Heading South for the Winter

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It’d be really nice here in the summer.  This is a phrase I’ve uttered all-too-often over the last few days, as we whizz past fortified cities, national parks, and monasteries.  I’d really like to spend more time here, if only it were warmer.

We’re in transit right now, which means we’re driving a large chunk of road to get from one destination – northern Spain – to another destination – coastal Portugal – in a short period of time.  We’ve been told by local friends that we’ve been incredibly lucky with the weather these past few weeks – our pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago was almost rain-free, our time with Josu and Ana was spent in t-shirts – but that our luck will run out soon.  The good weather simply cannot last.

So we’re cashing in our chips and hitting the road toward balmier climates.  Yep, the time has come for us to head south for the winter.

Bruno and I have done transits a few times before – notably through Saudi Arabia and between Turkey and France – but we try to limit them.  For Bruno, transits are really tiring.  For me, they are a test of will-power.  I really struggle with transits because I always want to stop everywhere and see everything; I haven’t quite learned to drive with my eyes closed, you see.

But I don’t want to push our luck.  I know what it’s like to travel by camping car when it’s freezing cold out.  I got a recent taste of that when we walked in the Pyrenees Mountains with our friends, Frank and Sharon.  You try wearing every layer of clothing you have, but it’s not enough to keep out the biting outdoor chill.  So you end up spending a lot of time inside, sitting on the bed because there’s nowhere else to sit.  You bang your head on the low part of the ceiling when manoeuvring past the other person who lives in the two-meter-square space with you.  If the shower isn’t hot enough – that is, if there is a shower, at all – you give yourself a three-day cold.  And forget about cooking outside, or cooking at all, really.  So you just go to sleep – there are less than ten hours of sunlight now, anyway.

The cold weather already propelled us quickly forward once in Spain.  See, after our walk in the Pyrenees, we drove down to lower altitude thinking it would solve our temperature problem – and we spent the next week traveling through rain and sub-zero temperatures.  In Ainsa, a medieval town of great importance in the ancient kingdom of Aragon, we wandered through the clean, tastefully-renovated streets, but the ominous clouds pushed us on by lunchtime.  In Jaca, we visited a sports store, instead of the historical center of town, so I could buy thermal leggings.  And at the Monastery of Leyre – the ancient royal pantheon of the early Basque monarchs and center of spiritual, political, and cultural life of Navarra province – we poked around for an hour before driving down from its windy perch.

At last, we arrived in Pamplona, capital of Navarra and a supposedly really cool (as in awesome, not cold) place.  We planned to stay several days; we managed two nights.  On the first night, we caught up with Frank and Sharon again and tried having tapas and drinks outside.  That lasted an hour before all of us were racing for the refuge of our heated camper vans.  The following morning, we visited Pamplona, ate some pintxos (which I promise to write about another time!), saw the bright and funky facades, and moved on.

It was the same pattern in Estella.  The town had only been a hamlet before the Camino de Santiago started passing through its streets in the 11^th century.  We spent a pleasant afternoon wandering down its alleys, soaking up the tiny bit of available sun in its central square, and excitedly counting pelegrinos in preparation for our own upcoming pilgrimage.  But, the cold got to us in Estella too, and we left almost as quickly as we arrived.  And don’t even get me started on the weather in coastal Basque Country.

Both Bruno and I found it rather challenging to be forced on by the cold weather.  It wasn’t the travel rhythm we were used to – nor the temperatures, of course.  There were times that we wondered if we shouldn’t just head south then and there.  Images of Mediterranean beaches lined with bronzed near-naked bodies, of arid deserts teeming with migrating birds, of Andalucian mosques and sunny Sevilla filled our minds.

I’m glad we persevered north and west.  We got to walk the Camino, and we got to meet up with Josu and Ana.  But now it’s time.  Time to head south.

Over the past few days, we’ve breezed past a bunch of really interesting places.  There was the Picos de Europa, a national park of very high repute.  But we’re not masochistic enough to go mountain-climbing in November.  There was Potes, an exceedingly cute town built of old rock, with a river running through it, old granaries, and tons of cafés offering cider and artisanal cheese.

And there was the Monastery of Saint Toribio, containing the largest piece of the True Cross and the fourth most-important pilgrimage for a Christian (indeed, we had even seen signs for the Camino de Santo Toribio while walking the Camino del Norte).

There was Léon, which we passed right through, missing its famous cathedral.  There was Puebla de Sanabria, with its lovely hilltop citadel and riverside walking path.  There was the Parque Nacional Montesinha, where Phil and Angie had spotted wolves last fall – but we couldn’t expect to encounter one in the two hours we spent driving through the park on the way to the Portuguese border.

And there was Bragança, our first town in Portugal.  Another citadel sat overlooking the modern town.  I spent an afternoon walking around its fortified wall, looking at the white houses with orange Roman-tiled roofs, and listening to the nasal, sing-songy Portuguese of the locals.  It was warmer in the daytime here, but we still needed our winter duvet at night, so the next morning, we left Bragança, too.

I keep telling myself that I’ll get to properly visit all these places one day.  That Bruno and I will be able to experience this part of Europe in better weather.  Or at least with a more well-equipped camping car (Europe has always been Bruno’s retirement plan, you see).  I tell myself how lucky I am to get to visit Europe at all, to get to be a full-time nomad, to get to taste so many places, even if my thirst isn’t always quenched.

And I tell myself that this is the gamble you make when you travel in Europe at this time of year, or when you travel anywhere, anytime, really.  You might be able to book plane tickets and hotel rooms, but you can’t book good weather.

We’re almost at the end of this six-day transit.  We’ll be on the coast of Portugal soon.  The sun has continued to follow us on our southern migration, but we have many more kilometers to go before we reach our final wintering spot in southern Morocco.

So the question is: should we carry quickly on south, or tempt fate by slowing our transit down once we reach the Portuguese coast?