Ant Cooper

Well, that restaurant was quite something. Very, erm, interesting menu. Starters was potato soup – which turned out to have mussels in it, still in shells. Next a mushroom omlette that had all sorts of crazy mushrooms in, opted for creme caramel for dessert – sounded safer than the local cheese.

Anway, what have I been doing today? Well, for a change I thought I’d have a walk. Posada is at the top of the valley where the Garganta del Cares starts. A massive gorge that cuts through the mountain range and it’s high on the tick list for all Picos visitors. Worth a look then.

I cycled the first 9km down the valley to Cain where the real gorge walk starts. Jorge the B&B owner had written me a note to give to his friend Romiro asking him to guard my bike, which was pretty nice. Bike safely stowed I set out on foot. The walk starts with a few tunnels and a chance to get wet feet and dripped on, after this it opens out into an amazing walkway cut into the side of the gorge, sometimes 100m or more up and with no handrails or barriers you’d better not stumble!

I made it to Poncebos at the other end, time for a quick coffee stop of course, then made the return journey. About a 24km round trip, depending which sign you read. (There is a taxi service that’ll drive you back to the start – but it’s miles round on the road and must take about the same as walking. Besides, where would be the fun in that?)

The weather was pretty good early on in the day and hopefully I managed to get plenty of photos of spiky rocks and big drops. Mid afternoon a huge downpour made everything a little damp. By the time I’d made it back to the bike it had more or less stopped and I rode back through the drizzle – uphill all the way.

As a treat tonight I took a photo of the village centre and it’s impressive backdrop. The B&B is the building on the left. I think the mountains are about 1700m and I’m riding over a pass at 1609m tomorrow so it might be a bit chilly up there, fingers crossed it’s sunny.