This was an amazing excursion with a lot of variation to it, from driving with a 4x4 through a dirt track, some hiking, exploring an abandoned old tungsten mine, crossing the border to Portugal to enjoy the local pools and waterfalls, then a river with naturally ocurring hot water and finally to one of the oldest visigoth churches in Spain from the 7th century... a very long day with lots of photos!! but let's not get ahead of ourselves here.
I think it's important to mention that up until 9 pm of the previous day, Miguel and I didn't know we would be doing this excursion. Miguel's brother is who invited us, so with no time to prepare we said yes and arranged to meet the following day at 08:00 am. I'm saying this because as you'll see further down we were ill prepared for it, although that didn't spoiled the perfect day we had. :-)
See Map
We all got together in Ourense and from there we continued our jorney in a landrover. When we got to Celanova we decided to stop and visit a local supermarket in order to buy a few things to make sandwiches for the day. Unfortunatelly as we were making our shopping in the supermarket someone bumped into our properly parked car.
The damages to our car
Not too bad. The other car was worse.
Tino and Berni were filling out the forms for the insurance while Miguel was taking photos in order to document the damages.
It took us almost an hour but we finally manage to do all the paperwork and make it out of Celanova to resume our excursion. :-)
Along the way we also stopped to get some water in a very nice resting area by the road.
The views from there weren't too shabby either
And from there we went to Lobios and then onto the dirt track which climbed the mountains for about 10Km. We did many stops along the way to take some random photos. The landscape was amazing.
I think is worth noting that although the place is call "As sombras" which literally means "the shadows", there is no shade whatsoever in the whole area so suncream and a hat are compulsory items in your rucksack...luckly despite of the little time to prepare, we did have those. :-)
After the small break was time to get back to the car and continue our journey in the 4x4, the driving was quite tiring since it was very slow due to the uneven terrain and you keep going up and down, left and right all the time so after a little while you can't wait to put your feet back on solid ground...although the nice views made it all worth it.
We found a herd of wild horses along the way and the silly ones decided to cross the road just when they saw us coming, not before nor after it's almost as if they were waiting for us to cross...so while we waited for them to cross it I took the oportunity to take a few snaps.
Once they all crossed safely we resumed our journey through the dirt track
Some parts of the track were in really bad shape
That plus the nice views made us take many mini-breaks along the way
Which I used to take some more photos
Further up the track we found yet another good spot with fantastic views
Down there you can see, with a little bit of imagination on your part, the trekking path people use to walk all the way to the abanndoned tugsten mine from Lobios.
Miguel and I did part of that trek after we visited the mine to check some waterfalls we could see from the track we were following with the car and it was amazing.
We'll be coming back through that track some other day It's a nice path worth every drop of your sweat, because believe me when I tell you there is no flat area around here nor are there any places with a shade where you can take a break for a few minutes and cool down. You'll need to carry pleny of water with you.
Once we reached the beginning of the path that leads to the old mine we parked the car (you can only go by foot) and sat under the only tree in miles around, there was a small stream there as well so we put all the drinks inside to cool them down.
Perfect spot for lunch
Serrano Ham sandwiches... you can never go wrong with that! :-)
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