Adventures in Spain: Cantabria

Hola Todos!

This weekend I went on another great weekend trip, this one to Cantabria! This trip was organized by JMU and the Semester in Salamanca (SIS) program, so we all traveled as a group with Jesus, our program director and my art teacher. The weekend was jam packed full of activities, so I'm warning you now, this post is LONG!

Friday we got an early start on the day leaving Salamanca at 6:30 in the morning. I slept for most of the first half of the bus ride, but after a cup of café con leche at a rest stop, I was wide awake and ready to enjoy the scenery on the rest of the drive.

Cantabria is located on a strip of the northern coast of Spain. It boarders the Bay of Biscay and the Cantabrian Mountains, and is part of what is known as "Green Spain." This name is fitting because unlike Salamanca, Cantabria is almost entirely green. Where Salamanca has only patches of grass amongst the reddish brown earth, Cantabria has grass covered fields and lots of trees. It was referencing to see so much greenery. On the first part of the drive, the land gave the impression of a large green patch quilt. However, once we reached the mountains the landscape changed a bit. Still lush, here it also became mountainous with large, tree-covered rolling hills and rocky peaks. In the distance, snow capped mountains made me nervous about my lack of a jacket heavier than a sweat shirt. Layering was about to become my best friend this weekend!

On our way to the hotel we stopped at a cave for a quick, but incredible excursion. Cantabria is home to some of the prehistoric cave paintings, and we had the amazing opportunity to see some in person. The paintings we saw were not in the best condition because they keep the best ones preserved away from the public, nor were we allowed to take pictures, once again for preservation, but regardless, it was really cool to see the ancient cave art. The caves themselves were only discovered in 1903. In the one we went in, most of the painting were outlines of hands or primitive sketches of animals. The hands are one of the most ancient types of cave paintings. The people made them using a red paint they created from grinding minerals in the cave and mixing them with water. To make the hands, one person places their hand against the wall while another blew the paint at the hand to get an outline. From my understanding, this technique seems similar to shooting a spitball out of a straw, but with paint instead of a wad of paper. The animal sketches were very basic and mainly consisted of a general outline of a bull. We saw no paintings that depicted humans or movement. The primitiveness of these animal sketches indicates that they were also on the older side. They were done in either the red mineral paint or a black substance made of carbon.

After the caves, we drove deeper into the Cantabrian Mountains to our hotel for the night. The hotel was located in a fairly secluded area right at the foot of the mountains. The hotel and location were beautiful! It wasn't super grand, but the rooms were large and well furnished, the bathroom was huge (which I've heard is atypical for many European hotels) many of the rooms had balconies, and the view of the mountains from the hotel was unreal. Not to mention it had the best continental breakfast I've ever had at any hotel ever (churros, anyone?). I'd like to focus on the mountains, though. They were interesting to me because they struck me as a mix of the Rockys and the Appalachians. Round green mountains covered in trees intermingled with tall rocky, and sometimes snowy, peaks. With five hours to kill before dinner on Friday, two girls and I set out on what turned into one of the most exciting and in some ways stupid hikes I have ever taken.

When we left the hotel for our hike, not one of the three of us was expecting anything too long or strenuous. There was a small stream that ran through the mountain and turned into a small waterfall. This waterfall, about a twenty minute walk up the mountain, was our initial destination. The trail here was not too steep, was not too rocky, and was clearly a hiking trail. With the understanding that this would be a relatively short and easy walk, I wore jeans and converse. Also, only one of the girls I hiked with, Kayla, brought water. Suffice it to say I was ill prepared for what was ahead.

Once we got on the mountain, the initial uphill climb was quick, and after not too long we had a spectacular view of the mountains all around us and of the valley below. The higher we climbed, the smaller our little hotel at the bottom of the mountain became, and the more we were able to see of the surrounding areas. By the time we reached the waterfall about twenty minutes into the hike, none of the three of us was interested in turning around back down the mountain. There were still five hours until dinner and the thought that we might waste even a minute of that time in the hotel bar, as many of the other students were doing, seemed like an insult to the towering mountains and perfect weather. We continued up the mountain.

