Bubión: PR—A 70

My goal today was to be out in the high mountains. So this morning’s cloudless blue sky was an extra bonus. The local trail that crosses the river twice between Pampaneira (the village just below us) and Capileira (village just above us) seemed like a good bet. Better yet, it passes directly in front of our house, so it was literally two steps to the trail.

When we got to the information board at the edge of the village, there was a big sign posted, saying that the trail was in bad condition as a result of the winter storms. We debated for a while and decided to get as far as we could, because, optimistically, perhaps the trail had already been repaired. It was a beautiful walk with views of all three villages in the Barranco de Poqueira, and with especially nice views of Pico del Veleta rising snow-capped to dominate the skyline above Capileira. The trail started out nice and wide, narrowed down as things got steeper, and eventually was interrupted by rock slides that had not been cleared. However, it was a great walk to that point. Ned went farther to see if things would improve and had a view of the river before he came back to join us.

After lunch, we walked around the village, finding numerous elements that are detailed in the ADR fichas. The most exciting were the tinaos that look like they have not been “prettified”. In fact, some corners of Bubion seem almost medieval, similar to the remote villages we visited in Nepal. We found two kinds of tinaos that we have not seen before: tinaos-descargadero (to have a dry area for unloading animals in front of stables) and triangular tinaos (to make use of corner spaces).

In the late afternoon, Ned had the pleasure of sitting in the sunshine on the balcony of our 500 year-old house listening to station WCRB out of Boston play Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9. When I asked him if it was dramatic enough to match the scenery, he said that actually, it’s one of Shostakovich’s least dramatic symphonies. The interesting thing behind it is that Stalin wanted it to be dramatic, like Beethoven’s ninth or Schubert’s ninth, but Shostakovich had other ideas. As you might expect, it got him into some serious trouble with the authorities.Read more