Belesar - Ourense - Lobios - PART IV

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After going to bed so late last night we decided to have a little bit of a sleep in so we ended up getting up at 10 am.

We had a tight day in front of us, Miguel had to be back in Vigo at 20:30 and the trail we decided to do today was in Portugal, close to the border, probably about 1 and a half hours from Ourense which meant we had to leave to be back on time in Vigo at about 18:00 hours and we would be getting there to start the trekking at about 12:30 which meant we only had 5 and a half hours to do the trekking.

Do you remember, dear reader, the time we went to visit the mine in "As sombras"?, well that was the Spanish mine, today we were aiming at visiting the Portuguese mine, which is right on the same mountain but on the other side. One side of the mountain is Spanish the other side is Portuguese and each country created a mine of its own on their side and they almost got to join them... it is said that only 150 metres separate one mine from the other.

The climb is about 12 Km or so and at a leisury pace it should take 2 hours 45 - 3 hours or so (remember you're climbing up) we ended up doing it in 2 hours 15, not because we were on a race but because our time was extremely limited, and this is what we learnt from the experience:

- If you freeze your water and take it with you to a climb, you'll be carrying up the mountain a bunch of ice because it'll still be frozen by the time you get to the top.
- If you freeze an isotonic drink and take it with you, you'll be climbing up with an ice lolly in your rucksack.
- If you attempt this trail wearing soft sole shoes... all the swearing will prevent you from entering into the heavens in the afterlife.
- If you get stung by an unknown insect on your way up, don't worry! the swelling will subside in 2-3 days.

And with those pearls of wisdom that summarise our learnings of that day, let's go into it with more detail:

The trail was as bad as it gets, not because it wasn't clear or difficult to follow but because the ground was all covered in small rocks.

Most of the trail was like above and believe me when I tell you that it is not nice doing 12 Km walking over that kind of terrain. You have to keep your eyes on the ground most of the time so you don't have much time to appreciate the beauty around you, although sometimes we stopped a few seconds to take a few photos here and there so we could see at home what was the place like because in between the rocks and the sweating we didn't get to appreciated much when we were doing it.

But now that I look at the photos, it actually is a nice place. :-)

There was a point where we thought we had reached the summit since we couldn't see any other higher places, the vegetation was minimal but there were some cattle around and a small refuge

 
but as it turned out that wasn't were the mine was, the mine was in another mountain nearby so we continued the trail until we reached it.

You can see the use of bricks in the contruction here, unlike on the Spanish side which indicates this site has been active for longer than the Spanish side, if I recall correctly the Spanish mine was closed in the 60s beginning of the 70s, I suspect the Portuguese mine was active for quite a bit longer.

View from the top

And this is one of the mine galleries although not the main entrance. It turned out you cannot visit this mine. The main entrance is a hole on the ground and you need either a very, very long rope or a lift. As per this side gallery (probably a ventilation tunnel)...well, judge by yourself:

Would you get in there? You probably can't appreciate it on this photo but it is flooded all the way up to your knees.

We had  a quick lunch, remember we were on the clock, and headed down.
Unfortunately the way down was the same as the way up so...we had a rocky way down

I can't even remember the amount of times he twisted our ankles...

There was a green area in the whole trail, only one place with a little bit of green and some shade, which with the scorching heat we had was a nice change.

As you can see from the picture above, there are times with far more water and it flows down that rock.

Three quaters down the trail we found a natural and very tempting pool and as we had half an hour to spare we decided to cool down in it. :-)

Tempting isn't it?
If one day they invent a cryonisation capsule, I am pretty sure it won't be as cold as this water, but with the heat and all the walking...it was a welcoming experience.

After the swimming we kept walking until we made it back to the car...where we found another thirsty walker.

I don't remember drinking as much as I drank that day. My stomach was full and I couldn't possibly put one more drop in it but I was still thirsty and so was Miguel...luckly we knew of a close by fountain so we went there and kept drinking and drinking and got some more water for the way back. Then we headed back to Vigo...with a water bottle in our hands.

We did like the place but what we disliked was the trail we followed and we would have liked spending some more time on the summit exploring the area but due to the time constrain we couldn't. We thought it was an area worth visiting again although not throuth the same trail. There is another way coming from Spain but that will be another adventure for another weekend though. :-)


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