By now, what small amount of water Kayla brought was long gone, though we really hadn’t been hiking for too long (only about an hour or so). It was also about this point that one of us got the idea that we should hike all the way to the top of the mountain. We had more than enough time and the top really didn’t seem too far away. Truthfully, up until that point we had been climbing pretty fast. But we were tired, and more importantly, thirsty. Lucky for us we reached part of the stream that led into the waterfall. The water was clean, so we filled the empty water bottle and took turns drinking the refreshing stream water right off the mountain. More than likely the water came from the melting snow on the mountain top. It was good. And none of us got sick, so it really was as pure as it looked.

The water reenergized us, and we continued on our journey to the mountaintop. As we got higher and closer to the top, the trail started to become less obvious. It got narrow and at times seemed to disappear all-together. There were goats on the mountain that we had passed earlier in the hike, and we started to joke that these trails were not meant for people, but instead were meant for the mountain goats, who were much more equip for the terrain than me and my beat up converse. Eventually we lost the trail completely. However, we were so determined to reach the top, and so close, that we literally climbed up the side of the mountain, looking for the most stable patches of grass and rock so we wouldn’t slip on the loose gravel.

The view was worth the work it took to get there. Only about two and a half hours after we had begun our hike, we reached the top of the mountain and were able to see over to the other side. Aside from a stunning 360 degree panoramic view, we got to see antelope and mountain goats hanging out at the top. Other than that, though we were completely alone. This was clearly not a frequently visited area of the mountains. After a few minutes to enjoy the view and bask in our success, we started our quick decent back down so we could shower before dinner. That four hour hike was probably the best part of the trip for me so far.

Saturday morning, before leaving the mountains, we took a cable ride to the top of the mountain and hiked a little to see the views. It gave just as spectacular views as my hike the day before, but without near as much time or work.

After leaving the mountains we traveled to small town called Santillana to visit a few museums. The first was a reproduction of the Altimira cave where some of the newer and more elaborate cave paintings exist in the region. The actual cave is closed to the public to preserve the paintings, so a reproduction was made in the museum so people could come and see what they look like. The majority of the paintings in this cave were larger depictions of animals-- mostly buffalo-- drawn in various standing and seated positions and with both red and black paint to create a more advanced picture than the ones I saw the day before. The second museum we visited was a torture museum which had torture devices primarily from medieval times. Accompanying each device or drawing of the device was a detailed description of how it was used for torture, and sometimes why. It was a bit unsettling, but also really interesting.

Even after all that-- a cable ride, a (short!) hike, and two museums, our Saturday still wasn't over. Around 5 pm we hopped back on the bus to leave Santillana for the seaside town of Santander. Santander is a beautiful and fairly wealthy town located on the coast. We stayed in a hotel about a two minute walk from the beaches, which was perfect because it gave me just enough time to take a half hour walk on the beach Saturday night before I had to meet the group for a 9:30 dinner.

Santander is the type of place that you feel like you could move to. It was a smallish city with beautiful soft sandy beaches and mountains in the background. The architecture was beautiful, but not quite as old as the buildings in the other towns we visited. We got to spend Sunday there until 3:00 when we left for Salamanca. During the day, we first visited a stunning palace turned small university which was located on a hill above the sea. After, we walked through a small zoo that was connected to the ocean for the animals to come and go as they pleased. The zoo had sea lions and penguins-- the type that like warm weather. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach, although I could have stayed there for the rest of the week. The water was chilly, but comfortable as you adjusted. There were light waves, not enough to body surf or to thrash you around, but enough that they crashed onto you and got you wet faster than you were planning. Unfortunately, this was probably the last beach time I'm going to have before my move to Valencia at the end of the month (can you believe its already June!? I can't...).

Hope you all have a great rest of the week! Here are some of pictures from the weekend. They don't really do justice to the mountains, though...