Don’t wear sunglasses in a tunnel

I have to admit today started rather poorly. We set off from Cuenca after a leisurely breakfast and immediately got tangled in some ridiculously narrow, steep streets. For the very first time in all my years of car hire, I scratched the car on a wall. So that wasn’t great. After an hour of driving we stopped, as planned, at a supermarket. All good until it came time to leave and it proved completely impossible to get the car out of its spot. We had to sit and wait for the car next to us to leave until we had enough room to maneuver out. Then came an hour of driving on twisty, mountain roads. It was all a bit stressful, and thank you for listening.

We have ended up in the small township of Chelva which is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. After a lunch, thank you supermarket, and doing our washing in a washing machine (extended traveling luxury) we set out of a local walk called the Ruta del Agua. The path started out at the plaza mayor and wound through the old Jewish and Moorish quarters with lovely narrow white walled-streets. It then descended into a gorge and down to a river. Today is cool and clear so it was perfect walking weather, especially alongside a burbling river.

The high points were a lovely gorge with a pool, and a long tunnel cut through a cliff face. It was there that we came to the realisation that wearing your sunglasses in a pitch black tunnel was, well, not helpful. There was a spot of light at the other end to head towards, but we both bumped our heads. It was a fun experience in any case.

Finally the walk took us back up through the town, through even more lovely streets. We’ve been in a few pretty towns this trip but Chelva is right up there – although none of this is why we came here, that’s for tomorrow. But to finish today we have a home-cooked meal in our apartment.