Day 56 – to San Martin

Clear skies and a cool morning on peeling back the curtains, but it was soon to warm up.

I had concocted a circuit that took in some of the high summer pastures, gained some height, to 1600 metres, then returned on the Roman road. It worked well, with the help of GPS as there was a section away from paths, just on cattle trods.

There were a couple of highlights, though on a clear day after a few days of rain visibility across the Cantabrians is extensive from everywhere in this route.

A pasture with a small lagoon had a couple of Asturcón wild horses grazing. The white one sauntered over to get better acquainted, but kept a respectable few metres distance.

The second highlight was at the Piedra Jueves pass where the Trans-Cantabrian MTB route crosses the Roman road. There is a water fountain here, and it was an ideal spot for lunch.

Back at the van a motorcyclist came over and introduced himself having seen that I was British. He lives near Oviedo and was enjoying a ride out for the day. He was an early retired mining engineer who had married a Spanish woman and had a family here until she divorced him last year. It was obviously still very fresh as he talked me through it all. More interestingly, he takes short term consultancy contracts, and was in Sierra Leone before the pandemic, and is likely to head to Surinam soon. I say interesting, for me maybe, but he hates it.

I descended from the pass to San Martin, or Samartin in the Asturian language. It has a lot of weekend visitors from Oviedo, though it’s bars and restaurants were just emptying out. It has an aire for campervans also, which was similarly emptying. But the Spanish like their Sundays out, and it wasn’t until after 8 that it emptied completely.

I wandered in for a quiet beer in what was now warm spring sunshine, at 23C.