Day 47 – to A Proba de Navia

My objective today was the main ridge of the Bierzos mountains, which lay to the west. Yesterday I had headed east on the ridge.

Being the holiday weekend, it did mean there were a few other people around, but really very few. Most that I met and chatted to for any length of time asked me how I was spending Holy Week.

There was a group of a couple of young families that I passed a couple of times. Their kids, only 9 years old, were inspired by Roja, determined to keep going and catch him up. There was one stage on the ridge when there was a difficult few steps, and they were prepared to head back down, but between me, and another group, we got them through.

With such a leisurely lunch, it was 5 hours out in total, a route of about 6 miles, or 10 kilometres, but slow going. And with the two peaks, the largest being the highest of this course so far, 1987 metres.

After the peak at Cuiña, at 1987 metres, I was keen to head down to the Laguna 150 metres in altitude below. It was the recommendation of a guy three days ago when I was in Burbia, and due to so many trees being down, I failed to get there that day.

Not long after arriving at the Laguna, or piscina as Roja might call it, the young group joined me and we had a very civilised lunch.

They suggested me staying at the town they were from overnight, A Proba, on the river Navia, and recommended it highly, said we would meet up at the central bar.

I actually didn’t really have any plan, other than to watch the rugby later. I had thought of staying at the pass, but the wind gets up in the night, and the temperature drops to about zero.

So on return I drove, very much at leisure, to A Proba. Its actually difficult to drive in any other way. The roads are quite spectacular, steep up and down, narrow, and with incredible views. It took about 50 minutes and involved heading out of Leon, temporarily, and back into Galicia.

The town is very much how they described it, with not just a huge height difference, losing almost 1500 metres, and a huge temperature difference as well, it was 25C when I arrived.

After Roja had eaten, and I had prepared dinner, we wandered into town to the bar that had been arranged, and we met up and enjoyed a couple of very pleasant 1906s.

Fortunately it’s the time of year that as soon as the sun goes down the temperature drops considerably. Though I have the rugby on, the van door is still open at 9:21 pm, it’s still light, and probably about 10C.