Two weeks from now – right now – I will be sitting somewhere in the transit lounge in Bogotá’s El Dorado International Airport, awaiting my connecting flight to Peru. That’s about 5,300 miles (or 8,500 kilometres) from home, which will be the furthest I have ever been from home by a long shot, beating both Kampala and a brief layover in Dallas last year – and, if things go to plan, I may well find myself even further afield before the year is out. I will also be a full five hours out of sync before I even reach my final destination, so I will need to be careful and try to acclimatise with an altered sleep schedule a few days in advance.
We are very much into the preparation phase now. I have arranged the last of my accommodations for the journey in Ollantaytambo, where I hope to end my Peruvian adventure in the peace and quiet of the Sacred Valley. I have ordered a new pair of sturdy Merrell hiking books to see me around the altiplano and beyond. I should do a preparatory pack this weekend to see if I can fit everything into my rucksack. I’m a light traveller, but the zoom lens is likely to be the largest and heaviest of the equipment I will be lugging around. The jury’s still out as to whether I should take a book with me or simply use up the last of my Audible subscription credits and download more audiobooks than I could possibly hope to finish in that time. I’m leaning toward the latter, if only because I’m not particularly good at leaving a good book behind.
I’ve been meaning to get out and about and keep practising with the lens, but my time is very limited. Last week I managed to escape for just over an hour on Friday afternoon while the sun was out, but between report-writing, lesson planning, taking my team to Oxford Schools on Saturday and being on duty almost all of Sunday, I haven’t had much luck. The Netherclay Community Wood isn’t too far from home, but it had rained a lot on Friday so I didn’t explore the woods too much, as the ground beneath my feet had become little better than a squelching quagmire. Little wonder, then, that there were so few walkers out and about.
I went looking for the water rail that I heard last week, but I didn’t see or hear it. I did disturb a kingfisher on the other side of the pond, though, and while the halcyon bird was much too fast for me, I did have more luck with a young cormorant in the momentary interlude when the winter sun deigned to show its face.
Having something incredible to look forward to always makes the Lent term – by far the hardest of all the school terms – a lot easier to bear. Last year, the knowledge that I would be spending all of three weeks in and around Spain was enough. This time, I have pushed the boat out so far that there is a very real danger that the tide will carry it away. And once it does, where will it take me? I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve caught myself exploring other destinations, other wildlife adventures, other places where I can run while I still have the light of life. This year it’s South America’s turn, but in the years to come, I would dearly like to see the rest of the world, now that the wanderlust has returned. I still harbour dreams of seeing the eerie saguaro stands of Sonora, but a number of other old ideas have started to rise to the surface, like bubbles beneath a frozen lake: KwaZulu-Natal, Kanha National Park, Svalbard and Borneo.
It may well be that in abandoning my search for Her, wherever she may be, and indulging in the thing that has always brought me the most joy, I am putting off the thing I want the most in life. It may also be that I find Her along the road. Either way, I am done waiting. The apps are drier than the Atacama these days and the conversations drier still. There is a world of light and life and joy out there and I can no longer ignore it. It is time for a change of scenery. BB x
With Chile now a very real possibility this summer, it’s time to bury the heartbreak hatchet with the Americas and accept the fact that I’m ridiculously excited about crossing the Atlantic again. Somehow, between the red hair and the po’ boys, I missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime to linger in the New World and enjoy all the sights and sounds of a place I’d never seen before. Instead, I beat a hasty retreat home to nurse my wounded pride. This time I have my priorities straight: I’m going out there for me.
There is so much to look forward to this year: from a brief pitstop in Madrid and Colombia’s El Dorado Airport to my first ever encounter with the Pacific Ocean on the grey shores of tearless Lima; the guano colonies of Paracas and the altiplano around Arequipe; the cloud forests of the Sacred Valley and the pristine jungles of the Amazon; and then, after a brief return to reality, the snow-capped mountains of Santiago de Chile, the starlit expanse of the Atacama Desert and the desolate shores of Tierra del Fuego; and at the end of it all, a wedding in Athens and the quiet of Lake Kerkini. If the world is going to hell in a handcart, I’m going to see it all before it’s gone.
My only real wild encounters during my last trip to the Americas – if you don’t count a brief glimpse of a bald eagle from the train – were in the Louisiana bayou, where I chartered a boat and captain to take me up the Pearl River of Slidell’s Honey Island Swamp (which you can read about here). During my six days in the States, I saw only a handful of American birds, and most of them were on my Bayou side-quest: cardinals, chickadees and blue jays around the visitor centre (commonplace to most Americans but brand new to me), wood ducks and whistling ducks in the forest and spoonbills and anhingas along the river. The alligators, on the other hand, were everywhere. You could hardly miss them. I also saw a family of scruffy-looking racoons, rounding out the American classic collection. Short of a white-tailed deer or two, I think I ticked off most of the North American beginner’s collection.
But South America… now, that will be a different ball game entirely.
I included Patagonia on my wish list years ago, but I never thought I’d actually end up going there someday. Now that it’s real, I can’t shake it from my head. There are so many things I want to see and do, and I haven’t even begun to learn them all properly.
So I thought I’d write a list – nothing obsessive, mind, just something to look back on when I return. My itinerary for Peru is nearly finished, and my plans for Chile will have to wait until I have a clearer idea of what lies ahead (and what I will actually be doing out there). For now, at least, I can indulge in a little harmless wish-listing – starting with the essentials…
Andean Condor– the only one that I’m really pinning my hopes on (my itinerary will accommodate multiple attempts)
Black, Turkey or King Vultures – in case it wasn’t obvious, I’ve got a real soft spot for vultures!
Hummingbirds – I’m not fussed about the species, I just fancy seeing the sunbirds’ transatlantic cousins!
Pumas – it’ll have to wait for my Patagonian adventure, but it would beat even the wolves of Poland
Jaguars – I’m not expecting to see them in Manu, but it would be incredible if I did
Pelicans – in my head, a line of pelicans flying over the water is the image of the Pacific I’m after
Guanacos – llamas are great and all, but nothing beats seeing their wild cousins
Howler monkeys – something tells me I may regret putting these muditos on the list
Giant otters – regular otters are rare enough, so maybe the Amazon will provide!
