Belesar - Ourense - Lobios - PART II

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Miguel said he had heard of a very nice waterfall and a natural pool in Lobios so we thought we could go and check it out, see whether we could find it... So off we went to Lobios...


When we got there we decided to pay a visit to the local information centre since the following day we would be doing some trekking in the area (that was part of our original plan for the second day), we got inside and started chatting to the girl attending the office, she was quite helpful with all related to the trekking paths and the areas we were planning on visiting the following day and some other times in the future but when it came to the waterfall she had no idea what we were talking about. The name of the place is "Black well waterfall" because the pool is very deep so it's black, you can't see the bottom.

   She rang someone on the phone and asked about this place and from what we overheard the guy on the other end of the phone was pretty much saying he wished us luck in making it out of there alive and we were crazy for trying to go there but despite of that, he told her where the place was, well they didn't give us an exact location just the name of the closest village. We couldn't understand the reaction... Miguel and I stared at each other and wondered what was they were hidding from us, what was it that they didn't tell us. We tried to get some more info from the girl at the office once she hung up but she didn't know, never heard of the place before... now there was no question. We had to go there!!


The village in question is: El Cela and it turned out to be quite an amazing village. The area is filled with huge granitic boulders and they build the houses by using this boulders, it's hard to explain and easier to show with a few pictures.

I know, it looks like some catastrophic event landed that huge boulder on top of the house...nothing further fromt he truth. They actually used that boulder to build the house around it. That boulder is the wall!

The whole village has been built like that.

When we got to the village we found 3 villagers chatting among themselves so we asked them about the "black well waterfall" and the 3 of them knew the waterfall but none knew how to get there...exactly. They knew in which direction to go but didn't know whether there was a path to get there... That didn't inspire much confidence but followed there indications...

We started following a path that was going to the river (that's the best info we could gather from the 3 villagers). Perhaps it's worth mentioning that one of the villagers was a girl that kept winking an eye to Miguel all the time while we were chatting...but I don't think he even noticed! not that that stopped me from pulling his leg all the way down to the river...

While walking down this path we met 3 other hikers going in the opposite direction and we asked them whether they knew how to go to the "black well waterfall", and they said they had tried to get there, they managed to go there last year but this year they couldn't find the path although they remembered last year when they found "the path" it was more sliding down the hill than actual walking  and they had to go on their fours all the way...

That didn't sound very encoraging and we starting thinking about alternative things we could do instead of looking for the waterfall... When we got to the river we turned around and started to walk back to the village when we found another path that was going in the direction of the place where the waterfall was supposed to be so without much hesitation we followed it. At first it was a wide and clear path but a few Kilometres later we found ourselves in the middle of a forest following a barely noticable track.

On the first photo you can see the track...on the second you can only guess its general direction...

Finally "the track" splitted in two and one was heading towards the river and the other towards the Village so we decided to try the one heading towards the river.

We finally got to a place from where we could see the "black well pool" but the way down there was not easy and we had to go on our fours to get there. After a couple of scares, a few scratches and bruises we managed to get to the bottom where the waterfall was... and it was amazing! judge by yourself.

After all the effort there was no way we wouldn't have a swim in there!

And then it was time to go back...

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