Day 37 – to Rio Truchillas, Truchas, León

A couple of years ago I was in Montanas Vacias, The Empty Mountains, to the west of Teruel. It is a tremendous area to visit as a cycle tourist, quite spectacular scenery, but there is often big distances between services. The area has become pretty much deserted of people, the young have moved away, the older people who work on the land eventually die, and no one is left to look after the animals, or the crop.

If anything, this area is more affected by that. The road next to where I’m parked isn’t a small mountain road by any means, but in two days, less than 5 vehicles have been past.

I promised some words on the film I saw on Sunday, that was set in rural Galicia, close to here, and that is a theme of the film, Am Bestas, of The Beasts.

It concerns an older French couple, the guy a retired teacher, who move to renovate an empty farm. They reckon without the few remaining locals, for whom life is not easy. The established farmers, there are only 7 people left in the community, are very keen to sell their land for wind turbines. The incoming French are against it, and the vote needs to be unanimous. Relations between them are tense, and just get worse.

Tourism has been tried in the area, and though the French are keen to relaunch something, it has not been successful. The area is too remote.

Of course I recommend the film, especially having had the chance to watch it while I’m here. It is described as a thriller by some publicity, but though dark, and occasionally suspenseful, it is much more of a drama.

This morning I finished the new Myers novel, which was very good, more on that soon. It was another fine day, and I decided to head up the valley opposite where I am parked up, to Lago Truchillas.

This is a protected area, and a special landscape, as it has a glacial origin, with the lake at its head. The steep walls are from glacial cirque and the vast rocks in the valley are its moraine. The depth of the lake has yet to be exactly established, because the equipment used has had no success. The flora and fauna is extremely rare, and consequently so is the animal and bird life; three types of eagle are resident, the Golden, the short-toed snake eagle, and Bonelli’s eagle.

It was a twelve kilometre ‘ida y vuelta’, or ‘out and back’ track that just gets steadily more captivating. And, no problem that you return the same way, as there’s plenty to stare at in the opposite direction too. The trail gains 580 metres, but only after an hour’s approach, and never steeply. My various niggles handled it well.

Though back mid-afternoon, I had my monthly accountancy work to do, but it was a warm afternoon, so it was outdoors, and the dog was more than happy to doze with an eye on the hills.