Capybaras – because my Year 7 & 8 students are counting on me to bring them photos
Rheas – another gem I don’t expect to see, but one that I will have to come back for!
Sloths – something that won’t disappear into the jungle in the blink of an eye, maybe?
Anacondas – to see just how large they truly are
Hoatzin – surely the most bizarre bird of the Americas!
Penguins – Humboldt, Magellanic or King, depending on the country
Tinamous – because their names are simply wonderful on the ear
Tapirs – the closest I’ll get to megafauna on this adventure
Boobies – not going all the way to the Americas just for the boobies this time, but they’d be a nice reward!
Macaws – the symbol of the Amazon, right?
Cacti – fine, this one’s no animal, but it’s definitely American enough to warrant a spot on this list
There’s a blackbird singing outside. They’re getting earlier and earlier as the year turns. I, too, should turn in. BB x
Little Egret (Egretta garzetta) – River Tone. 22/2/26
On my afternoon wander along the Tone yesterday I came across an egret fishing on the concrete steps of a flow measuring station. I’m so used to the snowy white shapes of these beautiful birds in and around the rivers and fields of the English countryside that it’s sometimes hard to remember a time when these were a very rare sight indeed.
When I was not yet ten, the presence of an egret in the area was something my family or friends found newsworthy. That’s not exactly surprising. Compared to our native (and undeniably stately) grey herons, they do have an exotic look about them. Maybe it’s the silky plumes (or aigrettes) of their breeding plumage, or maybe it’s the smart yellow galoshes they seem to wear on their feet. The speed of their colonisation of the British Isles gave the Roman Empire a run for its money: by the time I was fifteen, they were already such a feature of the Kentish wetlands and saltmarshes that they had somewhat lost their star appeal, if not their lustre. They no longer triggered a rare bird alert on twitchers’ pagers up and down the country, and their names no longer appeared in bold capital letters on the “Recent Sightings” blackboards at nature reserves.
But first, some myth-busting. It’s not as though the egret is an exotic immigrant to our shores. Far from it. Various species of egrets could be found in the British Isles throughout history, before a combination of over-hunting and the insatiable demand for egret feathers wiped them out. Such was the obsession for aigrettes – which once bedecked the headwear of noble lords and ladies alike – that the little egret and its cousin, the great white egret, were driven out of much of Western Europe as well, seeking sanctuary along the sheltered shores of the Mediterranean. It wasn’t until a pioneering group of Englishwomen came together in 1889 to form the Society for the Protection of Birds (the forerunner to the cherished RSPB) that the egret’s fortunes began to change, first by petitioning powerful high-society types to eschew feathers from their wardrobe, then lobbying the government to ban them outright. It clearly caught on, because the Americans set up a similar initiative of their own over in Oregon, where the native great and snowy egrets were suffering a similar fate. Gradually, with aigrette feathers off the market, the birds began to reappear in the fields and fenlands they had once called home. It would be another hundred years before they attempted to recolonise the British Isles, but once they did, they came back in droves.
I bought a magazine once in the late 2000s that predicted the arrival of the rest of Europe’s heron and egret species in the UK as global warming made these cold islands more favourable to birds more at home in southern Europe. It wasn’t wrong. Since then, both the cattle and great white egret have secured a foothold in Britain, with all three species present in the Avalon Marshes over in the Somerset Levels. If it weren’t for the fact that I work six days out of seven – and Sunday trains and buses are awful in this part of the world – I’d be over there like a shot. Somehow, I fear the open wilds of the Avalon Marshes will have to wait until I have wheels, because after a few sums, it would actually work out cheaper for me to fly to Europe and back than to spend a night or two in Glastonbury in order to visit the Levels. Mad how that works.
Not that I’d say not to being back in Europe, of course – though I am still waiting for my temporary ban to lift, as I hit the ninety day limit last year and would very much like to go back to my grandfather’s country without having to pay a fine. I always try to keep an open mind, but sometimes, Brexit, I really do wish you hadn’t screwed up my life quite so much.
Anyway. These papers won’t mark themselves. Just thought I’d muse a little on something uplifting before getting back to the grind. BB x
Cattle Egret (Ardea ibis) – Dehesa de Abajo, Spain. 26/4/10
I’ve just come back from a wonderful five days in Scotland with some very dear friends. Apart from being a much-needed social fix, it was as good an excuse as any for a change of scenery. Unlike the rest of the UK, where it has so far managed to rain every single day since the new year began, Scotland and its particular brand of Celtic magic has contrived to turn some of that endless precipitation into flurries of snow, which still frosted the distant highlands beyond the Firth of Forth as my southbound train whisked me around the coast at Berwick. I ended up going north one day sooner than planned to tag along to a family hike in the Lomond Hills around Falkland, for which I was woefully overdressed. We popped in to Andy and Babette’s church first, so I had my Sunday best on, which wasn’t exactly the right fare for carrying a pushchair through ankle-deep mud and melted snow. Still – there’s got to be a first time for everything, right?
God – but Edinburgh is such a beautiful city. I don’t say that all that often about cities, but Edinburgh is special. If Spain doesn’t work out – and I am still holding out that it will – Edinburgh wouldn’t be a bad fallback. What a place to raise a child!
With my Peruvian adventure now just over a month away, I have started to get serious in my preparations. I have booked my first accommodation option in Cuzco, using the only dates of which I can be sure, and started to map out the various bus routes I will be taking. I have nineteen days, which isn’t nearly enough to see all that Peru has to offer, but I’ll give it a damned good try.
As I can’t be sure if I’ll return to Peru anytime soon, it occurred to me a few weeks ago that now might be the right time to invest in an upgrade to my trusty 75-300mm telephoto lens. The reliable little Nikkor lens has done a fine job for the last ten years – almost to the day – but in a country teeming with sights I have never seen before, a little more reach would be a very handy thing to have.
