Wednesday 15 June was a rest day. I did a short walk in the morning, had lunch in Arenas, read and slept in the afternoon and joined up with the Petts Wood Boys and a few others for dinner in the Hotel Cares in Arenas. Others were more active; some went canyoning, others went to the coast and walked a few kilometres into Llanes. All the activities and transport was arranged by Jim and Pilar at our hotel.

Tresviso

16 June 2016

Despite the rest day, our fourth day of walking was a bad one for me. I realised as soon as we set off that I was having what French cyclists call ‘un jour sans’ – a day when my legs just weren’t going to work. Uphill – and we did a lot of it that day – was a slow trudge, a matter of just putting one foot in front of another and keeping going at a slow pace. I very soon fell behind the rest of the group.

Tresviso village is 900m above sea level and the only way of reaching it from the east is by a steep track climbing 800m from the road at Urdon. From the west the much longer road approach is from Poncebos. The village was in the news a few years ago when heavy snows meant it was cut off for several weeks, relying on helicopter drops to keep the people and livestock alive.

Today should have been the day when we went to the highest summit in the area, but a poor weather forecast meant Álvaro had decided to stay lower. Sure enough it started to rain about halfway up the Tresviso track and we put on waterproof jackets and plastic trousers.

The bar/restaurant in Tresviso was open. We spent an hour or longer inside eating our lunch and taking coffees or stronger drinks from the bar. Not only did the owner not seem to mind us eating the food from our rucksacks, he even gave us two plates with huge portions of the local blue cheese and bread to go with it.

As the rain eased off we left the village on the tarmac road, still uphill, until we took a side track which dropped down into a valley and crossed the river by an old bridge and dam. There were deer in the valley. Another 450m of ascent, first on a footpath and then near the end on a driveable track brought me to the limit of what I could manage that day.

After about 2km gently downhill on a tarmac road we stopped to decide how to finish the day. It was already half past four. Another kilometre on the road would get us to Sotres, a village with a bar and accessible to the minibuses for a pick-up. Alternatively, suggested Álvaro, we could walk another 2 hours and end in a really nice village which also had a bar where we could wait.

“I can’t do any more uphill today. Sorry”, I said. The others were sympathetic – it was my choice. “It’s almost all downhill”, said Álvaro, “there’s only a really small bit of uphill, less than 100 metres. And we can do it in less than 2 hours.” I’d been alright going downhill. I mentally tossed a coin. “OK, let’s do it.”

And happily it wasn’t too bad. We headed off down a broad valley, picking up a fairly good path which still had some red-and-white tape and red flags from last Saturday’s mountain marathon. The flags were popular souvenirs for some.

Álvaro was pointing to a hole in a limestone outcrop. It looked like a low mining tunnel. “It’s where they keep the cheese!” A cheese cave. In the middle of nowhere. He explained: when the local Cabrales cheese is made it is plain white. To make it blue it has to grow the mould that gives it its flavour. Unlike more commercial blue cheeses the producers are forbidden to inject their cheeses. Instead the cheeses are carried up to cheese caves (north-facing ones are best apparently) in the mountains and stored for months on end. Mould spores in the caves fall on the cheeses and grow, yielding the characteristic flavour and blue veining. So we learned something that day!

I felt fine going downhill and the last uphill was indeed short, and I managed it slowly but without difficulty. Soon after we joined a driveable track which passed through an isolated but inhabited hamlet before a footpath short-cut finally dropped down into Tielve village. Ironically the last 250 metres were the most dangerous of the day – a steep concrete road which turned out to be so slippery we squelched and scrambled down the overgrown verges to avoid slipping on the road.

And then it was beer time!

Not many photos today. I was too tired and anyway my phone was buried inside my waterproofs.

Near the start of the Tresviso path

Uphill path to Tresviso

"Pointy Mountain"

La Caballar hamlet

Tielve village

Viewranger track