In the Picos

It’s difficult to know how much to write about the particulars of our volunteer experiences. As I mentioned in a former posting, we are experiencing Spain as volunteers, using the HelpX network to find hosts who are willing to provide food and lodging in exchange for work – usually in a garden or on the land and almost always of a manual nature. The hosts are all (or almost all) individuals (as opposed to companies), who open their homes and who offer a separate sleeping room or building (sometimes a tent or caravan). The hosts often cook for the volunteers, but are very happy when a volunteer shows initiative in the kitchen (this is generally not part of the working hours). As you can imagine, an experience of this type allows for you to become very well acquainted with the host…both with his/her talents and skills as well as his/her foibles, insecurities, lack of management or communication skills, character defects, etc. (of course, you could say the same about the host and his interaction with his guests). Volunteering in this way becomes an intensely personal experience. You may spend all the waking hours of 7 days per week with someone you don’t particularly care for, with the real down side being that you are dependent on the host’s generosity for the quality and quantity of your food, the quality and variety of your work tasks, the comfort of your sleeping arrangements, the amount of knowledge that is shared and any other perks that the host might see fit to provide. That said, writing honestly about our experiences requires us to decide how open to be about the shortcomings of our hosts. But I do realize that these shortcomings make enticing reading. For that reason, we won’t name any names or the details of locations, but we’ll try not to leave out the juicy bits.

Our first assignment was located in the foothills of the stupendous Picos de Europa mountain range located on the north coast of Spain. The Picos are a truly undiscovered gem for hiking (undiscovered, at least, by anyone but Spaniards) and it was my hope that during our free time, we could explore and do lots of hiking. Luckily, our host was an avid hiker…in fact, he was an avid do-er of anything sporty or spiritual, but not eating. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We arrived at S’s home in the dark and it wasn’t until the next morning that we realized how filthy, damp and musty the place was. We did have our own futon in a room downstairs that also served as the storage for climbing ropes, surf boards and lots of books and the bathroom was indoors – just across the dining area, but with the sound of little footsteps above, we discovered that S’s 4 year old son would be going in and out as he pleased. He was only there on the weekends, but his presence made it difficult to keep anything tidy or to get as much work done otherwise.





The two story home was located in a remote part of a small town up a steep road paved in scored concrete. Strangely, the owners of the property next door decided to put up a home not 10 feet away from his front door. This home was rented out to Spanish tourists (always with their irritatingly yappy little dogs) by the week. Around the house was a chicken coop with 2 chickens (until one was taken by a fox), an herb garden (totally overgrown with weeds) and lots of stinging nettle. Further down the road, he also had a decent size garden and the beginnings of a little orchard.

View from the garden


The garden


Working in the garden was a treat. The views of the surrounding hillsides were beautiful and every time we stepped outside, we were treated to the soothing tones of cowbells from the surrounding valleys. Our host wasn’t the greatest communicator but he was open to what we hoped were delicately worded suggestions and ideas so we were often able to suggest tasking that we felt to be necessary. There was a huge amount of weeding and clearing, treating the blighted potatoes with copper spray, harvesting and pickling radishes, lots of bread baking (I’m now an expert at whole wheat herb bread), removing snails and slugs (they are a real nightmare here), preparing vegetable beds and planting beans, etc., etc. But none of this work could be done with a clear conscience until Michiel and I had a good go at cleaning the house, which wasn’t a particular priority of our host but was made possible by his leaving the house for a couple of days.




Despite his shortcomings as a communicator, a decision maker, a housekeeper and an eater, after about 4 days (which seems to be the magic amount of time it takes to fully adapt (come to terms with?) to a new living situation), we learned that since our host was so amendable to our recommendations, we would simply do what we needed to do to make ourselves happy. If we wanted to work 7 hours one day because the weather was cool, we did so and worked fewer hours another day (we agreed to work 5 hours per day, 5 days per week) or if I felt like I wasn’t getting enough to eat or eating often enough, I would bake something or request that he buy certain snacks. He was terrifically generous and even though he is not a drinker, bought wine and beer and anything else we requested from the (very limited selection) in the supermarket.

The real benefits to this situation were the living off the land tips that he shared with us. We got to play around with his solar panels (testing our toothbrush chargers to see how much energy they pull and checking to see whether the laptop uses more energy on start-up than coming out of hibernation mode (yes)). In spite of the fact that we think of ourselves as somewhat environmentally conscious, this gave us a whole new appreciation of how much energy is used by electrical equipment. We also learned much by working with his faulty water system, finding the eggs the free-range chicken laid and about cooking with nettles (very high in protein, vitamins and minerals), comfrey, elderberry flowers (in pancakes and flavoring drinking water). We also greatly benefitted from his desire to do active things after work like late evening hikes. He also did us a great favor by letting us use his car to go exploring on our off days and even filled it with gas for us! For all of his generosity of spirit, there was a great deal of uncomfortability being in the house with him. I often had the feeling of being with someone who was slightly unstable. Perhaps it was the combination of extremeness (hours of yoga, not eating much or totally fasting in the springtime, world-class level mountain biking marathons, camping trips without food or a stove (surviving completely on what he found to eat), shyness and the desire to please others that made him feel a bit like someone you might read about in a newspaper tragedy story. We weren’t the only ones who felt this way. While we were there, his brother and a friend came to visit. His brother confided that he came once a year just to make sure that our host was ok. We enjoyed the company of these two guys and did some hiking together. From them, we received great insight into the mind of our host.

Just when we had a good routine going, S informed us that there were more volunteers coming – 4 more, in fact - young women (19 – 24) from the US. We were pretty shocked to think about 7 of us in the small house, using a finite amount of water and electricity (the cloudy days and old marine batteries meant that panels didn’t provide much power for us), but we ended having lots of “romantic” evenings cooking with headlamps. Once I decided to think of the situation as upscale camping, I was just fine.

The girls provided lots of distraction and a couple were even pretty hard workers, but they did a lot more talking and planning than executing. We did all have a fun evening out at a local sidreria (cider pub). This province is particularly known for its alcoholic cider which is imbibed at lunch and in the evening. Sidrerias offer bottles of cider (you can’t order a cup at a time because of the loss of fizz, so for 3 euros or so, you get the whole thing) and tapas (cured meats, cheeses and salads). The real attraction is the method which the waitstaff and bartenders use to pour the cider. To add fizziness and aerate the cider, they hold the bottle up in the air as far as their right arm can extend. They hold the wide-mouthed glass in the left hand low to the ground, sometimes over a bucket or a drain in the street. The art is for the pourer not to look at the glass except at the very last moment when the liquid hits it. This accounts for some spillage but no one seems to mind. The streets with several sidrerias have a distinct aroma that is unmistakably alcoholic.

When we left, the girls were still planning on spending another 2 weeks there and our host begged us not to go. While driving us to the bus station our host almost did more talking than in all the previous days and sincerely thanked us. He made sure to say that we would always be welcome. We needed some rest and time with each other so we got on the bus and headed to the big city - Oviedo - capital city of Asturias.

So as we are on the quest for “that perfect place”, was this it? Well…the mountain scenery and cowbells almost clinched it, but the gray and damp climate is a significant downside.

Here is a sampling of photos from the terrific outings we had in the area.

Hiking between the layers of clouds




Photos from the Cares Gorge hike and the gorgeous little town of Cain at the end





We started this all-day hike to the lakes of Covadonga from the house









The seaside city of Llanes


The surfing beach at Torimbia


The cathedral at Oviedo, which is on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimmage route