Buen Pastor // The good shepard

Awesome hiking trip around the picos de europa. Write up tomorrow, too much tired.

Up at 6:45 - sandwiches prepared the night before, provisions of chocolate and fruit packed, and a hearty fried breakfast to set me up on what I expected to be a hard and long hike with seasoned young mountain climbers.

I rocked up to the bus station, looking for said people - but all I could see was a group of middle - to late aged Spaniards with walking poles and lycra shorts which left way too little to the imagination.

I was convinced that I was in the wrong place until I was approached by Fernadez, on the left here, who told me that this was indeed the uni trip to the mountains. Where were all the young people? I asked. He said that the group had been going since they were all students at the uni, and that they'd been doing it since - about 20 years or so, with the same people. I was one of 2 erasmus students, the other from Brasil, so I was the only English speaker. Awesome - I didn't speak a word of English the whole day.

I sat next to Maria, a civil engineer, and we chatted all the way - she told me about the roads and viaducts that we were going along, and bought me a coffee at the obligatory 11 o'clock coffee stop because I had no money, and next to no cafés in Spain take card; cash-back is unheard of.

A few hours after setting off, we arrived at the set-off point on the walk, and 50 of us or so started the jaunt up the hill. The guide - an ex-student of Juan Carlos, who I've got now - told us all about the geography and geology of the region, pointed out the watersheds and the peaks, and told us about the fauna (bears!) that could be found here abouts.

We climbed up to the top of Peña del Brez, a limestone peak of 1,626m with views over to the Picos de Europa, seen here behind the two walkers. A scramble, but all minus 2 people made it to the top.

Lunch, then a vertical decent of 1.1km into the town of Laparte, where we'd planned to have a beer but the bar was having works done. We got in the bus, then out agian for said beer a bit down from Potes.

Love it. But my legs hurt after.