Having already decided to skip Saturday’s stage that ends in Villablino we went north on the same road that goes there, but then turned east to our ‘go-to’ campground Rio Luna.
In our years and years of traveling in the campervan we’ve been to dozens of campgrounds – and Rio Luna is our very favourite.
We’ve been there several times now and will drive miles and miles out of our way just to stay there – we love it! It is very basic with showers, etc and a bar and also has many lovely hiking trails and very few children – a big plus for us!
Also they will let the dog in the bar and put the Vuelta on the tv for us – as long as there’s not an ‘important’ soccer game on.
We got to see Michael Woods make an extreme effort and get a triumphant solo mountain stage win on Friday – excellent!!
We took a couple of nice short walks, had some excellent coffee and just relaxed for a couple of days in a lovely place.
We left our little paradise on Monday intending to take it very easy on the way back to Saliente.
Taking the motorway for some time we covered a lot more ground the first day than I thought we would. We took a different route than on we’d done before and went through some very lovely countryside.
Getting back to the house was great in some ways, and not so great in others. We both love the area in general, and the house in particular but once again water was an issue.
We went over a week with no water, resorting to fishing jugs of water out of the pool so we could flush toilets. And of course the day after getting some agua from the tanker guy the co-op finally delivered also. At least we’re topped up and are considering getting another large tank installed for a backup supply.
We managed to get a small fall crop of veggies planted in one of the raised beds – little seedlings of lettuce, kale and onion, as well as seeds of carrots, beets and chard. It’s nice to look forward to harvesting our own food even though it’s only a few things for now.
We’ve had some fierce winds as well as some lovely sunsets.
A few days ago we took a day trip to the village of Gorafe – a place we’d seen on a video about the cycle race along ‘The Badlands’. The route is both beautiful and brutal and passes through a desert and down to the coast.
Unfortunately at this time of year there’s not much happening – Colin asked a local lady where a restaurant was and we found it by following the voices from above (it wasn’t really marked but we could hear talking through the open windows). They weren’t doing lunch but the owner was kind enough to make us a small plate of tapas so we didn’t starve.
We stopped at a restaurant we’d passed near the highway and did get a good lunch – as usual we were almost finished as more and more folks arrived to eat.
We also need to replace the pump that moves the water from the upper tank into the house – it’s not pleasant to be partway through showering and have the water die out. Luckily hitting the reset button on the pump is getting it going for now but a new one the doesn’t stop spontaneously will be nice.
We enjoyed watching the cycling world championships on tv and were so happy when Remco Evenepoel won the time trial and Tadej Pogacar won the road race – and in great style too having gone on his own with just under 100 km to go. He’s going to look very good in the rainbow jersey for the next year!
Sally McKenzie's European Adventures 