When I was starting out as a wildlife photographer, I used a second-hand Nikon D70 and 75-300mm lens and so I grew very accustomed to shooting with that focal length, but when I was around fourteen, my mother bought me a Sigma 150-500mm. I don’t want to think about how much it must have cost her back then (when we weren’t exactly in clover after our ruinous attempt to move to Spain), but it was one hell of an investment. Once I got the hang of the behemoth and its various quirks (notably its optimal range of 400mm, as it tended to blur beyond that range), it became nothing short of my right arm.
Goodness knows I had enough practice. Weekly sorties became routine. My homework diaries from Year 10 and 11 have a clearer record of my weekend plans than they do of any homework I might have been set. My usual haunts were scattered across East Kent: Stodmarsh, Sandwich Bay, Margate and my local patch at the Undercliff where the White Cliffs of Dover began; and sometimes further afield, to the lonely wetlands of Dungeness and the Elmley Marshes. I still find it ironic that I didn’t really get bit by the birdwatching bug until my last week living in Spain, by which point it was almost too late to appreciate what I had out there. Still, Kent was a wonderful place to learn that trade, and I even made something of a name for myself as the Young Kent Birder for the Kent Ornithological Society. That was also my first foray into blogging, as it happens – this particular endeavour is merely the successor to a record-keeping exercise that I have been working on since I was fourteen years old.
The Sigma lens came with me on many adventures, but it was absolutely invaluable when I went to work in Uganda during the first three months of my gap year. I honestly don’t know what I’d have done without it. I certainly wouldn’t have had nearly as much luck with the fish eagles, crowned cranes, tree-climbing lions and mountain gorillas as I did with the Sigma lens at my side.
Sadly, we leave some of our most cherished things behind when we grow up. When I became a man, I put away childish things, and for some reason, the Sigma lens – and the birdwatching world it had opened to me – was one of those “childish things” I put away when I left for university. Maybe I was only trying to fit in. Maybe all the time I would have spent out and about in nature was reassigned to making time for friends and rehearsals. One way or another, I sort of let go of something that had been a fundamental part of my childhood – and, if I’m being honest, my soul. I regret that, I guess.
The naturalist in me never went away. I distinctly recall keeping a quiet list of the birds I saw in a notebook while traveling around Morocco with some friends from my Arabic course. I remember also taking an unfettered delight in the sight of a sparrowhawk when it struck down a pigeon in my garden and proceeded to disembowel it in front of the kitchen window. And there was always an enormous grin on my face if and when I encountered the pair of goosanders that lived on the River Wear en route to a seminar in the morning. I think I even altered my route most days to try to see them.
After a few months in Spain during my year abroad, I used some of my Erasmus grant to buy myself a new camera. The new model – the D3200 that I have used ever since – was a budget model and thus did not come with an in-built focus motor. When I remembered the faithful Sigma and tried it out with my new kit, I realised that its days as a wildlife zoom lens were over. Let’s just say that tracking a 15cm kingfisher flying at 40kmph across the surface of a rushing river is hard enough with an autofocus-ready lens, and damned near impossible when you’re trying to catch it manually. Several years of neglect had also left it in a rusty state. While still perfectly functional, web-like fungus had grown across its inner rings, doubtless the result of its final foray in the cloud forests of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.
Since then, I have done a decent job with my 75-300mm, but the glory days of wielding a mighty telephoto like a flanged mace felt like a distant memory. Until yesterday, when I bit the bullet and ordered a proper upgrade: introducing the Nikon 200-500mm AF-S. It’s not exactly the latest model – the lens went on the market in 2015, shortly before I bought the D3200 – but it is a huge step forward in terms of what I can do with my wildlife photography. I’m not really at the stage in my career where I feel I can justify splashing out on one of those titanic cannon-esque superzooms that the other Kentish birdwatchers used to lug around, but I am at the stage in my life when I want something to live for. Lady Luck is proving hard to find, so until she turns up, I’ve decided to step back in time and blow the dust off a hobby that used to have me grinning from ear to ear from week to week.
Some people find their joy in the gym or in park run. But for me, the answer is and has always been nature. Now that I am fully-armed once again – for the first time in nearly fourteen years – it’s time to get back out there and enjoy a hobby again.
Long-tailed Tit (Aegithalos caudatus), River Tone.
I still don’t have wheels of my own, so my forays will be limited until such a time as I get my hands on a driver’s license, but for now, I intend to explore my immediate area. There’s plenty to see in the corner of Somerset where I live, and the local bus and train network is pretty handy. With the forecast looking none too promising (the rain continues), I thought I’d start with a wander up and down the River Tone, so that I could dash home in case the heavens opened. Fortunately, the worst I got was a gentle mist for the first five minutes, after which I had a very dry (if muddy) two hours’ walk.
The Nikon 200-500mm is about the same length as the old Sigma, but it is both chunkier and heavier, so I found myself using the tripod grip as a handle. It also requires two spins of the barrel to extend to its full focal length (back in the day, I could wind out the Sigma to its precise maximum of 400mm in a single move), but in a major improvement on the Sigma, it loses none of its visual acuity at its full extension, so in a very real sense, I am working with a longer telephoto than I have ever operated before. I had plenty of opportunities to put it through its paces this morning with the roving flocks of passerines that were feeding along the river, and it did not disappoint, tracking the nimble movements of treecreepers, siskins, goldcrests and long-tailed tits as they hopped about between the leafless branches.
I’m a firm believer that it takes more than just an expensive camera or lens to make a decent wildlife photographer. What it really requires is a solid understanding of your subject and their fickle nature. Fortunately, I have spent most of my thirty-two years on this planet observing the world around me, so while I still can’t keep pace with the rest of my generation in many respects, I do know what I’m doing in the field of wildlife photography. I’m no professional, nor would I ever consider making this hobby into a side-hustle, but it does bring me immense joy.
Eurasian Siskin (Spinus spinus), River Tone.
It’s so good to be back. My arm is complete again. Let’s make this a year to remember! BB x
I’ve done it again. I’ve signed myself up for another mad adventure. As whim decisions go, this one is definitely up there with swapping jobs for a change of scene and flying to the States for a third date.
