09/14/2023 Bikepacking Spain Day 37 : Las Chupacabras

Janet ready to go. We inadvertently found a geocache here at this spot. A good place to take people to visit. --

Another glorious morning - I have noticed a pattern... my issues with vomiting at night are worst when we stay at hotels or BnB's. Camping nights, it is only a subtle issue. What can it be? The food we eat is different (more veggies in hotels). Anyway, I had lost so much sleep the previous nights that when we got to this place, I conked out at 8pm and slept 10 hours, feeling much better in the morning. Some people don't like camping, but for me, the way to feel best is to ride hard for 8-10 hours and then sleep in a tent. It's strange, but it works. --

We learned the other day that there are wolves in these mountains. In fact, the wolves will come and find the sheep/goats.. and kill all of the sheep/goats - only eating one. There is a legend of the "chupacabras" or "goat sucker" that kills goats... but here there is solution- large sheep dogs to protect the herbivores from the wolves. These dogs are big and strong - but no match for a pack of wolves. Since wolves go for the neck, these dogs have spikes to prevent the wolves from killing them as they protect the sheep. Man, if you figure that dogs were human modified wolves, it really is a dog eat dog world. --

Speaking of chupacabras, I think I may have seen evidence of a chupavaca today. Near the end of the day, we will often check out possible refuges - places to stay out of the rain. Many of these are designed for travelers like us, but as you know, sometimes we sleep in places designed for animals. I approached one such building today (not the one pictured). As I got close, there were tons of large flies buzzing around. Soon I smelled a horrible odor, and before I opened the door, I knew we couldn't camp here by the smell alone. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the building, I made out the shape of a big white "hill". The smell of death and flies was overpowering. My eyes finally caught up - a dead cow inside the building. I have no idea how it got inside; the doorway was too narrow for a creature of its size. Glad that Janet hadn't come with me, I hurried away in disgust. --

Today on this road (lower down) we met a man named Francisco in his car. He had already started to chat Janet's ear off about partiers and people not taking care of the refugios. He told us many things - each time we motioned to continue, he thought of a new topic to discuss while his engine continued to idle the whole time. One interesting thing: I asked why he was up here. He has to come up to "fumigate" his cows. Apparently there has been a mosquito pandemic - mosquitos that came from Africa bearing a hemorrhagic disease that kills cows. Think Dengue or Ebola for cows. Sounds scary; I don't know if it affects humans. Speaking of hemorrhagic fevers, New Zealand had a brilliant (sarcasm) idea: introduce a hemorrhagic fever that kills rabbits to take care of their rabbit problem. We will see how that goes, but I do worry. --

Some video snippets from today at 3 different refugios.

This is where we hoped to spend the night. Pretty cool- a refugio built below a rock! As you can see, someone was there. We saw 4 cars all day (this was one of them)... so a bit unlikely that someone would be here. Actually, we scoped this out with the drone.. we couldn't see it from our vantage point and we didn't want to descend 200 feet for something that was on the map but not showing up in real life. Glad we did the recon! Decided to tent it and risk possible rain instead of sharing the cabin. --

Gorgeous photos as always!

Janet W.