I am afraid of heights. I have a dislike for glass elevators, I am unable to stand close to the edge of anything, and whenever I have attempted rock climbing, I have never made it more than 10 feet off the ground.
I do like hiking though and I really wanted to do a route I had heard about in Northern Spain called the Ruta Del Cares. I wasn’t sure if I could do it because most of the path has a pretty decent drop off on one side.
Despite my fear of height and my wife’s issues with vertigo, we decided to give it a go, knowing that we could always turn back if needed. The trail is 12-13 km one way and you basically have to walk back or pay a lot of money for a very long taxi ride if you make it to the other end and don’t want to do the return. Our main goal was to reach a point where we could enjoy the beautiful scenery around us. I was hoping to get far enough to take some photos of the bridges, even if I couldn’t cross them.
We set off around 10 a.m. and things went smoothly. As we made progress, it began to feel like we might make it. The solid wall on one side made it easier, and the trail never got too narrow. Since we were doing this in late May, it wasn’t crowded at all.
I did have some moments of shakiness, sometimes ironically when there actually was a railing, but generally I wasn’t feeling any sense of panic and after about 5km in started to think we might make the whole trip.
Even the bridges weren’t so bad.
We purchased some food at the far end and then walked back to the hotel. We stayed at Arcea Hotel Mirador de Cabrales, which wasn’t fancy at all but was expensive and had some decent food.
A long but really gorgeous day. We even had just enough time to take the funicular to Bulnes for a quick trip and a few more steps!
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