Where there’s a will

I must start with an apology, as I feel that last night’s post was somewhat abbreviated. I tried all kinds of techniques to stay awake as I was writing, including trying to type whilst standing up. I nearly fell over as the iPad began to slip from my grasp!

One of the points I meant to make yesterday was how Tineo felt like a small alpine town. Indeed, it reminded us of St Gervais les Bains in the Mont Blanc region, with its setting on a very steep bank with terraced streets. With its iron balustrades, promenades and massive vistas it exuded the air of a spa town.

So, it was perhaps not surprising that we awoke to a perfect alpine dawn at about 6 30 am with cloud shrouding the higher hills and openings to an azure blue in the cloud cover promising a good day.

It was a cool start as we departed just after 8am with perfect views back towards Tineo as we climbed deeper into the Cordillera and much more remote country.

As we approached the first col of three today the cloud inversion was breaking up leaving ragged scarves across the higher summits. We looked back to the ridge line topped by wind turbines which we had crawled past yesterday on our haul up to La Espina! We were now level with it.

Despite the relentless gradient the Alto de Piedratecha seemed to come quite quickly, and yet we were now well over 2,500ft above sea level: the baseline for a Scottish Corbett!

The feeling of cycling in an alpine environment was reinforced by the sound of cow bells from the livestock in the pastures. The combination of birdsong, cowbells and cicadas created a bucolic musical soundtrack that was truly glorious for us.

As will be evident from the photos the roads were generally very empty, although we did seem to catch something of a local rush hour as we climbed out of Tineo which was somewhat troubling and, at one point, downright threatening.

We’ve mentioned before the tremendous courtesy shown to us by Spanish drivers on previous Caminos and overall our experience this time has been the same. However, we did experience impatience this morning which nearly led to catastrophe. We were on a serpentine section of steep climbing and, inevitably moving slowly when the fast approaching car from behind decided he could see around a hairpin bend: he couldn’t. Linda and I have no idea how the driver avoided a head on collision and I swerved into the gutter expecting to catch the backwash from any collision. Fortunately, the car made it through, we continued turning our pedals and the traffic quickly drifted away to almost nothing. The roads here are so empty; we cannot understand such impatience.

With no further incident we reached our second alto….

and then the third and final one of the day. Just before we reached Alto Lavadoira we were overtaken by a cyclist whom we had waved to ten minutes before. He was resting near a wayside chapel. As we approached the summit I noticed that he was filming our arrival on his mobile phone. We think he had powered past us to get the shot!

Dirk hails from Leipzig and was riding an electric carbon bike especially adapted for bike-packing. He had also started in Irun about three days after us. Despite his heavy load he was making great progress and hoped to be in Santiago by Friday.

He offered to take a rare photo of the two of us together, and said that he would still be in Santiago when we hope to arrive next Monday. He said he will look out for us at 1pm! He meant it!

As we descended ( yes we are losing all of the height we have gained today, and a little more besides) into the Allande Valley the hills for tomorrow loomed large and magnificent.

Pola de Allande, where I am sat writing this, nestles in the bottom of this very steep sided valley. For those who know it we are reminded of the Contamines Valley beneath the slopes of Mont Blanc. Steepness and grandeur are in full abundance here.

The Library is unmistakably Spanish but the sense of an alpine spa town remains.

Linda is still trying to rehydrate before we do it all over again tomorrow, except it will be higher and much more remote.

Our hotel for tonight is a typical Asturian house, with comfortable and homely rooms and a wonderful view across the stream to the village and hills beyond.

Unfortunately, the daily requirements of cycling pilgrims sometimes means that aesthetics takes second place to necessity! Hasta luego!