2 Deri & Bethan in Reinosa

22 October 2007 18:03:31

Reinosa

Hey hey!

Well for the first day since ive been here im wearing long sleeves! But i think its got more to do with altitude than weather.

I dont know where to start... arrived in Sant Ander on thursday an everything went smoothly. All was good- its a nice place.

On friday we tried to get out an failed horribly everywhere we went led to a motorway so we ended up turning around an getting a train two stops where we could get on normal roads again. From then on all was fine exept that everything closes in the middle of the day when im most hungry an i have to wait a couple of hours before things open again! Anyway we got to a place called Puento Viesco were theres a mountain with caves on it with paintings from 12,000 years ago. Very cool! anyway by the time we got there, sorted ourselves out an climbed the mountain the damn things were closed! but we got to the top just in time to see a very pretty sunset over the Picos De Europa. We climbed the moumtain again at about 10 the next day to see the caves before we set of to... southish... an a bit west...

It was all going fine in the sun with some hills but generally quite pleasant until we hit the town of San Miguel de Luena at about 20-30km along the road south. We had plenty of day left and were aiming for a small village called Corconte. Then we hit THE hill. it was horrible. it looked steep (like bottom gear steep) but we couldn see round the bend. All in all it was 7km long an climbed to the height of snowden- that's a bit much when youve got a fully loaded bike! We found a hostel half way up it an decided to collapse for the night.

The next day we got the top of the hill, then down the other side real fast to find a massive lake with wood around the edges an thought “Lets be lazy! its a sunday after all!" so we pitched camp and made food on the camping stove- - on the edge of the lake by the woods. Then i rode to the nearest village to get more food an some wine an we cooked again an made a fire an it was all very nice.

Then i woke up the next day freezing (really really freezing) an my hands even now havnt really recovered ( i got blisters on my palms from pulling on the handle bars so much on that hill!) an now im in Reinosa and im sitting in the internet cafe now. I think were gonna try an go south from here to try an circle round the mountains but head generally for Leon. Thats it so far

Anyway til i find another town with a computer (could be a while ) Adios

Deri