Thursday, May 1, 2008

Ermita del Moral

Just one week after the festival of comics in Barcelona, my friend Nusense came to my region, Cantabria, for a new adventure (man, I see you more than my family!!:D). Her ryanair flight from London Stansted landed at 17:50 at Santander's airport and then we went to a nearby shopping centre called Valle Real to buy our... erm.. "tools" for next day: a tent, a pair of boots for her, barbecue fire liquid and some junk food as well. After that, we went to her hotel room to try to build the tent for once, listen to some music and hang out at the streets of Santander.

Next morning, we woke up very early and took a Renfe train with destination Pujayo where our hiking route was going to start. Initially, my idea was to cross the Saja natural park until Cabezón de la Sal where we could take a FEVE train back to Santander (sleeping over one night in the middle). But in the end we run out of time and decided to spend the night at the church Ermita del Moral, where there is also an attached mountain refuge.

The sun was shinning and we had a very pleasant walk with great views of the mountains. While I was walking I noticed something strange in the landscape, can you see how the mountains are overlapped in the blue picture?

We got to see different animals, especially lots of horses. We also surprised a group of deers while we were walking. I had never seen so many deers together!

Finally, we got to the church Ermita del Moral. The refuge, attached to it, was open and had a fireplace. In front of the church there were horses grazing on a beautiful flat field. I wanted to camp out there but Nusense preferred to put the tent near some trees so we could get the wood for the bonfire from there.

When the sun faded away, Nusense started the bonfire and I was a bit scared of that. She was also scared about wolves comming from the woods, so after an argument we moved out to the refuge. And after that, the funniest bit of the day happened: I went out to get some wood for a bonfire at the refuge but outside it was very dark and foggy so I ended up getting lost. Thankfully, I had taken by chance my phone with me (I forgot my GPS in my rucksack!) and Nusense helped me out by calling me and shouting my name. After 50 minutes, running in the woods I managed to get back to the church, sweating and a bit scared.

We couldn't sleep all night because the refuge was very cold and the floor was uncomfortable (we should have bought a mattress and a sleeping bag). I lend some of my clothes and my hat to Nusense and also a special survivance blanket aimed at preserving the natural heat of the body.

Next morning, as soon as the sun had rosen, we set out for Pujayo station again. Although we didnt have too much time, we managed to make it for the train that we had to take in order to be at Nusense's room before the check out time. Próxima parada?? :)