Today was a short day – most days from here on out are around 20km or so +/-. While it was short, it was intense. The first km out of Las Médulas took us up 80m. Not too bad but a good way to get the heart pumping. What happened next over the next 4-5km was wow! We hit the summit and then plunged to 370m from 820m. That’s at 450m drop in 4-5km. 100m/km. That’s a significant drop and it was non-stop. Better down than up I say…

Anyway, the route took us again through chestnut and cherry orchards down to the valley of the Rio Sil where in the 8km we followed it, it was damed 3/4 times for hydraulic power.

One of the most interesting things about the different reservoirs is that due to drought, the flow is fairly slow, so the oxygen content is lower than it should be. The reservoirs are populated with trout and sucker fish. The sucker fish can grow to be pretty large and you could see them in the middle (it’s less than 100m wide at its widest point ) breaching the surface to gulp air. These suckers are BIG!!! They were too far away for my phone camera to pick them up.

The trail along the river was nice and well maintained by the locals – they use it for their daily walks and weekend mountain bike riding. The road paralleled the trail on opposite sides of the river so there were no cars.

Today was interesting weather-wise. There’s an inversion layer so it didn’t cool down last night and we started out at about 19°C. And quickly rose to 29° by the time we got to town. Since then it’s gone up to 33° – all overcast. Tomorrow it is forecast to rain all day with thunder and lightning. But it will be cooler.