Nieva de Cameros

Some of the kids from CRA Moncalvillo, where I teach on Tuesdays, are presently at a one week English camp in Nieva de Cameros , and Rosa, Bea, Myrian, and I went to check up on them Tuesday morning. It was an uneventful trip, but Nieva de Cameros is beautiful. It's off the highway that runs from Logrono to Madrid, N-111, which is windy and has picturesque Riojan towns. This one is extremely small; we asked at the camp if there was a bar where we could get coffee and the answer was no. There are two bars in town and they only open on the weekends. Most people in Nieva work with sheep or cows.

The "camp" was actually an old boarding school I think. The building was very pretty, and the kids seemed like they were having fun. Most of the counselors were male hippy-types around my age. I only talked to one of them, Nathan, from Portland. He had just finished hiking the Camino de Santiago 2 days before arriving at the camp. When I asked him where he lived, he didn't have an answer. At the camp for this week, I suppose. He was nice. It's weird how speaking American/Canadian English makes me feel closer to people now.

There was a small shake up at camp Monday night. One of the girls took someone's shampoo (the teachers all took care to point out that the girl whose shampoo it was is from South America) and wrote "hijo de punta" on the mirror (which means son of a bitch) and then spread the shampoo all over the floor. Pretty bold for a 5th grader.

After standing around with the kids for an hour or so, we took a walk around the town and then to a small hermitage before heading back to Entrena. See photos below.

inside the "camp"

in town

some of the kids waving from the camp

the walkway to the hermitage

outside the hermitage

the view

more of the view

the hermitage