped by the disappointment of watching our BBQ meat being consumed by nature’s ever keen and persistent predators/scavengers.

It was at least 15lb, honest!

I hoped they choked on the hook.