There wasn’t even much of a build-up to it. I had a relatively quiet weekend not on duty. On Saturday morning I taught a couple of sixth form lessons, marked some speaking exams and wound down with a little Arkham City. By Sunday night I had a one-way ticket to Lima for the absurdly low price of £250. I still need to think about the return journey, but that’s a tomorrow problem.
Why now? Simply put I’ve been hankering for a proper adventure for a while now. Social media will do that to you, I suppose, though I’d be more inclined to believe that my full-on, six-days-a-week job played a larger role.
And why Peru? Well, there’s any number of reasons. The fact that it’s a Spanish-speaking country is the main one, and the crazy bargain price I snagged is another (seriously, I’ve never found flights that cheap and I’ve been looking on and off for years) – and then, of course, there’s the wildlife, probably the most understated incentive behind any of my adventures.
I’ve been considering India, Japan and South Africa for the best part of ten years, but each has its own complications. India requires all of the jabs, Japan is expensive both to get to and to get around (never mind the language barrier), and South Africa – or at least the parts I want to see – is downright dangerous.
There’s also the fact that I always feel I have to justify my holidays. As a Spanish teacher, exploring South America can only add to the sum of what I can pass on to the students under my aegis.
At least, that’s how I intend to justify gallivanting off to the land of the Incas for three weeks.
I read an article today about the fitness frenzy afflicting my generation (the millennials). Apparently we spend more on the gym, supplements and sportswear than we do on other social activities. I’m definitely not in that demographic, but I can believe that claim.
I’ve seen the shift before my very eyes in the time I’ve worked in boarding. I don’t remember the gym being much of a feature when I was at school, or protein powder, or supplements, or any of that nonsense. Omega 3 fish oil, maybe, but none of this “cut” and “bulk” insanity. These days it’s everywhere. The Underground train was full of garish posters selling the stuff two weeks ago, alongside a rosy ad for a fertility clinic. From PTs to PBs, designer shorts to designer bottles and all the weird chemistry-set-sounding stuff people ingest – and none of it cheap – fitness seems to have become the new luxury product on the market.
Perhaps that’s an inevitable outcome of a world where our work and most of our lives is so very (and depressingly) sedentary. I do worry about them, though. About how self-centred the world is becoming. About the mental health behind the physical wall.
I’m in no position to judge, of course. If I harbour any cynicism for this trend, it’s largely because I’m well aware I’m on the outside looking in. Fitness is clearly a social activity, and here I am writing my thoughts on the matter from the quiet of my living room, surrounded by the thousand or so books I’ve managed to accrue while most of my contemporaries have been out making friends and finding lovers – or pumping iron. Instead, I’ve been building a library. It’s what my great-grandfather Mateo always wanted. Would he have wanted it for me though, I wonder?
Honestly, I think I’ve been into a gym three times in my life, but since two of them were duty supervision shifts for work, I’m not sure they count. All I know about the gym is that a very dear friend of mine went into one years ago and never came back. It might be a poor excuse, but it’s a pretty major reason for my lifelong wariness of those places.
No. As usual, I’m fighting the current. Contrary to the rest of my generation, I’m prioritising my time, when and while I still have it, on the equally self-centred task of traveling solo, to learn as much about the world as I can. One day, if I should be so lucky, there may be a family in my life, and while I would trade away all the things that I do for even one day of that traditional idyll, I am conscious that I would miss my freedom.
So I’m taking a punt and getting out of the country for a bit – and this time, to somewhere other than Spain (though admittedly I am spending the weekend prior in Madrid, as it brought the flight costs down by a couple of hundred).
I’m not really a planner, but this will definitely require a fair amount of it. Peru may be Spanish-speaking, but it definitely isn’t Spain – it’s a little over two and a half times the size. I don’t intend to do Machu Picchu – like Petra, I fear the wonder of that vista from the Puerta del Sol has long been scourged by a horde of millennial photographers – so I will be seeking out some of the country’s other gems. It’s a work in progress, but for now, I’m thinking of:
The Nazca lines (from the air)
The Mummies of Chauchilla
Hummingbirds (wherever they may be!)
Semana Santa in Cusco
The Palomino islands (penguins, pelicans and sea lions)
Apurímac Canyon (to find an Andean condor or two)
Parque Nacional del Manu (for monkeys, mainly, but also to see the Amazon Rainforest on the other side of the Andes)
Taquile and the floating islands of the boatmen of Uros, Lake Titicaca (partly because it’s come up in the same IB Language B past paper for seven years, but also because I read about them when I was seven and they fascinated me)
Sacsayhuaman (Inca ruins that aren’t always in the cover of Wanderlust magazine – and one of the best place names in the Americas, period)
If time allows, possibly a mad jaunt over the border to La Paz and the Salar de Uyuni, the vast salt flats on the edge of the Atacama Desert that comprise the world’s largest natural sky-mirror
…and all of that within three weeks. I don’t much care for package tours, so I’m going to map out my own itinerary over the next month or so.
Catch me later when I’ve done a bit more reading. I’ll be less preachy and more teachy then, I hope. BB x
It turns out the rain in Spain does indeed fall mainly on the plain. And when it does, it does so with a Biblical vengeance. I made it to my hotel in Trujillo with just seconds to spare when the heavens opened. Any hopes I might have harboured of exploring the city’s surrounding countryside were swiftly washed away, as the rain came down all afternoon, all through the night and long into the following morning.
This would be a real downer if I’d had plans. But my itinerary is an open book and I’m always happy to improvise – it is my preferred method of travel. So I enjoyed a late morning, a proper breakfast and the blissful quiet of one of Spain’s most beautiful (if isolated) towns.
Trujillo sits atop a small granite ridge in a boulder-strewn corner of the Llanos de Cáceres, a vast and featureless steppe that stretches between the Sierra de San Pedro in the west and the Ibor Mountains to the east. There’s nothing like it in Western Europe. You’d have to go as far as the Puzsta in eastern Hungary to find anything close to its vastness. Lichen-covered granite boulders rise out of the earth like giant’s teeth and the odd tree stands alone in the fields, but beyond that, it’s like staring into the infinite.
