Safe Return Doubtful

For the weekend I moved to the northern reaches of the Serra do Barroso mountains, close to the Spanish border, above the town of Ervededo to a small community called Castelãos. Above the hamlet is a Sanctuary and recreational area that I had found on the map, at about 800 metres. It turned out to be an excellent option, with a wonderful view to west, and the weather was kind, as up at this altitude in early February there can be snow, though there has been none at all this year; temperatures ranged from mid teens in the height of the day, to a few degrees above zero at night. 

There was some good hiking opportunities, which we took, and it was a good place to watch some sport, though it was a relatively quiet weekend on that front.. I settled for the UWC rugby, and Belgium Germany in Rugby Europe on Sunday afternoon. 

Though a couple of mountain bikers passed, with just a wave and shouted greeting, I had one proper visitor. It was a guy about my age who lived nearby and was a landscape artist. He had worked in Chaves, the nearest city, but in his mid-fifties moved to the countryside to follow his heart and become an artist. For a few years he did some other work online, with weekly visits to the office in Chaves, as he struggled to sell any of his work. The pandemic years meant he devoted more time to his painting, and he got a breakthrough, with an opportunity to display at a festival in Madrid that was, in 2021, taking place online only. Since then he has never looked back, and fully quit his job. 

We chatted for a while, and he set up to paint close by. I shared a beer with him and we watched some rugby, and he returned an hour or so later with another, albeit a dreadful SuperBock, though I was not impolite enough to say anything, just to hold my nose and drink it. 

On Monday morning I broke camp and drove across the border, just half an hour, into the city of Verin in Galicia. I got a SIM card for the internet, DigiMobil, which works with Movistar, for 15 euros unlimited data for a month. This is the way to go for the future for me, much cheaper and easier than anything else, even Starlink at present. Easier though, will be to use eSims now that there is at least one mini-router on the market that fits an eSIM. 

From Verin we drove another hour into the southeastern end of the Cantabrian mountains, and close to the Camino de Santiago trail. For a couple of days I’m based at Parado de Sil, a small village which clings to the cliffs of the gorge, 300 metres above the Sil river.