It was too bad that we didn’t get much time to explore the town of Sepulveda. Walking around last night and this morning it felt very empty. My hypothesis was that the young people have left to the city for new opportunities and only come back to see family for holidays. My co worker Ivan recommended that we stayed in Sepulveda as the Duratón River was nearby and is popular for kayakers as it runs through a gorge. We didn’t have enough time and it was too hot to do that but we did go to the look out to see what was out there.
We navigated to Duratón River Gorges Natural Park and figured this would be like a 10 minute stop and we would get back to the car. We walked about 2 minutes down the trail and saw a big church sitting on top of the gorge. It was castle-y enough to be counted as a castle by Luke so we went to check it out.
This place is called the Hermitage of San Frutos, built in the 11th century and occupied by monks from 1076 till 1836. Just amazing that people decided to build something like this in such a location. We looked around the ruins and discovered a locked door with a small window. I peeked inside and it looked like the church was still in use today.
I noticed some birds flying around in a tornado pattern from far away. Luke said those are likely the same griffin vultures that we saw while hiking the other day doing something called kettling which is when they ride a rising column of air without needing to flap their wings. We continued hiking and found a few vultures perched on the edge of the cliff where we were able to get a few close up pictures before they flew away.
We were in the sun for an hour and a half when we only planned for 10 minutes and needed a break. We stopped at a very small town for a cold drink and a break. No one was around besides a few towns people walking by. Besides the few bar/cafes in the town square, I have no idea how these places stay alive.
In my blog post yesterday, I briefly talked about what it’s like road tripping in Spain. One interesting thing is that when you leave a town, there will be a sign of the town you’re leaving with a line across it to signify that it’s the end of the city limits. This sign was funny as apparently they have something against a safe space for vegans.
Another thing I noticed were these really tall nests that looked like they fit a human. Luke said they’re likely the European white stork. This one I saw on top of a smoke stack was like a duplex nest.
Half an hour farther south we made it to the Castle of Turégano. Unfortunately they only open by appointment only for €2 (probably by lowering the drawbridge). So we were only able to explore the outside of it. I still like the first castle better in comparison because it had a bunch of cats.
I read that this castle was built upon an already existing Arabic fortress and sometime between the 15th and 16th centuries a church was added so this is a combination church castle. Neat.
The third castle of the day took us down a bumpy dirt road and eventually a dead end where the road was covered by a creek. We got out to asses where the heck Google decided to take us to. I think Luke was trying to navigate us to a place called Ermita rupestre de Santiaguito but we just couldn’t go forward as we would have needed a jeep to get through the very sandy road and creek. He suggested we hike to a cave with an underground river called Cueva de la Vaquera nearby instead. We barely had phone service, we were out of water, and I didn’t really feel like getting trapped in a cave that afternoon so we decided against it and got back in the car to head to Segovia.
I would have totally overlooked Segovia if I didn’t have co workers on my team that lived there. We checked into the airbnb, got a siesta in, and went to check out the main town square. I didn’t do any research on the town but there was this HUGE aqueduct that we walked up to. There’s currently an online trend where girlfriends/wives asks their significant others how often they think about the Roman empire. To their surprise, the answer is usually more often than they think. I’m sure the people that live in Segovia are always thinking about the Roman empire as this was built in the mid first century by the Romans and was in use until 1970s. WOW!
Ivan recommended that we check out Tuma, a Lebanese/Segovian restaurant but they had a half hour wait and it was already 10pm. Luke suggested we go with a random place that came up on his google maps called Wok Aqueducto, a chinese fast food place where you pick your stir fry ingredients and they make it in front of you. We got our food within 3 minutes and it was cheap. I welcomed the change because I missed Asian food.
We wandered around a bit to get a feel for the city. I definitely got a similar vibe as in Granada but fewer tourists here. I’m looking forward to hanging out with my co workers Ivan and Ricardo tomorrow as I’m sure they’ll give us a local perspective of Segovia.
