Wales - Black Mountains

In one of the first posts of this blog, I talked about my first trip to Wales, when I went to the North, visiting the national park of Snowdonia. I really enjoyed my time there so since then I had been looking forward to going back to Wales. Finally some weeks ago I visited Wales again. This time I went to see the South part to visit a range of mountains called the Black Mountains.


Day 1

Flying from Santander to London Stansted with Ryanair I arrived at Liverpool Street (Terravision coach) at night. After topping up my Oyster card in the automatic machine (pass the Oyster, click "pay as you go", then write the amount and then put the money) I took the Tube to the house of my friend Yvon. Then we took a bus and hang out in Brick Lane, a cool place in London with lots of alternative youth people and indian restaurants. Yvon and I stayed chatting in his garden until late at night. He moved to London some months ago to find a job as architect.


He also introduced me to his two flatmates. Miriam, a girl from Essex (she didn't want to say she was from Essex because of the famous joke) who studied psychology and now is working with mentally ill people. And Duca (from Matilde-Matilduca), the girl above, who came with her new friend Charlie. Although I had a couch for me I decided to sleep on my mat and sleeping bag as a training exercise for the next few days.

Day 2

The next day Duca prepared a delicious fruit juice for breakfast (thank you!) and then she went to work (she is also architect). Then Miriam left out for Paris where she had to spend the weekend as part of her job. Finally Yvon woke up, we said our goodbyes and I took the Hammersmith line to Paddington where I had to take the train (First Western train) to Newport and from Newport to Abergavenny (Arriva train). I bought the train tickets from Spain through the national rail website and then went with my debit card and the reference number to obtain them in paper from an automatic machine at Paddington station. The train from Newport had 15 minutes of delay but apart from that I have never had complains about trains or coaches in the UK.


Abergavenny is a nice little town but without too many things to do. Quite boring I would say. However it becomes a perfect gate to explore the Black Mountains range. As I arrived there at 16:30 I just walked around the village, watching the old castle, the churches and of course, the beautiful British cottages and houses. I had booked two nights in the YHA hostel which was really good quality. It had everything I could ask for. I even had my own single bedroom!!

Day 3

This was the main day in my short trip to Wales and I enjoyed it a lot!. I got up early and had my breakfast in the hostel (it was included in the price!). Then I had to wait for the next bus (9:30) to a nearby village (Crickhowell) where I would start my ambitious hiking route (Google Earth route to Waun Fach and peaks peaks_black_mountains.kmz).


I wanted to go to the highest peak in the Black Mountains, Waun Fach, but before that I would have to pass by 5 peaks more being the first one, the popular Table Top. I used my GPS to take the right paths and it was very helpful. Especially because during the first part of the day the weather was very misty and it was very easy to get lost without it. I would come across with other hikers from time to time and I liked stopping and chatting for a minute with them.


Thank god in the afternoon the sky became clear and i could admire some amazing views of the black mountains.

Day 4

On my last day in Wales I climbed a hill near Abergavenny which has a very particular shape. It is called the Sugar Loaf and it is a very popular hill among the local people. As I had to leave the hostel I took all my luggage with me (a big and a small bag). Soon after starting the route I realized that I couldn't make it with such a big weigh, especially because I had to be back at the train station by 14. So I decided to hide the big bag in a certain point, which I marked with my GPS, and carry on with the little one. The route was very pleasant and I enjoyed it a lot despite the fog which was hiding the beautiful views.


After the hiking route I took the train Abergavenny->Newport and then Newport->Paddington. From Paddington I took the Tube to meet a friend and talk about our adventures. After that I took the underground to Victoria in order to catch the coach that would take me to Stansted airport. I almost missed it because the Victoria line was under construction and I had to run all the way from Green Park with all my luggage!! Finally I arrived at the airport at 0:50 and I slept there on my mat because the check-in for my next adventure was at 5:15 in the morning. Próxima parada: Poland!

Aste Nagusia 2008

Last week, I went for the first time to Bilbao's main festivity (Aste Nagusia) with some of my friends from drawjam-session. My friend Daniel Castelló took these pics with his mobile phone. I enjoyed the atmosphere, live music and especially the people. I think I'd like to live in Bilbao some day in the future.

Comic: a mad day

I have created a comic of 7 pages based on a post by Rebeca Le Rumeur called "Un día de locura" (a mad day). Rebeca is a talented writer and we have plans to continue our collaboration in a future comic project.

• French: un jour de folie.txt
• English: a_day_of_madness.txt (sorry: not available yet :()
  

Camino de Santiago Primitivo - July 2008

Last week I had bank holidays on Friday and Monday so I took the opportunity to walk a few stages of the Camino de Santiago (Road to Santiago) with my Japanese friend Mitsue-san. At the first post of this blog, I talked about my experience with the Camino. In that occasion, I walked part of the most typical version, called Camino Francés (French road). Last time I walked three stages of the Camino Primitivo (Primitive Road), starting at Oviedo and finishing at Tineo. I found this road much more beautiful because it goes through a lot of hills and nature.


