Oh, but before we get to that, I have to show you a video of the drive we have to do to get to our accommodation here on the side of the hill...
It's a narrow road that runs up the side of the mountain, with a steep drop off one side, and with several switchbacks near the top. Fortunately, there is hardly any traffic. In fact, we have often drive the entire 7 kms length without seeing another vehicle. There are lots of twists and turns, and it's a fun drive in our well handling Audi A1...
The boat tour was sold out, and the tickets we got were for the top deck. I think originally, I would have chosen the lower shaded deck given the hot afternoon sun, but we quickly realized that the best views were from the top, and many people who had seats in the shaded lower deck ended up coming up top for the better views.
Getting underway right on schedule at 4:30pm.
The entire side of the hill is covered with terraces and grape vines!
Notice the "ladder" going up the side.
At first, we thought these were ladders for people to get up and down. But we soon realized they are for some kind of rail cart that they use to get the grapes up the hill during harvest.
Scenery along the way.
Zoomed in on the small waterfall.
This shows one of the cart rails a bit better.
More grape terraces.
While many of the terraces date back to the early 1900's, there are also some that date back to the Roman days. Those Romans also liked their wine!
Rocky shore line.
Ussie on the boat!
Our guide was really knowledgeable about the area.
Of course it was all in Spanish, although our guide did speak English really well. We missed quite a lot because she spoke really quickly, but we don't blame her... we were the only non Spanish speakers on the boat. We still enjoyed the tour, but wish we had understood everything. While we know a lot of words, our comprehension is still poor when people speak quickly!
High up on top.
How long before these come tumbling down?
Old terraces built before 1945.
The first dam on the Sil River began construction in 1945. You can often see old terraces on the shoreline that were used for growing grapes prior to the water level rising. The level is low right now, but can rise as much as five meters during rainy season.
Today is our last full day in this area. Still so much to see and do, but we have decided to go to some of the viewpoints overlooking the nearby Miño River.
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Great deal on this Stand Up Paddle Board.
And in Canada...
Looks like a great tour! I'm a little relieved to hear that your Spanish comprehension is not fantastic when native speakers speak quickly. We could read fairly well and even spit out some conversation, but our oral comprehension wasn't great, despite numerous Spanish lessons over the years and living in Belize and Mexico. We really struggled with that. You two have spent a lot more time overall in Mexico than we, and interacted with even more locals, so if you're still having issues, it just makes me feel like we weren't total dummies! It got pretty frustrating at time not to understand a lot of what people were saying.
ReplyDeleteIt was a really good boat tour, we enjoyed just being able to relax and watch the scenery go by.
DeleteOur Spanish comprehension isn't all that bad in Mexico but here in Spain they use different words at times and they have quite a different accent and we have lots of trouble when they talk fast which is what they normally do. When we did the wine tour it was a small group and when we didn't understand something then Pedro was able to either talk slower or take time to try to explain in a different way but on the boat tour everyone was a native Spanish speaker so there wasn't much slowing down for us, lol!
We have never taken a lesson and yes, we have spent quite a bit of time in Mexico but it was always broken up with months away from Mexico so it was easy to forget some of what we had learned the year before and this last stint was five years away from Mexico. We are going to take lessons this coming winter though when we get into Guatemala, where we have heard it the cheapest place to go for Spanish lessons, hopefully that is what we will need to become a little more proficient.
We agree it can get frustrating at times and we know that we would have so much of a better experience if we could speak and understand the language even better than what we do now.