Little wonder, then, that Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro – both native sons of this part of the world – set their sights on nothing less than the horizon – they’d had no choice but to do so since the day they were born.
Extremadura can be a desolate place in winter. It can be pretty desolate in summer, too, but there is a virgin beauty in its isolation. By avoiding the grasping arms of the hordes of tourists who have strangled much that remained of Old Spain into submission, Extremadura has managed to hold on to the embers of an ancient fire which exists only in the memory of those living among the tower blocks of the southern coast.
Perhaps that’s why it’s often considered one of the main contenders for the Birdwatching Capital of Europe, since so many rare and otherwise elusive species still flock here in droves, taking advantage of our absence to go about their lives as their ancestors have done since before we came to this land.
You can see some of that without even leaving the motorway. Every winter, more than 75,000 common cranes travel from their breeding grounds in Northern Europe to this remote corner of the Iberian peninsula. They spend the colder months in the shade of the dehesas, feeding on acorns. They’re a rather common sight if you look beneath the trees, and at over a metre in height, they’re hard to miss.
When I first came to Trujillo in the spring of 2016, I promptly fell in love with the place. It wouldn’t be the first remote corner of Spain that’s stolen my heart – El Rocío and Hornachos are up there – and it won’t be the last. It’s found its way into my saga as the elected home of my hero, partly out of practicality and partly out of a sense of wish fulfilment on my part. Half of me wishes I’d been brave enough to flat out ask to be sent here for my second British Council placement back in 2017. It would have been a lottery, of course, but what would it have been like to live here, I wonder? Trujillo is a lot smaller than Villafranca de los Barros – and a lot more out of the way – but infinitely more scenic.
I managed a short reccie to the north of town, before the skies turned dark once again and I had to admit defeat and return to the hotel. The cobbled streets running down from the hilltop had become rivers in their own right. It wasn’t yet siesta time, but nobody else was out and about. And with good reason!
From my vantage point on the second floor of the hotel, I can see out across the plaza and the rest of town. There isn’t all that much to see, with the rain clouds obscuring most of the world from view, but when the sun is shining, you can see straight across to the pyramidal Sierra de Santa Cruz – and the town at its feet, curiously named Santa Cruz de la Sierra (I’m not altogether sure which came first).
If the weather had been kinder I’d have set out at first light and tried to reach the old Moorish settlement at its summit… but then, I haven’t exactly come dressed for a hike. Perhaps it’s for the best that I have had a day to take it easy in Trujillo.
Tomorrow is a new day. 0% chance of rain. I don’t need to rush off anywhere, so I might go for a stroll after breakfast and try to soak up the countryside while I’m here. BB x
Albergue de Peregrinos de Payares, Pajares. 19.30.
Shortly after one o’clock this afternoon, I crossed over into Asturias and crossed off the penultimate Spanish region on my list. After a flying visit to Tenerife earlier this year and a long march across Aragón at the start of the Camino, now only Murcia remains. Which is tremendously ironic, as my family are technically Murcian, since the borders of Spain’s autonomous communities were only redrawn in their present form in 1983, with both Albacete and Villarrobledo falling within the formerly extensive region of Murcia. But alas! It remains on my list as the very last region for me to visit. At least I won’t be short on options.
The other pilgrims were all up at 5am this morning, but I still managed to beat them out of the door and was on the road by 5.20. I still had the crazy idea of combining two days into one – crazy, not on account of the distance (38km is child’s play at this point) but the elevation, which was considerable. It was pretty chilly, so I kept my fleece on for the first couple of hours while I finished I, Claudius.
The young folks of Pola de Gordón were starting to head for home after a Saturday night out on the town (read: village) as I walked in around 7am, though there was still music playing in the town bar, Los Gatos Negros. The Dane overtook me as I was fixing the straps on my bag, but I passed him later on (I have a vicious pace when I get going) and did not see him again.
I have managed to acquire two more books: Spanish translations of the Hungarian author Laszlo Passuth’s Tlaloc Weeps over Mexico, bound in red leather. They were fading away in a book bank at the side of the road and, as I have been looking for this book for a while, I rescued them. I have now acquired six books since starting the Camino and jettisoned the one I came out with. They don’t add too much weight to my backpack, but they’re not as easy to fold away like my clothes… still. This leopard’s spots don’t change so easily, I suppose.
Before reaching Buiza, there’s a spooky silhouette on one of the rocky spurs that juts out of the mountains. We are very definitely in wolf country, and the Lobo de Buiza – a metal sculpture that watched the road into the mountains – would be very easy to mistake for the real thing if you didn’t know to look for it. It’s certainly big enough: my lasting memory of the wild wolves I saw in Poland this Christmas was their size, which little can prepare you for when you see one in the flesh (a true wolf can be taller at the shoulder than a mastiff).
Sadly, I didn’t see any wolves today, though I think I saw one of their tracks. Wolf and dog prints are very similar, but their gait is totally different: a dog walks with its front and hind legs splayed out in two lines, while a wolf trots in single file, like a fox. I did see a fox in the half-dark of the forest, shortly before daybreak.
Wolves aren’t the only large predators that dwell in this rugged corner of the peninsula. Somiedo Natural Park lies 50km to the west, beyond the formidable peaks of the Babia and Luna Mountains, and it is famous for being the final refuge of the Cantabrian Brown Bear. They were once widespread in Spain but can now only be found in the Cordillera Cantábrica, though recent sightings beyond Somiedo seem to suggest that they are starting to creep back into the fringes of their former range – and Pajares in right on their doorstep.
Thirty years ago, this Iberian offshoot of the European Brown Bear was on the verge of extinction, hunted without mercy by the Spanish (and the Romans before them). I remember visiting my friend Kate in Cabezón de la Sal and having dinner in a bar full of dead bears: mounted heads on the walls and black-and-white photographs of groups of hunters standing proudly about the carcass of a slain bear, as though the murder of such a beautiful creature were something to celebrate.
With both bears and wolves about, I was on full alert and so I nearly jumped out of my skin halfway up the mountain when something very large suddenly appeared on my left, crashing through the undergrowth. It was, of course, a cow, but it still gave me a fright. It’s a good thing its English was about as good as the local Asturians, so the torrent of expletives went right over its head.
