Picos de Europa

Picos de Europa

The Peaks of Europe are in the northern part of Spain about 4 hours from Chaves. Duarte started planning our mountain biking circumnavigation around these peaks even before we left the United States. He studied maps and blogs and google earth and whatever else he could find. As usual, I left the homework to him and decided to let the trip unfold as it was happening. And, Oh, what a trip it was!

We left Chaves mid-morning and made the trek to the Peaks of Europe. We drove through flat, treeless landscapes where we could see for miles and miles – Don Quixote terrain. And then much to our surprise we came upon steep, jagged, snow covered mountains. Lush green meadows filled with birds and animals and wild flowers filled the valleys below the mountains. The colors were so vivid the texture was so striking. In all of my travels, I have never seen such a beautiful place.

We stayed in a small, mountain village and hiked up into a high meadow with a bottle of wine and some stinky cheese. We talked and laughed and enjoyed a beautiful evening together.

The next morning we awoke early and packed our backpacks full of water, food and clothes for overnight. We hopped on our bikes to begin our adventure. The ride started with a fast and chilly descent into the mouth of an incredible canyon called the Caris.

The Caris was incredible! I was worried about feelings of vertigo as this canyon is known for its very exposed trails to high drop offs. Bikes are actually not allowed on this trail as there are no guard rails and it would be easy to knock another person off of the trail. We resolved to mostly hike the canyon and dismount where I felt uncomfortable or when we encountered other hikers. I was so amazed by the beauty of this canyon there was no room for fear. Our travels through the Caris were extraordinary!

Leaving the canyon was a different story. We climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed. 6 miles up! When we arrived to our destination for the day we were too exhausted to move. We showered and sought food but there was no food to be found until 7:00pm in this village. When we did finally eat, the food we disappointing. Spanish food is simply disgusting. Enough said.

Day 2 had its share of adventures.

We had an early morning climb up to a huge plateau filled with cattle and horses. It would be fair to say that these animals were certainly not domesticated. In fact, I wonder how many humans they have ever encountered? We were nearly assaulted by a mama horse who wanted us O.U.T. out of her domain. Duarte stopped long enough to take a picture and quickly realized his mistake. She growled at him! The problem with passing through all of these animals was that there was down hill behind us, hills on either side of us (and more animals) and hill in front of us. There was no escape. We had to pass through. We did take note of what good mothers horses seem to be. They were shading their sleeping colts and certainly guarding their well-being.

I think the most adrenaline I experience was passing a VERY large bull that was only 4 feet from our path. I stopped Duarte and said “what should we do if he charges us?” Duarte confidently said “I don’t know, but let’s go!” I nearly shook off my bike with fear. I can’t believe we made it through without incident. The bull didn’t even look our way. He was distracted by an attractive cow who passed between us.

Before we finished our time among the livestock, we had to pass 3 more bulls. Two young bulls were locking horns in the middle of our passage and to their right was their very large and aggressive father who was passing his time snorting and scraping at the dirt. I was sure he was preparing his goring of the two stupid humans trying to pass by his territory. The cattle guard was within view. We had no choice but to go. And so we did. We lived to tell the story.

After passing the cows, we enjoyed our 2nd downhill in nearly 30 miles. We ate as good of a meal as can be eaten in Spain and then carried on. Little did know what was ahead.

We climbed and climbed and climbed for three long hot hours. I thought the end would never come and was quite agitated by the time we got to the top. It was frustrating to see other mountain bikers (going in the other direction) pass us by. Their route eluded the long ascents AND the cattle.

We finished with the third and final downhill (thank god!). We biked over 100 Kilometres and I think it’s safe to say that 60 of those Kilometres were uphill. It felt good to have such an extreme adventure and to learn what are bodies were capable of physically. I didn’t know I could ride uphill for 7 hours and still walk afterwards.

Picos de Europa is a magical place. I recommend exploration by foot or by bike clockwise, however. We learned that the hard way.