Did you know cats in Spain only have seven lives?
A few hours into the scenic drive, now in the autonomous community of Asturias, we pulled over at a local restaurant for some food. The menú del día only cost €9 and included three courses, bread, and water, so everyone but Sue went for it. It was pretty good, typically Spanish food (although we did get some beef). The more interesting part was the trouble we had conveying things to the waiter; our Spanish has improved a lot and I almost never have problems ordering things anymore in the center of Spain, but the official languages that range from French-influenced Catalán in Cataluña to Basque in País Vasco to nearly Portuguese in Galicia are further distinguished from the random dialects in the other communities in the north and south; my Castillian Spanish is apparently only easy to interpret in the center of the country. We eventually got the food we wanted, though, enjoyed, and moved on.
The drive all told took about seven hours with the lunch stop, and we arrived in Llanes, Asturias a few hours after nightfall. Our Pensión was easy to find, and I walked up to the proprietor’s apartment/reception office. “Hola, tengo una reservación para Mee-kell.” - “¡Bienvenidos!” and he handed me the keys. “Buenas noches.” No checking of passports, no key deposit, no payment of any sort; we hauled our stuff up to our rooms and the girls readied for the evening while I went to find parking for the car.
Ready to go out now, we started off with a “snack” at a nearby cafe. Snacks ranged from churros con chocolate for Sue, Seran and Kelly to a rum and coke for me. Hey, my driving duties were done for the night.
The city was looking pretty dead at only 9:30, so we asked some teenagers where we could hang out. They said “come back tomorrow,” to which we responded we only had Friday night, and they pointed us towards a bar. We hung out there, and Sam, Seran and I had a few €2 Heineken pints (A bar with something other than Spanish beer on tap!), and we just talked for an hour or so.
Asturias is famous for its (hard) cider, so we set off for that next. Apparently, it only tastes right if you pour it over your head into a cup below waist-level. See picture below. The bartender portioned out the roughly two-shot servings for us, and we drank them in one go, as we were instructed is proper. It was pretty tasty, and we ended up splitting two bottles of the stuff and a plate of chorizo.
Closing in on 11:30 now, Sue returned to the hostel and the rest of us found a cool, modernish bar not far from home. Bring on the wine. Can’t go wrong with mixing, right? We stayed there until last call (at an early 1AM), then got some (initially spinny) sleep so that we could be out the door by nine the next morning.
The next morning, I was shocked to look out the window and see giant mountains. As we’d arrived in the dark, we really had no idea what the city looked like. It was pretty stunning. As I showered, I came to the realization I was still a little drunk, and told everyone we’d have to walk out to the ocean or something before we headed out. We went out to the sea cliffs and just looked around with relaxation and patience, then piled into the car about 45 minutes later.
Next desination: los Picos de Europa, three large mountains and the corresponding hilliness just south of Llanes. No autovías for this leg of the trip; we weaved up and down and left and right alongside giant cliffs of dynamited rock. After utterly failing to get any useful information at the Information center (”You’re only here for 6 hours? That’s not enough time to see everything. — We don’t want to see everything. — It’s not enough time. Adios.”), we settled on a city that appeared to have some walking paths and a funicular. We parked next to a herd of sheep guarded by sheepdogs (see pictures), and climbed into the funicular to the top of the mountain nearby.
Getting out of the cablecar, the temperature had dropped some 20 degrees, primarily due to the insane winds. We were literally at the level of the base of the clouds, and the views down and around were too vast and spectacular to adequately capture with cameras. In front of the cablecar station, there was a metal grating that you could walk out on to see straight down the cliff we were situated on; the updraft from it almost gave the sensation of flying while simultaneously being stabbed by icicles. It was awesome.
Now two in the afternoon, we were satisfied with our exploration of the Picos and anxious to move on for the drive ahead/find some food. We settled on (shock) McDonald’s, because what is a roadtrip without it? I plugged it into the GPS unit, and something shocking to an American happened. The closest one was 100km away. We were resolved, though, and even the crazy oncoming SUV driver who found it fun to drive in the center of the road as a curve approached couldn’t stop us! (I got lots of compliments about my composure as a driver on this trip).
We got our McDonald’s, which turned out to be in the food court of a mall, then entered País Vasco, where the language changed again. Basque is apparently very fond of the letters K, X (TX specifically), and U. It truly sounds like gibberish, even more so because most people don’t speak exclusively Basque; they throw in a dash of Castillian for flavor, so it sounds like “Ay, tío, tengo txu txu gah ooh (more gibberish here).”
Just before sunset, we arrived in San Sebastian. Exciting conclusion coming soon.