The climb from Buiza was formidable, but it was only Round One. By day’s end, I think I had climbed and descended no fewer than nine separate ridges, tackling most of the San Salvador’s cumulative 3000m elevation in one day. Little wonder my feet were complaining by the end of the walk! I’d have been done for if not for the valiant effort of Pinta and Niña, my two trusty walking sticks. How the pilgrims of old attempted this path in a time before clean water and blister plasters is beyond me. Faith truly is a powerful thing.
If only it were powerful enough to open the doors of the churches along the way, which have all been locked up since I left León!
The scenery here is a world away from the meditative plains of the Meseta. It feels like I’ve stepped into a completely different country, and yet the Meseta is only a day’s walk to the south. The mighty cliffs of the Cordillera Cantábrica were always visible in the distance from the Camino Francés, but now I’m cutting a path straight through them, I can really appreciate their majesty. My soul will always belong to the stone pines and salt flats of Doñana, but my heart soars whenever I am in the mountains. It is an elixir like few others.
I had some fun counting contrails and trying to guess where the planes where going. Sometimes I’d look up and see a raptor in the blue: usually a kestrel, which are abundant up here, and sometimes a griffon, soaring silently through the ether; and just once, it was a hen harrier, wheeling about and beating its long wings like a child’s kite come to life.
After a rough descent into cow country and its attendant muddy tracks (I had more than my fair share of that in France), the Camino hits the road and climbs up to Puerto de Pajares – climbs being the perfect word, as the farmers have put up a fence across the road, so I had to vault it where the barbed wire was at its least intrusive. The former parador which perches upon the ridge is little more than an empty shell, and its stripped foyer is rather eerie, but the cafeteria is still in action, no doubt kept alive by the fact that its terrace commands a spectacular view of the mountains of Asturias beyond. Access to the terrace is strictly limited to paying customers, which is a master stroke as without it I should be surprised if the café would survive at all.
The photos don’t quite do the view justice. This must be one of the best views of all of the Camino routes, including sunset from Finisterre and sunrise from O Cebreiro. My presence at the café drew no small amount of interest: as popular as the route seems to be right now, I don’t imagine they get many foreign pilgrims passing through, especially as young as me.
The descent from Puerto de Pajares was the toughest yet, compounded by the fact that it was now gone half past one and I had been climbing mountains for nearly seven hours. The sun was also fierce and I have now officially run out of sun lotion, so my right arm got burned on the way down. I’m currently rocking the classic “Camino tan” that consists of very brown calves and right arm, due to the constant north and westward trajectory of the Camino.
I reached Pajares at around 2.45pm, without being eaten by any bears (as one of my students thought might happen to me), and practically fell into bed – after climbing into the only top bunk remaining. The room I’m in is full of Catalans in their late 40s, most of whom have an odd habit of talking to themselves. Not whispering, talking. I was woken up twice from my nap by their charlitas. The hush and stealth of the Camino Francés seems a long way away.
I won’t be doing another two days in one tomorrow, as I’m already technically doing so by bypassing Mieres the day after, so hopefully it will be an easier day. A belt of clouds have rolled in this evening, so I should probably prepare for rain – rain, and an earlier arrival time, just in case. Pola de Lena looks a bit more “happening” than Pajares, and it does have a supermarket, so I should be able to resupply before the final push to Oviedo. Here’s hoping! BB x
I’ve just woken up from an hour’s nap. It might have been a little longer, I’m not so sure. All I know is that when I fall asleep there were only three of us in the albergue, and now it’s looking astonishingly busy. Mostly sporty Spanish types in their 40’s, mind: tall and lean, with hawklike handsomeness in their Roman profiles and dressed from head to foot in short-sleeved Lycra and health-tracking smartwatches. The exceptions are a greying Dane and a Japanese couple, neither of whom speak any Spanish whatsoever. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting company at all, but then, perhaps it’s hardly surprising that others beside myself should seek out a more rugged and quieter version of the Camino during high season.
Hopefully it doesn’t get too busy. I’ve come here for quiet reflection and a spiritual challenge, not a hiking holiday.
I left León shortly after six this morning and took the north road at the Convento de San Marcos, leaving the Camino de Santiago behind. I will not see that road again until I reach Melide, a little under two weeks from now.
I cast a glance down the westward road into the empty but well-lit streets of León’s industrial district, across the bridge where I said farewell to Audrey, Talia, Alonso and Steven yesterday morning. By now my companions will have reached Astorga and beyond a few manic longer days there is little hope of catching up to them before they arrive in Santiago, and with the terrain ahead I would be foolish to try. I have to let them go.
I had the Camino to myself all morning: no flashlight-wielding pilgrims in front, no Italian conversations behind. Just me, the morning and the voice of Derek Jacobi in his retelling of Robert Graves’ I, Claudius.
The pilgrim detritus of the Camino Francés is nowhere to be seen. This is what I had heard: this is the Camino as it once was, where the occasional painted stone, makeshift cross and shrine to the Virgin Mary indicate the way, not a scourge of senseless stickers and pilgrim graffiti. It was perfectly easy to follow, though I am glad I set out early, as the cloud cover began to fade before ten o’clock.
One such shrine to Mary was a little disturbing: her disembodied head had been impaled upon a branch staring down at the road, while her hands stretched across her chest to her sacred heart had been similarly affixed to a nearby branch. I could not find what became of her legs.
The Camino climbs up into the hills a couple of times, forging a path through the forest between the road and the river. Now and then it breaks out into the open, but for the most part I wandered beneath the canopy of ancient trees covered in carpets of trailing lichen. There was a strong smell in the forest that might have been fox, though it was different to any fox scent that I have ever caught. I thought at first it might have been wolf, but wolves are not as pungent as foxes – they also are good at covering their tracks by rolling in dirt to hide their scent so as to hunt more effectively. So I am not sure what it was.
