We returned to Bar Centro for a beer last night hoping to see “Pocahontas” but were served by another lovely, charming bar maid (sister?). Supper at the hotel was a repeat of the night before and this time I at least established that the main course was “cow in cabbage” …… shredded beef wrapped in cabbage with a yellow sauce. Delicious. The dessert was a slice each of two delicacys; one a type of blancmange and the other chocolate with coconut. Also delicious.
We had breakfast with Joni, an American woman from Kentucky (probably about our age) who we’d met when we arrived in Pola and had seen through the day on the hike. Derrick was very grateful to her later in the day when she returned to him the hat he’d lost in the forest a few kms earlier.
We were driven back to La Mesa after breakfast to start the day’s hike in the mist and rain. The walk started with a very steep climb for nearly 2 kms. Derrick took off at a charge and we left Joni standing…….. she passed us soon after as we stood on the road side recovering.
The sting in today’s relatively short hike (17 kms) was the 8km long winding descent from 1100m to 220m through fields, meadows and a forest on a gravel path littered with loose stones and large pieces of broken slate. Tough on joints and muscles. In the forest we walked next to vertical rock face that looked like huge petrified logs stacked on top of each other. Beautiful.
The scenery was lovely and the mist added a mystical magic. The descent finished at the impressive hydroelectric dam wall on the Navia River (Embalase de Salime). Opened in 1954, this was at one time the largest gravity dam wall in Spain (134m high).
The steep climb from the dam back into the mountains was a welcome relief from the pounding descent and after a coffee stop at the hotel at the top, the route was an easy climb for about 6kms into Grandas where a hot bath as waiting to thaw these cold wet pilgrims.
Tomorrow’s a rest day !!!
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