Day 36 – to Rio Truchillas, Truchas, León

There was a Guardia Civil car browsing around yesterday. They looked so bored that I had a chat with them. They said that overnight sleeping was not allowed only in the parking areas marked with signs, here in the Sanabria National Park. For example, they said, it is quite possible to stay just outside the parking area, on the street in effect. I have come across this in the south of Portugal also, and generally, the residents don’t like it. It’s not a good idea to annoy the residents, as was confirmed to me later that evening when I watched an excellent new drama film, set in rural Galicia, Am Bestas, or The Beasts. More about that later.

Parking at the monastery was fine. Higher up at the car park I headed to this morning, at 1650 metres, the overnight temperature dropped to well below zero.

This morning the weather was pretty much perfect, clear skies, no wind, and warming up all the time, to a maximum of about 18C in early afternoon.

There were only 3 other cars there all day. I had planned a hike between three of the little lagoons up there, made even more picturesque than usual by the odd it of snow still clinging on.

In the above photo the sun reflects off the ice still melting on the lake, it was a cold night up here.

My objective was a small hiker’s refuge up at just over 1900 metres.

I’m having a really good reading streak at the moment, so before and after, sat in the afternoon sun, I continued Benjamin Myers’s new novel, Cuddy. More about that later also..

That was it for Sanabria, I drove back to El Puente to stock up at the supermarket and with fuel, and considered for a while, staying there. It has huge wide streets to enable it to hold its weekly market, to which people come from a long way around.

But, too many people, too much noise, too much dog poo.

I drove on towards the pass of Alto del Peñón, the boundary between the provinces of Zamora and León, at 1640 metres. I had thought of staying here also, there was absolutely no traffic on the road, which was dire need to repair. Driving on it was 20 miles per hour maximum, with plenty of pothole weaving.

It was quite exposed though, and would be -8C maybe lower later in the night.

So I headed down to the Rio Truchillas bridge, where there is a popular tourist trail, and a picnic area, though I have seen no one at all since setting out from El Puente.