In the picture above you can see what a bit of the road looks like. It was full of green nature, humidity and rural villages. On the left of the image, in yellow and blue, you can see the sign that indicates the pilgrims the right path (the basement of the shell indicates the path to follow as if it was an arrow).


This Japanese pilgrim above, is my friend Mitsue-san. She is a real expert on the road now because she has walked it a lot of times and she has been a hospitalera (volunteer in one of the numerous hostels where the pilgrims sleep over). I got to know her in the French road and since then I have met her several times and places including her town in Japan, Chigasaki.


In the picture above my favorite animal, the beetle!! There were also lots of horses. I would like to ride a horse someday, maybe in Mongolia! :)

The path passed by a quarry full of interesting old construction machines. I stopped there to take some pictures. Actually, I think I took loads of pictures that day! The reason is that I would like to make a new comic and I want to put as many details as possible by using reference photographs.

A big part of the road goes through the region of Asturias. In Asturias, as well as in other regions in the north of Spain like Cantabria or Galicia, there is a especial type of shoes called albarcas that are mainly used in the rural areas to protect the normal shoes from the rain or the mood.


The last day of the road I was walking with another Pilgrim (Esther) and unfortunately we took the wrong path and had to follow a car's road for some kilometers. On the way to Tineo, we passed by this funny clock at 11 am!!


If you walk the road that goes through Asturias, you will see here and there these traditional buildings shown in the picture above. They are called hórreos and they are basically used as granaries and as a place to store objects (i.e. agriculture tools). They can be easily unmounted and transported to another place.


People doing the pilgrimage to Santiago normally sleep over in hostels that are typically run by volunteers. Most of them are based on donation or symbolic prices. In the picture above you can see the hostel of Tineo which had impressive views of the Valley. There were also some books to entertain the pilgrims and a municipal swimming pool nearby where some of us (Esther, Unai, Emiliano and me) had a pleasant bath. Among them I found the Alchemist, a very interesting book that I read some months ago after my friend Nusense recommended it to me.

The first day of the trip, I spent the night in the hostel of Grado. The second day, we wanted to sleep over in Salas but when we arrived there we found out that the hostel only had 6 beds and 5 of them were already occupied. I told Mitsue-san to sleep in the bed left and I went on with two men, Salva and Joan, for 10 Km more where there was a cheap hotel. They worked for the football club Barcelona and they were really nice people.


Last but not least, I would like to mention that, in my opinion, the Camino de Santiago is an experience that goes further than a simple walk and makes you open your mind and your heart to the rest of pilgrims that are walking along with you. In both experiences I have met very nice and interesting people and probably that's the best thing of the road. The last night before I had to go back home, we went to have dinner to a restaurant close to the hostel. The dinner was delicious and very cheap. In the picture above, some of the people that attended the dinner:

• Anieke: a beautiful and super-nice girl from Holland that was doing the Camino alone. She had studied to work with children from 10 months to 4 years old and at the moment she was jobless so she had taken the chance to come and walk the Camino. I met her the first day and she had already walked something like 22 days. I think she started from St Jean Pied de Port, in the Camino Francés, and then decided to change to the Camino Primitivo because it was too crowded (good decision!).
  
• Asier and Unai: two nice and very friendly guys from Bilbao. We told lots of jokes during the dinner and it was an excellent company I think. Unai works as a physiotherapist in Barcelona and wanted to specialize in Neurology (i.e. Christopher Reeve). And Asier seemed to be very interested in an organization that I am enrolled to called AEGEE.
  
• Esther: a very nice and good woman from Burgos that had started the road in Santander. We shared part of the road the last day, when we went through the wrong path :). She was very interested in studying English and I told her to write me an e-mail so I can recommend her some good websites.
• Emiliano: this guy was really interesting and also a bit mysterious. He looked quite like John Locke, one of the characters of the TV serie LOST. He spoke a very good English which is not very usual for a man of his age and I have the feeling that he has travelled a lot in his life. He used to practice Yoga and Meditation and told us that he had gone to India to learn from the masters.
  

There were also other pilgrims in the dinner like Mitsue-san, Clodo (a guy from Argentina that had a very nice hat and loved to fish), some guys from Jaén, and other pilgrim that seemed to walk very hard. Apart from the people in the dinner and the guys from F.C. Barcelona (Salva and Joan) I met and talked a lot with a very nice couple that was coming from Warsaw, Poland. Shame I don't have any picture of them.