An eventful day!

Before I get into today’s adventures, a few words about dinner last night. We had a splendid meal at a little place just down the street, but were the only ones in the restaurant. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s not ‘high season’ here or what, but we’ve been the only people in the restaurant the last few nights.

We ordered the Menú del Día again, this time for two, and it was very local-oriented. The first course was a slab of the very strong local blue cheese, called Cabrales (for which the town is named). Next was the Asturian version of mountain stew, called Fabada asturiana, consisting of fava beans and lots of different meats in a terrific broth. The last course was roast Cabrito (baby goat). The only thing I remembered to photograph was the stew (which might be just as well!):

Anyway, it was another great example of the unique food in the Picos. Complete with a really nice bottle of local Rioja wine, we went back to our hotel fully sated!

This morning dawned the cloudiest of the trip, but at least it wasn’t raining yet. We were shooting for an earlier start, but it was still 10:15 by the time we were on the bikes.

We decided to take the more challenging option for the first third of the ride, and it was serious climbing for the awhile. The clouds hung low over the surrounding hills, but the scenery was still very nice:

All day it looked like the rain was coming just over the next (or last) hill, but it held off for us. This shot demonstrates it well:

As we got closer to the coast, we thought maybe the ups and downs might let up a bit, but it wasn’t to be! At one point, as we were climbing along through a dense eucalyptus forest, I took a peek over the wall on the downhill side of the road and saw this:

What a sight! A little further on, after winding in and out of glimpses of the ocean, we came to a scenic overlook. Though we were only about 12 kilometers from San Vicente, we decided it was a good spot to enjoy our daily picnic lunch of sausage, cheese and fresh red pepper (pimiento):

And the view wasn’t bad either:

We figured we better get a self-portrait before it was too late as well…

Not two kilometers after we hopped back on the bikes, I heard a funny noise, looked down, and saw that I had a flat! This time, it was my back tire (not fun to fix). It was finally starting to sprinkle, but I got it fixed lickety-split…

The worst part is how bad our pump is. It takes forever to fill the tire, and that’s after you wrestle with it to make sure it’s attached right! Who’d have thought we’d have two flats in five days!? I think mine was a bad tube, since it had leak-sealing goop in it when Mal tried to fully deflate it to stow it in my handlebar bag.

Anyway, we’re now ready to head to dinner (I’m starved!), so it’s hasta mañana for now. Talk to you from Santillana del Mar tomorrow night, after our last ride!