Reinosa
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 18:04:51 +0100
Hola, Hi, well all is going good. We are spending too much money though, all the ´cheap´ hostals in the book aren´t cheap. We camped last night in an effort to save money, next to a lake called Embalse de Ebro, but now we´re in Reinosa -
Camping last night was good, we only spent 2.50 euros all day, and that was on a bottle of wine. Last night was the first time we´d cooked for ourselves, and in fact was the first time either of us has had a non fish or egg based meal. We´ve both had to compromise a bit, I´m drinking red wine coz it´s cheaper and Deri´s eating tuna in, otherwise he´d be living on tortilla (omelette).
It´s official though sophistication is out the window, we´ve been eating with coomb's that we got free from one of the hostals, we forgot to buy cutlery, and cups, plates, oil, washing liquid - loads of stuff really. We woke up in the night freezing though, my sleeping bag says it can stand temperatures of -8, but that's rubbish,it´s been hot in the days though, really sunny, I´ve got a tan on my arms and I´ve burnt my face and shoulders. However we´re going to have really stupid tan lines, and white hands (because of the gloves).
It feels like we´ve been here for ages, it doesn´t seem like 5 days ago that we were on the ferry. Santander was Ok, not really a lot to do, but a nice city, impressive mountain backdrop and good beaches. It took us ages to figure out how to cycle out, well we didn´t figure it out we had to catch a train to just outside the city, that was on the second day, but we did reach the place we were heading - Puente Viesto - that´s where the caves were. It´s in the middle of the mountains but the ride wasn´t that bad, a bit hilly but nothing we couldn´t handle - Deri just powers up the hills and stops about 3 times on each one, but I go really slow and get up there in one - so I´m chuffed with that.
We didn´t get there in time to see the caves that night but we went for a walk and stayed in a really posh hostal, which was more like a hotel really. We had wanted to stay in the cheap hostal but the owner was out. That reminds me, they don´t eat enough over here, the portions are tiny and breakfast is only a light snack. We were both starving for the first 3 days, and they don´t really understand being a vegetarian, hence why Deri is now eating tuna. I´m gonna come back about 4 stone. Went to the caves the next day, they were amazing!! Huge! lots of paeolithic cave paintings and stalagmites and stalactites. That was quite early though and then we cycled on, we had originally meant to get to Alceda (contact the pentagon, we´ve found Bin Laden´s base) but we overshot it and didn´t realise that we were there until we left. So we went on. We´ve been doing really well cycling - the first 2 days of cycling we did 60 k, then we hit the mother of all hills though. When we were cycling along the road all the locals kept telling us to turn back, but we thought that they were aggazerating, but they weren´t. 6k hill straight up the side of a mountain, (1011 metres, yes metres not foot) We had to push our bikes, it´s ok though coz no one knows us. We didn´t get to the top that day, there was a hostal half way up and we stayed there, we had already ridden 30 k by that point though.
The next day, Sunday, we pushed our bikes up the last 3k of hill, and if you think white rock is bad, it´s a slight incline in comparison, i took lots of pictures to prove it. Well that takes us up to today, yesterday we decisided to rest, and that´s when we went camping in Corconte. Today has been an easy ride, very flat alongside the lake. I think I´ve got used to the roads, and driving on the other side, and have you noticed i´m judging distance in k´s already. I think I´ll be ok with the language as well, I´ve only been here a few days and already I can ask for what I want, explain that I eat fish and not meat, and recognise most meats on the menu and ask for directions. I cant understand people yet though, they talk really quickly but after a couple of months I´ll be fluent. I´m planning on doing a spanish course in Barcelona at christmas time.
After that big hill we´re not planning on doing the picos route until we come back from Santiago, we´re going to get on the pilgrims route as soon as possible to try and save money, and because we reckon it´ll be more catered for foreigners, perhaps bigger meals, and eating at normal times. There is bears and wolves in the Picos de Europa, and eagles! We want to be a bit fitter before we tackle them though.
Well that´s about it for now, both me and Deri are fine, a bit tired but we´ve had 2 days of relative rest. We´re going to leave Reinosa as soon as possible and head south west to Leon then up onto the pilgrims route in Ponferrada something. So I´ll write more in a couple of days, hope you and everything at home is well.
Lots of love Beth
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