I reached La Robla for 11.30 and considering pressing on to Buiza, but as tomorrow is Sunday, I figured it wiser to stop here, buy supplies for the road ahead (as nowhere will be open tomorrow), and rest. I popped into the local AlCampo supermarket to get some fruit, some bread and a few tinned meals in case of emergency. I took the flip-flops (a bad idea over anything but a short distance, but I needed a change of shoes) and managed to smash my big toe against the step when my flip-flop caught. It’s fine now, but it wasn’t a lot of fun at the time, though it may take some of the discomfort away from the blisters on my heels.
The lady at the checkout was very keen to get me an AlCampo card which they were “giving away”. The whole thing took around fifteen minutes to fix (as I had to use my long-since defunct Spanish mobile number and the town’s postcode, since the website wouldn’t accept either of my English credentials), but it may save me a little money in the long run – provided I shop at AlCampo. Which, I am sure, is the whole point.
The hospitalero still hasn’t appeared, but it’s nearly six, so I’m sure they’ll be here soon. In the meantime, I’m going to do some reading. BB x
I’m back in Castrojeriz, a Castilian hill-fort town some twenty-one kilometres down the road from last night’s stop in Hornillos. I probably could have gone a little further today, but there’s a local festival in town and I wanted to check it out. It’s much too easy to lose track of things on the Camino over a good conversation, and in so doing miss something special.
I mean – it is a garlic festival. So it’s nothing extraordinary. But I happen to love garlic (sopa de ajo is my favourite dish in the whole world) so I feel duty-bound to check this one out.
The hospitaleros at Hornillos left out a proper spread for breakfast, so we ate well today. Even so, we were up and gone by 6.20am, shortly before sunrise – which is getting noticeably later each week. The turbines on the surrounding hills continued to spin in the twilight, their red warning lights blinking like eyes along the blue horizon.
A gentle blanket of cloud shrouded our ascent up to the high meseta west of Hornillos. Apart from a few simple crosses erected along the road, the terrain was featureless, and all the shadows harrier-shaped: I counted at least seven Montagu’s harriers quartering the fields between Hornillos and Hontanas, from the agile ring-tailed youngsters to the ghostly silver shapes of the adult males. Vultures always take the top spot in my animal pantheon, but Montagu’s harriers are absolutely in my top five.
There’s not much a mobile phone can do with these elusive spirits, but you can just about make out the long-tailed shape of one in the photo below.
The sunrises over the meseta are peerless. It’s amazing just how many colours come out of the fields of gold, which pairs better with the sky than the grapes of La Rioja with the local jamón. I can’t imagine walking this route in winter, when the fields are stripped and bare. It must be spiritual then, too, but I would miss the warm hues of the wheat.
To reach Castrojeriz, you have to pass through the ruins of the Monasterio de San Antón. According to my route planner, I had intended to stay here, but it was only ten o’clock, and the day was still very young, so I pressed on – but not before snapping some photos of what is easily one of the most breathtaking buildings along the Camino Francés, with its ruined arches spanning the road to Castrojeriz.
The monks quartered here used to treat those afflicted with Saint Anthony’s Fire, a sickness we now know as ergotism. Advances in agriculture have more or less eliminated the disease, but the source is all around us in the wheat and rye that once carried the sickness. Before the causes were understood, the spasms and hallucinations that sufferers endured were believed to be a form of divine punishment or demonic possession. It’s hard to say whether the monks’ sanctified treatments truly worked, or whether the cutting-out of rye from their diet was what made the Order so effective. Either way, the monks resorted to a Christian form of white magic to keep the locals safe back in the day.
I like to imagine their ministrations might have saved the lives of at least a few pilgrims bound for Santiago over the centuries.
Gust was waylaid by a photographer for about half an hour on the road to Castrojeriz, and I was only spared the same fate by his silent warning to stay away and the timely arrival of two British university students, one of them a Durham undergrad. They stopped a little way along with their group so I couldn’t walk with them for that long, but I hope I can catch up to them again at some point before León.
I rejoined the Americans at Castrojeriz and we grabbed a drink before lunch, partly out of curiosity to see whether Gust could extricate himself from the photographer’s grip. We were more than a little surprised to see a MAGA hat, but nobody dared to engage the man in conversation. If he was a pilgrim, he was traveling very light indeed.
Downtown, the garlic festival was in full flow. A charanga band was marching around town, playing their oompah-like music wherever they went (just like back in Nájera), while old folks huddled around their collection of cloves and groups of kids in matching tee-shirts ran rings around the market stalls.
I suspect the Feria del Ajo is a relatively recent innovation (I’ve seen the number 46° floating around), but I shouldn’t wonder that this kind of harvest festival has been happening here for far longer. There’s a food-tasting event we’re going to check out later, and even a concert by the New York Youth Orchestra at 8pm tomorrow – though we’ll be long gone by then.
Garlic is famous in folklore for its protective characteristics, especially against malevolent spirits like vampires and demons. It’s also mightily medicinal, and has been fighting off disease and bacteria in humans for far longer than it has been used to ward off the undead. Given its life-giving properties, it’s easy to see how the latter superstition came about, in an age when Galen’s law of humours was widely accepted as gospel and any and all imbalances, including light and dark, required correction.
Frankly, I can’t think of any imbalances that couldn’t be corrected by a nice, hot bowl of garlic soup. It really is the very best of restoratives.
Audrey has popped out to explore the town. Alonso is watching a movie and Talia has fallen asleep. I might head out for a wander in a moment too, now that things are starting to open again after the afternoon siesta. Here’s to a little more white magic this evening! BB x
One of the best things about the Camino – at least, for somebody who does not particularly enjoy sticking to a strict plan – is its absolute freedom. You can aim for a particular destination at the end of the morning, but if you overshoot, or find a place you like along the way, you can always change your plan. And – it goes without saying – there is no “true” Camino. There never has been. There is simply your route to Santiago, wherever that may lead you.
Today, I decided to take a major detour through the Foz de Lumbier, deviating from the “official” Camino by some six kilometres, in search of one of the most striking landscapes to be seen on all of the routes to Santiago de Compostela.
