Covarubias to Sos del Rey Catolica and then Hecho

13/3 glorious kip by the burbling rapids, up at 8, Jen off for a 30 min run, kids slowly up for breakfast, school to be followed by some boat play in the rapids. School dragged out somewhat by disgruntlement so just a short play before we drove Eddie across the splendid Romanesque bridge into the town, parked up and sauntered about the ever so quiet, nearly deserted streets - amazing how the Spanish can make a town look like a ghost town in the middle of a working day, then the occasional varus kneed retiree wanders out with a walking stick, not much interaction eye or verbal, makes you feel a bit like an intruder sometimes.

Took some snaps of the old buildings - local signature seems to be the exposed wooden beam framing in the walls, like old England.  Some buildings bulging, curving, leaning, fancy doors, had a coffee and pastellies and hit the scenic route northeastish.

Rolling hills of trees and rock, some jutting menacingly close to Eddie’s forehead as we wove our way here and there, past (big) churches standing proud but alone in the fields, through more little villages huddled around their grand churches, through vineyards, and then up into the high hills via another scenic route above the snow line (still large dollops remaining scattered about in the creases), over the peaks lined with wind turbines as far as the eye could see and down the other side through dairy country and more quaint villages, lots of trees of the conifer variety (just great to see trees, but are they “native”? do they even care or value “native” after so many years of deforestation and foreign imports, no eucalypts here but they still remain probably the most common tree we have seen in this country). 

As the sun neared the horizon spotted a great roadside stop beside another rapiding brook, across the road a short path (50m) to a lovely waterfall, not a busy road, certainly no trucks as too narrow/windy - perfect it would seem!  Chocked up the back right wheels, kids leapt out to play boats in the brook and stick chucking games, picked up a sack full of strewn garbage, augmented the paella, scrubbed the gritz, quoffed a scotch and settled in for another peaceful evening on the cheap (28 nights so far in Eddie of which 13 free camped).  Will need to wash properly and add water soon though! 

Dice Roll 

Wil (worst part) slipping on the rocks in the middle of the icy stream and nearly falling in

Kel (word of the day) “lipides” on the back of the french tomato sauce bottle - clutching at straws here!

Jeff (best part) finding another quiet park up by a babbling stream, after leaving 1 this morning

Jen (best natural thing) sound of the babbling rivers & the large Russian winter hat style storks nests decorating village spires

She's got a headache

14/3 slowish getaway after some creek play and 2 cuppas, onward weaving through the small country roads among the hills and cultivation, caves (man dug) everywhere in the sheer cliffs (makes you wonder???), many crags ruled by old towers which were lookouts for approaching marauders, the storks (who are furiously into breeding) rule the towers, 

another tower and caves

towns dotted about with surprising facilities, like the awesome motorhome dump station we found (that’s rare here), 

the dump

like the rock climbing wall, then into a larger town with a Decathlon (sporting chain store) where Jeff bought a mountain bike (about $400, the ribs are up to it, the weather is favourable), Jen sent emails from Maccas, and then broke back onto the country roads, about 20km of gravel, winding as the sunset up to Sos del Rey Catolica, little hill top village where King Ferdinand was born in the 1400’s, whose marriage to Catherine formed Spain through the joining of the 2 main kingdoms, enabling those pesky Moors to finally be expelled from Granada, and then they kicked off the Inquisition to finally ethnically and religiously cleanse the land of anyone not Catholic.  Beware the zealot.

Parked on the edge of a cliff under the city walls, didn’t sleep too well for fear the hand brake would fail, as would the reverse gear, and then the chocks under the front wheels would give way and we would all career over the cliff.  Must have fallen off a cliff or something in a past life!  Anyway, next morning Jen and Kel said they had the same concerns!!

Up for a Jen run (Achilles mildly injured), some school, then another quiet walk through this historic village which has remained quite authentic, all rock, not much paint or plaster, lots of ruins and soon to be ruins by the look of some of the buildings.  

Sos centre

down hill besides Sos wall

Plaza Sos a la Contador!

More unfriendly/shy/rude people, rare to have someone meet your eye or reply to your greeting.  Inward looking, >1000yrs of being attacked, depressed by the economy???  Just getting to the point of giving up on the Spaniards but saved by the lovely man who sold us a good local bottle of wine (we are in Spain’s best wine area), all in sign language, and the lady in the cafe who sold us a coffee.

Out heading north towards Anso and Hecho, small villages up in the Pyrenees foothills, past a huge aqua green hydroelectric dam which doesn’t seem to be finished (so many infrastructure projects stalled), 

along a very windy, narrow road into a deep gorge through rough blown tunnels up to Anso which just got an Eddie look before we headed over the higher pass to Hecho and a nice little campgound from where we drank the wine while the kids played with the sun setting lighting up the snow peaks to the north, then the kids cooked dinner (their pasta salad with chorizo special), we washed the clothes and the stinky bodies, read, did photo downloading/editing, surfed the net (very slow!) for bike racks so we can get 3 more, read and slept.............this is good!