Water, Water, Everywhere

[Mac]

Two snowploughs idle by the Puerto San Gloria, the highest point on
the main (but not big) road round the south of the Picos. They've
been busy, so the road is clear, but the clouds rolling over the peaks
are sending down more wet snow, blown horizontal by the wind. Further
down, water cascades onto the road from the overhanging cliffs. Side
roads are not a priority, and I'm forced to retreat from the road up
to Posada de Vadeon long before the pass, and make south away from the
mountains.

This takes me to Riaño, a town all of 20 years old, the replacement
for one of six pueblos drowned in the filling of the huge Embalse de
Riaño, and showing its age in all sorts of ways, depending on building
techniques. A small 15th Century church has been relocated and well-
reconstructed next to a hideous creation of concrete and tubular metal
containing the bells of the other drowned churches, presumably to
forestall their ghostly ringing as told in several legends. The
situation is impressive, with a backdrop of snowy peaks; I am a firm
believer that water enhances most landscapes (but hey!, I even think
that wind turbines enhance some landscapes, much to the disgust of
many of my neighbours back home).

The embalse, whose tentacles stretch for several kilometres in all
directions, is not quite full, but should be edging up now, judging by
the state of the rivers. There is water everywhere - not only coming
from the sky, but cascading down the mountainsides, flooding across
the roads, squelching underfoot, and rushing torrentially down the Rio
Sella far below, as I drive down the Desfiladero de Los Beyes, the
mirror image of La Hermida in the east, but if anything even more
spectacular. This, I suppose, is what makes Green Spain.

I hadn't intended to drive this far, but the weather has made
exploring on foot an impossibility, so I take refuge in Canga de Onis,
a perfectly pleasant small town washed clean for the tourist influx it
obviously expects. I decide to seriously investigate the local
speciality in one of the sidrarias.

Pero más de eso mas tarde.

Mac