Spain from an English perspective

These are the mountains of northern Spain. They have peaks and they are in Europe so they are called the Picos de Europa, which is also the name of the Spanish national park they contain. Until today I had not been up there for about 18 years, and last time they had snow on the tops in August. My son, then small, kept trying to go higher and touch the snow but of course it was further away than it looked. No snow now. Global warming I fancy, though not everyone is convinced of its existence. I do not like heights (I once had to be talked down from a Mayan pyramid in Mexico, and got down backwards with my face to the stone) but we went up in the cable car anyway (it’s OK if you face the direction of travel going up and have your back to it going down).

Fantastically impressive landscape and it is worth visiting just for the silence, speaking as a south London resident who never hears silence at all. There are allegedly brown bears up there, but they understandably keep well away from humans. We got the first cable car of the day at 0900, having left the house at some unconscionable hour, and it was full, including a bloke with a mountain bike who presumably was going to cycle down. On the way down, on foot, I started to envy that bloke. Significant other sometimes has ambitious ideas about the physical challenges we can both meet, and inching down a steep pebbly mountain path for about three hours sounds easier than it was.

I also discovered today that the change in air pressure as you ascend, which makes your ears pop and readjust automatically on the way up and you have to pinch your nose on the way down, has its effect on teeth too. I have a cracked tooth I have been meaning for several years to have seen to, and before the air pressure readjusted it was agonizing. I remember now being warned about this when I was having diving lessons last year, but had forgotten again until today.

We made it down the mountain to a little village called Espinama, charming place but we really wanted to be elsewhere, and asked about the bus to the nearest town, Potes. Some Guardia Civil were hanging about in the village with a horse-box van (I thought at first it was a meat-wagon) and on seeing that we were footsore and had three hours to wait for the bus, they said the Spanish equivalent of “Hop in” and took us to Potes. Four Guardia Civil, they don’t wear those tin hats any more but a kind of beret thing, fab uniform with tight trousers tucked into knee-length riding boots, two of them were very good-looking I couldn’t help noticing and one even had a kind of dueling scar on his cheek. They were playing a tape of songs which sounded to my untutored ear like far-right anthems. They were terrific, offered their fags round and everything. This is the kind of thing which doesn’t happen. I am putting it here because I can hardly believe it myself. Whatever your names are, thanks to all four of you. Both of us had overdone it walking down the mountain, it was only about 15K I suppose, but downhill on a rough path when you are not used to it, perhaps on balance a return trip in the cable car would have been a better idea.

But the sky, the silence, and the eagles flying, or rather gliding on the thermals. Nothing at all to be heard but cowbells and a goat’s bleat every now and then. Tomorrow I shall probably not be able to walk at all. But go there if you can, there is a terrific rest house up there and you don’t have to walk as far as we did.