Río Duje

Yes, almost a Camino day!
Today, we had a new tour guide, David, Juan's 5 year old grandson. He was very cute and led the way for the first half of the day's walking. He scooted around with boundless energy, spoke Spanish, and all of the teachers in the group (I think 7 of us) oohed and aahed and smiled benevolently 🙄😂. Poor child!
Our walk was a short 14km today, with 550m of descent and only 150m of ascent, but I'm sure you'll have guessed the sting in the tail...😆😫😖
The day started out fantastically well, though, with a 2.5 hour wander through beech forest and a jungle of fern, which was head height and quite imposing. There was a tiny bit of uphill walking (no climbing, thank goodness), and a lot of gentle downhill walking. All in all, it really was very camino-ish and a massive change to what we'd experienced over the previous 5 days.
The scenery was magnificent, and we were able to pinpoint where we'd already walked between the eastern, central and western massifs. I think it's photo 7 that shows parts of all 3 of them.
At one point, we walked along a concrete path, which was hard underfoot. We were given the option of continuing on this road into the village of Tielve, or taking the older, original path. We all chose the path, which was pretty tough but short and, before we knew it, we were sitting on the terrace of the local bar enjoying our packed lunch of tuna salad and Kitkat, a coke, and some delicious local Cantabrian blue cheese. This one had been matured for 4 months in one of the local cheese caves and was really strong and smelly 😋😋😋.
After lunch, our new tour guide was picked up by his grandma and we were all given the opportunity to return to the hotel with them. Tempting though it was, we were all keen to finish our week's walking on a high (did I mention that sting?🙄)
The last hour and a half was the old path between Tielve and Sotres before the road was built and, you guessed it, was the 150m ascent😖. The path was rocky and narrow, as well as pretty steep. I was always grateful when there were walkers coming towards us so that I could do the polite thing and stop😅.
In photo 8, you can see a cave. This was the last of Juan's stories 😊 - his wife's aunt was born in this cave during the Spanish Civil War - there's an entrance to the back of the cave. Franco supporters in the area reckoned the farmers were all communists and tried to get rid of them all. They fled to the hills, quite literally, and lived off the land. Apparently, the baby was born then smuggled back to Sotres, where the family still live, and fostered by a 'safe' family for 2 years. Living in the hills was particularly difficult as they couldn't even risk lighting a fire for fear of being found.
Juan's a really interesting bloke, with lots of amazing local knowledge and experiences.
We finally arrived, thankfully, at a viewpoint at the top of the village where we were able to stop for a quick break before a short and very slow walk back to the hotel.
Dinner tonight was a selection of tapas, followed by goat and chips, then something extremely creamy and yummy.😋😋😋
I still managed to get to bed by 10.00pm, though, I was already packed and ready for the off tomorrow.Read more