Photos
Portrait of a Village
Walking up the road, climbing up to where the power lines bisect the monte, I was able to get a photo of the village. We’re down there somewhere, trying to stay warm. Not shown is the town of Allariz, where there’s more liveliness. Ourense province is wiggling its way into my heart in a profound way.
The Temple of Kukulcan Without Tourists
The Temple of Kukulcan is the centerpiece of Chichen Itza, one of the most famous Meso-American archeological sites in Central America. When I visited, the place was swarming with tourists and vendors with jaguar sound makers. The air was thick with humidity and the crowds didn’t help. But I was lucky enough to get an angle of El Castillo without anyone in the frame.
This is my most viewed photo on Unsplash, with over a million views and ten thousand downloads. It’s definitely not the best of the temple on Unsplash, but I’m proud of it.
Las Médulas, Castilla y León
After a pretty cold night in the van in A Rúa next to its dam, we visited the UNESCO World Heritage site of Las Médulas in Castilla y León for a few hikes. This was an old Roman gold-mining town now famous for the beauty of the fracked mountain tops.
The Romans used a technique to fill the worthless first layer of the rock with water using aqueducts and tunnels to ‘wreck the mountain’, revealing the gold deposits underneath.
Villa Alaricii
My folks are in town from California. After a few days in Porto and Aveiro, Portugal (also a first for me), we made it back home to Allariz yesterday. The weather has been typically rainy, but there are some dry spells where we enjoy the beautiful views. This one is close to the old castro, overlooking part of the town.
Tomorrow, I’m taking them on the train from Ourense to Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia, to see the Cathedral, where most of the pilgrims from all around Europe end their camino.