Google Maps suggested the detour would take around eight hours, so I set out early, leaving Sangüesa’s albergue at around 5.15am (5.20, technically, as I left my sticks behind and had to double-back to get them). The Camino turns off about half a kilometre north of Sangüesa, just before the Smurfit industrial complex, but I pushed on along the road towards Liédana. There was quite a bit of traffic at first, but it was mostly workers going to the factory: after leaving the complex behind, I hardly saw anyone on the road.
There were a few scattered yellow arrows west of Liédana, indicating that this must once have been one of the many Camino routes, if not perhaps one of the more commonly known alternatives. I had timed my arrival at La Foz for sunrise, knowing that any earlier would have been far too cold and dark and any later would risk a merciless march along the roads later on. Plus, in the first hour after dawn, it’s always possible you’ll find something unexpected, as the animals of the night make their final rounds before retreating into the dark places where they hide during the day.
I had not counted on the wind. A fierce north wind was blowing this morning, almost strong enough to knock the sunglasses off the top of my head, and easily powerful enough to make it impossible to listen to the audiobook I had on (Robert Harris’ Conclave – a little late to the party, I know).
La Foz de Lumbier is one of two major canyons that can be found in the Sierra de Leyre, formed by the southwest passage of two rivers, the Irati and the Salazar. The other, La Foz de Arbaiun, is even grander still, but stands some twelve kilometres to the east of Lumbier, putting it well out of reach of even this overambitious pilgrim for today.
The north wind was still howling down the canyon when I arrived, which made the tunnel access all the spookier: the only way in and out of the canyon is via two long tunnels cut into the cliffs, neither of which are lit. The southern tunnel curves around to the right, pitching you into total darkness for half a minute or so.
Once inside, a gravel track known as a Via Verde (a converted railway line) leads you along the gorge. Had I arrived later in the day, perhaps, I might have seen some of the canyon’s famous Egyptian Vultures: bizarre, chicken-faced creatures with white plumage and diamond-shaped tales that migrate to Spain from their winter quarters in Africa each year. However, they were nowhere to be seen this morning, presumably sitting on their nests deep in the many caves within the cliffs.
The gorge’s other resident vultures, however, were everywhere.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that my passage through the canyon was being very closely watched, as though hundreds of eyes were following me along the river. My guess wasn’t far off the mark: once my eyes adapted to the twilight of the canyon, I realised that many of the bushes atop the canyon walls were in fact a great host of griffons, staring down at me with bobbing movements of their snakelike necks.
Every so often one or two of them would spread their monstrously huge wings and take off into the morning, before returning, feet dangling, to land on some other outcrop downriver, before turning their hulking shapes to see how much progress I had made.
I make no secret of my love for vultures. They are far and away my favourite animals on this planet, and especially griffons. I have never recovered from seeing one for the first time during that first trip to Spain: never accustomed to anything larger than a herring full, I was spellbound by the sheer size of the beasts, with their hulking shape, their silent circling flight and the long, trailing fingers on the end of each wing. That obsession only intensified when I came face to face with them during a solitary climb up the misty mountain of El Gastor, where I spent an incredible hour watching the giants appear suddenly out of the mist at eye level, merely feet away from my perch at the edge of the mountain.
So perhaps you’ll understand why I was so quick to slap an extra six kilometres onto today’s 27km hike, if only to spend some time in the presence of these magnificent creatures. They truly take my breath away.
But Lumbier had more than just vultures to sling at me. Just before leaving the gorge, I noticed something moving in the water below. It might have been the wind, which had been making shapes across the surface of the river all morning, but this was moving slowly against the current. Something long, snake-like, with a white-whiskered face: an otter. Talk about a stroke of luck! Just like the lynx I encountered in Doñana earlier this year, this was a first: I have never seen an otter in the wild before, or at least, one that I could call with any degree of certainty. iPhone cameras are good, but they can’t zoom and they’re not brilliant at moving objects in low light, but if you look closely you can just about tell what you’re looking at!
Really, I ought to have hung around at the other side of the tunnel to see if it reappeared, but I wasn’t entirely sure how long it would take me to get back to the Camino, so I played it safe and left the otter to his morning swim. I certainly couldn’t have done an awful lot better with my phone camera even if it did return. I’ll just have to come back someday with the rest of my kit.
Instead, I skirted the town of Lumbier and made my way back to the Camino. This was easier said than done: the “official” route meanders through the turbine-topped hills on the other side of the roaring A-21. Getting back to it was no easy feat, so I followed the old concrete road to Jaca for about 8km.
Normally, road stretches along the Camino can be quite hairy, with grim or even challenging looks from drivers. A spate of pilgrim deaths on the “original” Camino, now overlaid with concrete highways, led to the move toward the current network of tracks and footpaths. However, thanks to the A-21, which runs parallel, there was hardly anyone on the road at all, which made for a very peaceful (if monotonous) walk.
The sun was well on its way to its throne in the Castilian sky by now, and with it, the vultures of La Foz de Lumbier came drifting out on the thermals, as though to see me off.
I had a veritable fleet of raptors to keep me company today. As well as the vultures, a few kestrels, buzzards and booted eagles were circling the hills around Izco, along with the usual red and black kites. Today added two new encounters to the mix: a pair of short-toed eagles – exceptional snake-hunters – and a young hen harrier, my first (and hopefully not last) of the Camino. I have an especial fondness for harriers, especially the ghostly grey males, whose long, tapering wings and bouncy flight always conjure up images of the endless meseta in my head.
The cattle-crowded foothills of the French Pyrenees seem like an age ago. We are now very much in crop country. It hasn’t had much of an impact on the flies, which are everywhere this summer (I suspect the two months of rain Spain had this spring has caused their numbers to explode this year), but it does make for considerably easier terrain.
Contrary to what the guidebooks say, Monreal does have a working bar/restaurante. The hospitalera should know – it’s her husband who runs it! So I will grab a pizza there tonight, before the last long march of the Camino Aragonés tomorrow toward Puente La Reina and the start of the next stage of my journey: the busier Camino Francés. At least, I hope it will be busier! There’s no guarantee in July, but it should at least have more than one pilgrim in the albergue from night to night! BB x
The Book of Barnabas 