Green Spain

Greetings from Northern Spain! We left Barcelona five days ago, the morning after Barcelona beat Bilbao in a futbol game that sent the city into blissful chaos. We had dinner with a good friend from grad school, and arrived back at our hotel around 1am to be greeted by people setting fire to trash bags and the municipal police responding with some crazy tear gas guns! A good time was had by all, but we were anxious to get further west into an area aptly named "green Spain". The 9 hour bus ride to Santillana del Mar was well worth it; we've been on the coast cycling from town to town with our rented bicycles (and even less gear than in the earlier photos) and we've fallen in love with this area. My apologies, Ireland! Step aside for hard cider, Cabrales cheese, cheap posadas, green hills, filtered sunlight, and drivers who give cyclists a wide berth on the uphill and downhill. Wish we could upload more photos but our Internet access is limited (which has troubled us surprisingly little). We head further into the mountains tomorrow; hopefully by then we will have recovered from the Orujo shots we had earlier this afternoon up at Bulnes, high up in the Picos de Europa. Some young kids were assuring us that the drinks aided our digestion. All I know is that it made for an interesting cycle trip back to town. Ciao for now!