Monday 16 May 2011

Picos de Europa!


Today we woke to light rain "siddy-middy".  We decided to head off on our daytrip to Covadonga and the lakes anyway.  
The chapel inside the cave was pretty cool; I didn't drink much of the special husband-catching water though as there was a sign that said "Agua sanitarie sin guarantie".

We headed up to the lakes.  It was a long, slow slog - 11km usually takes only 30 when cruising on the flat - but this took us probably 2 hours!  There was a bit of atmospheric mist but we were hoping it would clear.  
We arrived at the first lake and went to the 'restaurant' for a 'cafe con leche 'grande' por favor'.  It's so funny becuase the usual coffees are served in very small cups; so the largest 'grande' was still smaller than a standard cappucino in NZ!  It was so good though, and then we made our own yummy boccadillos (sandwiches) from our picnic supplies.   It's funny how food tastes so good after such hard work!  The mist continued to roll in thicker.  With happily full tummies we got back on the bikes and continued up the road to the second lake. We arrived in white-out conditions at the carpark - we could hear people talking but couldn't see anything!  Then we put our warm gear on and cruised down the hill. 
 It was a bit disappointing that we couldn't fly as fast as possible down the hill due to the mist.

We went out for dinner in Cangos; the choice of restaurant ended up coming down to who was actually serving dinner at 7:30 when we wanted it!  Cider seems to be a big thing in this area.  We ordered a bottle before dinner and the waiter held the bottle of cider high in the air and the glasses down low (about a metre apart) and expertly caught the cider in the glasses.  He then told us to drink it 'total'.  We did.  He then left to serve another table. I poured us some more cider - he came back and said "who did this!?  It does not taste the same!"  Ooops.  We were supposed to let him pour out all our top-ups in his special way.  It was hard choosing from the menu which was entirely in spanish, especially when Julie asked for some translations and one of the items was 'pigs ears'.  I was going to eenie meenie mynie mo but I chickened out at that point.
There was an earthquake in southern spain yesterday but we didn't feel it at all. It seems to have affected only the far south of spain.

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