A Trip to Cuenca. Day Two.

Mesón Herminio, home to the 
pork scratchings and red wine 
brekky.

Having slept well in  La Antigua Vaquería, We set off in search of brekky. As La Melgosa is an extremely small village with no sign of a café (we later found out that it had a café and a restaurant, but were unable to find either during our stay), we headed back towards Cuenca. Just like most cities, the first thing you come to when entering the city is a business park-cum-industrial estate. Experience has taught us both that the best food is usually to be found in the cafés and restaurants in such places, so, we hauled up in front of Mesón Herminio. 

Imagine our surprise when we saw, as soon as we entered, a barbecue going at full throttle with the eponymous Herminio manfully stoking, scraping, prodding, flipping, chopping and  chanting out the finished orders. Meanwhile, the locals were avidly breakfasting off barbecued black pudding butties, freshly barbecued pork scratchings and belly pork, &c. &c. &c. I though for a moment I had died and gone to heaven! I then thought better of it and ordered a piece of toast and the worst coffee of the trip so far. The coffee was far too milky and tasted burnt. Little surprise really, as it seemed that the breakfast drink of choice was either beer or red wine. Probably the waiters could barely remember how to make it. Still, it was an interesting experience as I imagine that this was like a distant memory of the coaching inns that were omnipresent across Europe until the age of rail travel.

Once we had fortified our inner man and woman, we set off on our adventures - and promptly got lost. The young lady from Google Maps was playing up again, to the extent that she took us round in a circle on two different occasions. This was probably due to the fact that we had almost given her high blood pressure the night before with our antics in the city centre and she was getting her revenge.

Eventually we managed to find our way into the Serranía de Cuenca mountain range, part of the Iberian system, which is truly breathtaking.

I refer you to David Bowie, 'nuff said.

The first surprise was the road to Uña. It was here that the feeling that we had somehow fallen through a wormhole and popped out in the USA.

Having left Uña behind, we headed to Tragacete where we took to local tracks and spent hours walking, driving and exploring. 

First up was the route to find the head of the river Júcar which eventually disembogues, some 500km later, in Valencia.

 

A view of the Júcar, about 2km from its source. As you can see from
 the bare trees and bushes, Spring is stil on its way.  

Taking the well laid-out and well-maintained footpath, we started our walk to the first major waterfall on the river's course. As we did so, we passed constantly by such scenes as the photo on the left. Needless to say the urge to have a wee was sore upon us as we walked along.

A bladder-bursting km or so later, we arrived at our first waterfall of the day. Here's a short video:

Another tourist has a Thelma 
and Louise moment. And, as it 
is Easter, the Baby Jesus sends 
a Divine sign, too

 After a brief rest, it was back to the  sturdy C4 in search of other    adventures. By  now, and as usual, our plan had gone out of the window    and fancy took its  place. No wonder the Google Maps lady is always    getting into a strop with us!

 The latest whim was now to look for a 1,000-year old pine, el Ocejón so it was  time to negotiate rutted logging tracks for a few miles and, once again, we  were back in familiar territory. Familiar, that is, from seeing numerous  American films shot in the endless(?) US forests. It turns out that in some  parts of the mountain range there are actually bears ambling around. We  didn't see any - or hilbillies à la Deliverance, thank heavens. To date, our  only Deliverance moment has occurred near Aracena, Huelva. But that,  as  they say Dear Reader, is  a whole nother story. 

Mr. Bubbles enjoys a rest

A logging track, reminiscent of Deliverance.

Looking up El Ocejón's 28-m trunk towards its
 28-m crown.

A detail of the trunk. each layer
 of bark = 1 year.

 After quite a long time in the presence of this amazing being,  sitting between its roots or just soaking up the atmosphere and  contemplating the surrounding trees, we carried on to new, and  as yet unknown, destinations. 

 I also took away with me two questions: 

 1) If the rest of El Ocejón's contemporaries and innumerable  other generations of surrounding pines have been cut down and  replaced either naturally or by man, Why has El Ocejón been  spared?

 2) If - as some believe - trees and plants are sentient beings,  how much anguish has this tree suffered and will continue to  suffer as it presides the cutting down and dragging off of  generations of companion beings that share its  genes?

 It doesn't bear thinking about, so I'll stop there.